Use a SWOT analysis to get a quick snapshot of your business.

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Michael Burnstein, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

We all want to succeed and do well. This SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) exercise helps you boost your business by capitalizing on your unique strengths, identifying weaknesses, spotting potential opportunities and avoiding threats. It’s an easy and straightforward tool to use, and we’ve included some great questions to help you get the best results from this exercise below.

INSTRUCTIONS:
Think about the direction you would like your business to head in.
Fill out the SWOT Analysis Grid one section at a time using the questions outlined below. Write as many answers as you can think of remembering that the more honest and open you are, the more helpful this will be.
Finally complete the wrap-up questions.

INTERNAL: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES:
NOTE: Answer these questions with whatever pops into your head. To go deeper consider your i) brand/how you’re perceived, ii) products/services, iii) customer base, iv) habits, processes and systems and v) employees.

STRENGTHS
What do you do well? What do you better than others?
What parts of your business are excellent?
What unique strengths and talents do you have?
What are you proud of or really like about your business?
What parts of your business give you the most income? The most profit?
What unique or expert specialized knowledge or experience do you have?
Where are you better than your competitors?
Point to ponder: How can you make your STRENGTHS even stronger?

WEAKNESSES
What could you do better? What do you avoid?
Where are others doing better than you?
What are you embarrassed about or wish was different?
What parts of your business are the least profitable?
What is taking up valuable time? What is costing you money?
What processes are missing? Where do you need to automate or delegate an area of difficulty?
What resources do you lack? Where do need to grow your experience, knowledge or expertise?
Point to ponder: What action you will take to mitigate or eliminate your WEAKNESSES? How could you use your STRENGTHS to help with this?

EXTERNAL – OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS:
NOTE: Answer these questions with whatever pops into your head. To go deeper consider i) changing technology, ii) government regulations eg. economic, environmental or security policies, iii) the economic environment, iv) social, lifestyle or demographic trends, v) seasonality, geography and weather and vi) what’s happening in the specific market you operate in.

OPPORTUNITIES
Which strengths could you turn into opportunities?
What weaknesses, if turned around could present an opportunity to your business?
What’s going on locally that you could capitalize on?
What else could you do for your customers?
What joint venture or related products and services you could look into?
What new target markets/customer bases could you target?
How can you use technology to enhance your business?
Point to ponder: What new and profitable OPPORTUNITIES could be created from your STRENGTHS or from your WEAKNESSES and THREATS?

THREATS
Where do you need to catch up with your competitors?
What threats do your weaknesses expose you to?
What obstacles do you have coming up?
How is the economy – for you and your customers?
Where are you most vulnerable as a business? Eg. Where do you have “all your eggs in one basket”?
What trends, changes and threats are happening in your industry?
How prepared are you for technological failures (eg. website hacking, computer failure)?
Point to ponder: What should you avoid at all costs? What will you do about each threat – ignore, mitigate or eliminate it?

WRAP-UP QUESTIONS:
Now using your own Business SWOT analysis data, you should have a really clear idea of what’s going well, what’s not going so well, what to worry about and what to build on. Finish this exercise by answering:

What MOST surprised you from doing this exercise? ___________
What NEW goals and actions do you want to set for your business? ___________
What 3 ACTIONS will you take in the next week?

What is the BEST idea you have had for your business from doing this exercise?

What is the BIGGEST threat to your business?

What is the BIGGEST thing overall you learned from doing this exercise?

What is a simple step (or some simple steps) that you can take tomorrow to capitalize on what you have just learned?