As a business owner and coach, I strongly encourage my clients to do a regular SWOT analysis to determine what the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are to their business or themselves. I personally do not like to use the word weaknesses and prefer to call it areas for development, however that does not work quite as well with the acronym SWOT.
When I am working with a new coaching client this is one of the first exercises we do together in a strategic planning day. Most people have told me they have never done one before and that it was a rather eye opening and worthwhile exercise. I also encourage anyone with a team to do the same when they are back in the office. One of my clients recently did it with her team and told me that it took them nearly two hours, generated a lot of great discussion and provided valuable insight into some things her team members had been worrying about.
Here are some of the things to consider in each of these four areas:
Strengths
- advantages
- what do you and/or your company do well
- what are the qualities that set you apart from your competition (e.g.: do you provide customer delight and not simply customer service)
- your skill set and that of your team members
- market position
- assets such as intellectual property, capital, products
Weaknesses (areas for development)
- disadvantages
- limitations
- things you/or your company lack (e.g.: systems and/or processes)
- things your competition does better than you
- unclear value proposition
- knowledge
- what could you improve upon
Opportunities
- do you have opportunities to mine your own client base (e.g.: cross-sell into your own client base)
- potential partnerships can create new opportunities
- leverage social media more effectively (e.g.: can an external person do this better than you)
- improve performance
- learn new skills
- few competitors in your area of expertise
- press/media coverage for your business
- underserved markets
Threats
- health (e.g.: if you become critically ill and cannot work)
- emerging competitors
- negative press/media coverage
- changing regulatory environment
- loss of a key person
- aging client base
It is important for all of us to do this on a regular basis because the one thing we all know for sure is that there is nothing as constant as change!
I would love to know what you would add to the lists. Please share in the comment section below.
To Your Success!