Business Mastery for Entrepreneurs – Part 5: How to Develop the Right Strategy for Your Business – Tool I – SWOT Analysis

In today’s blog post, I will share what a SWOT analysis is, explain the advantages and why you should consider doing a SWOT analysis.

In my next article (Part 6), I will show you how to do the SWOT analysis. In the following blog posts, I will share different assessment tools that will help you to determine which of the five main strategies are best suited for your business: the classical, adaptive, visionary, shaping, or renewal approach.

This blog post series will introduce you to some of the most important tools to create a solid strategy for your business.

Overview

What is a SWOT analysis?
Personal Story
What can SWOT analysis be used for?
What are the advantages of a SWOT analysis?
- ⇒ Advantage #1: Strategic planning technique
- ⇒ Advantage #2: Assessing core strengths & weaknesses
- ⇒ Advantage #3: Defining the opportunities & threats
- ⇒ Advantage #4: Fact-based & data-driven
- ⇒ Advantage #5: Helps to craft your strategy
Who should do a SWOT analysis?
Summary

What is a SWOT analysis?

It is a framework used to evaluate a company’s current competitive position and to develop a new powerful strategy. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

I highly recommend every entrepreneur to complete a SWOT analysis. It will help you to know where to focus your attention so you can leverage your strengths by taking advantage of opportunities and reduce the risk of failure.

Personal Story

One year into business as an attorney, I still noticed major ups and downs and an inconsistent revenue in my law office. I needed to figure out how I could do better and leverage my strengths and balance out the weaknesses and threats to my business. My mentor at this time suggested a SWOT analysis and asked the following questions in regard to my strengths:

What are my values that drive my law office?
What is my unique selling proposition?
What are the strengths I can build upon?

Then he asked about my weaknesses. Looking at my weaknesses was not an easy task to do as well as to admit that there are weaknesses in my business. After I had crossed this internal barrier, I honestly analyzed my law office and answered his questions:

What could I improve? How could I provide a better service?
Why are other law offices more profitable? What am I lacking?
How do perceive my clients my services? Is there a common complaint?

Then he turned to potential threats and asked the following questions:

What are my competitors doing?
What are the obstacles to sell my services?
What threats can I anticipate and take action against?

After I had answered all three areas he focused my attention on the last quadrant and suggested to explore the opportunities:

What are the new developments that might arise and help my business?
Are there any changes in the law, in regulations that might impact my law office?
How can I leverage my skills, knowledge to serve my clients even better and create a new market for my services?

What can SWOT analysis be used for?

The SWOT analysis helps to assess your company´s current position. It will support you in your decision-making process which strategy will be best for your company.

Asked yourself:

What is working well? What is not yet working well?
Where would I like to go with my business?
What are the milestones I need to achieve to get there?
What might get in my way?

What are the advantages of SWOT analysis?

Advantage #1: Strategic planning technique

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique for assessing the performance, competition, risk, and potential of a business.

Advantage #2: Assessing core strengths & weaknesses

Identifying core strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats lead to fresh perspectives and new ideas.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the company that you can control and change.

Advantage #3: Defining opportunities & threats

Defining opportunities and threats will reduce the chances of failure, by understanding what you’re lacking.

Advantage #4: Fact-based & data-driven

A SWOT analysis is designed to facilitate a realistic, fact-based, data-driven look at the strengths and weaknesses of your company.
Using internal and external data, a SWOT analysis can tell a company where it needs to improve internally, as well as help develop a strategic plan.

Advantage #5: Helps to craft your strategy

After the analysis is done you can then craft the strategy that distinguishes you from your competition.

Who should do a SWOT analysis?

For a SWOT analysis to be effective, company founders and leaders need to be deeply involved. This isn’t a task that can be delegated to others.

For best results, you’ll want to gather a group of people who have different perspectives on the company. Select people who can represent different aspects of your company, from sales and customer service to marketing and product development.

Summary

A SWOT analysis is a useful framework for analyzing your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
A SWOT analysis helps you to build on what you do well, points out what you’re lacking, and minimize risks.
A SWOT analysis is a powerful tool to help you develop your new business strategy.

Supporting you

I´m available to support you through this difficult time by re-imagine your business. A SWOT Analysis is a good starting point to determine where you currently are in your business and what you´ll need to change to turn your business around.

I will work with you and your leadership team to analyze the company´s core strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. We will develop a tailored action plan to help you implement the goals. The aim is to get your business running at its peak performance.

Contact me for a complimentary 30-minute strategy session:

https://nextlevelcoach.as.me/schedule.php

Coming up next month…

In my next blog post, I’ll share how to do the SWOT Analysis.

Stay tuned!

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