![]() | |
![]() | |
![]() |
Strategic Planning |
![]() |
Call in the SWOT Team: Produce More Opportunities to Expand Your Business
Have you ever done a SWOT analysis? No, it's not some dangerous military maneuver. It's actually a fun and incredibly helpful business development exercise that will give your company focused direction and great marketing ideas -- whether your business is brand new or has been around for years. This SWOT exercise will show you where your business is flourishing and where it needs to grow to gain clients and produce more sales. I recommend getting someone else (such as a friend, family member, or trusted business advisor) to brainstorm with you. You'll be determining your strengths and weaknesses, which are *internal* influences on your company. These factors are under your control. Opportunities and threats are *external* influences, things you cannot control, but you can respond to. After you read a short description of each of the four categories, take time to list as many of yours as possible. Strengths: Toot your own horn and list all the strengths that make your business soar. They might include experience, business abilities, personality, support system, communication skills, or education just to name just a few. Go crazy! This is not the time to be modest -- each strength can become a money-maker for you. Weaknesses: What are your weak areas? Think outside the box. Limited hours available for work? Computer literacy not up to par? Current marketing strategies lacking? Perfectionism? Procrastination? Write down as many as you can so you're aware of what might hold you back from reaching your full potential. Opportunities: Are there untapped client bases out there? Other services that you could provide? What kinds of problems do your clients experience that you could help with? Are there any areas of service that your competition has overlooked? Could you exploit the weakness of a competitor (service offered, location covered, hours available to work, genre served)? Could you develop your brand better? Could you take classes to increase your expertise or credibility? Could you utilize your family and friends for networking opportunities? Write down everything that pops into your brain, even if it's a long shot. And try to be as specific with your ideas as possible. Threats: It may take you a while to come up with these if you're not currently aware of them. Threats might come from competition, financial risk, a declining economy, or a unique profession. List some of your threats, no matter how big or small they seem. Now, take some time to really analyze these four categories. Look at what you can *directly* control -- your strengths and weaknesses. Review your list of strengths and try to turn them into "opportunities." In addition to being a great ego booster, it will give you dozens of ideas for new ways to increase sales. For example, if you list "great support system" as a strength, perhaps you could make a goal (an opportunity) to send a mailing to everyone in your wide network of friends and family to solicit new clients or get the word out about what you do. If your presentation skills are top-notch, consider offering workshops or seminars. If you have years of experience, make that a selling point in your marketing materials. Next, how can you turn your weaknesses around? For example, if you're not a good written communicator or lack computer or mathematical skills, consider taking a class at a local college to boost your skills. Or consider finding someone to outsource your undesirable work. If you don't have enough effective marketing strategies, turn that weakness around by creating a marketing timeline or plan. Now, on to what you can *respond* to -- your opportunities and threats. Review your list of opportunities. (This list should be long!) Pick your top five or ten to tackle in the upcoming year. Do you want to teach a class or write a book? How about improving your marketing strategies by sending some direct mail? If you want to network more, investigate professional networking groups in your community. Your threat list, on the other hand, may not be very long, but it's important to be aware of what can hold you back and keep you from reaching your full potential. For example, you cannot control your competition, but you can be aware of what they're doing. You can't control the economy, but you can market your services as a great "value" or find ways to offer deals or incentives. OK, now it's your turn -- put your SWOT analysis into action, and see what happens. I'd love hear how SWOT worked for you! © 2005 Time to Organize. All rights reserved. Sara Pedersen, author of the FREE e-zine "The Marketing Fairy's Guide to Simple Self Promotion," is a professional organizer and marketing specialist. She helps small business owners make their marketing dreams come true. Sign up today at time2organize.net to receive your FREE monthly subscription.
MORE RESOURCES: |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
RELATED ARTICLES
The Importance of Value Mix ( * - the word 'product' can be substituted to mean 'service' too; and vice versa )Every consumer looks at maximizing value accrual while engaging in act of purchase of products* or services*. Marketing as a domain plays a very important role in influencing a purchase. Balanced Scorecard Strategy Map With the help of balanced scorecard strategy map, it is very easy to design the organization goals and build business strategies. Balance scorecard and strategy map are interrelated with each other. Could You Be Setting Your Business Plan Up For Failure? David E. Gumpert, author of Burn Your Business Plan, often tells the story about how he and his partner failed to raise money after sending their business plan around to venture capitalists and meeting with several others to make presentations. How To Leverage Your Current Ideas And Products Into Multiple Revenue Streams Diversify - to make diverse, give variety, to balance, to divide securities in different industries, to produce variety, to engage in varied operations.Diversification is a wealth building strategy; it is also an excellent method for becoming more profitable. Attributes of Companies You Dont Want to Buy! There are no "rules of thumb" in the pursuit of companies to buy. Each purchase opportunity has to stand on its own merits. Cost-cutting Essential to Maintaining Profits Why cut costs now? Efforts are multiplying to cut costs wherever possible in order to achieve or preserve high profits. The resulting benefits for all of a company's employees should be obvious. Business Plan: Planning the Operations Writing a business plan is no easy task, sure you can whip something together in a day or so, but without proper planning you are setting yourself up to fail. Many first time entrepreneurs have a bit of trouble writing a business plan, which will be acceptable to bankers and investors. To Go or No Go, That Is The Question Last week we talked about a few of the ways to test the feasibility of a business idea to help determine if the idea really had merit or just looked good on the surface. To recap, I said don't bet the farm on the opinions of friends and family, consult with knowledgeable business experts, and conduct a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis. How To Prepare A Business Plan That Guarantees Big Profits It is always said "If you Fail to Plan, you Plan to Fail" Success in business comes as a result of planning. You have to have a detailed, written plan that shows what the ultimate goal is, the reason for the goal, and each milestone that must be passed in order to reach your goal. Succession Planning: Problems Getting Started A survey released by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in the spring of 2005 illustrates a widespread problem on the lack of succession planning [deciding who will take over running the firm when the current managers die or retire]. The survey found that 60% of responding certified public accountant (CPA) firms have owners who are in the 55-to-62-year-old age bracket, and more than half (56%) have at least one partner who will retire in the next five years. A Rough Cut on Feasibility A piano tuner recently moved to Buffalo, NY, and would like to assess the business possibilities for him in his new home. He plans to estimate how many piano tuners the greater Buffalo area can support, and compare that to the number listed in the phone book. Business Disaster? Wont Happen to Me As fast as you can say business disaster, your business can go up in smoke. That's what happened a while back to Castle Carpet One. Call in the SWOT Team: Produce More Opportunities to Expand Your Business Have you ever done a SWOT analysis? No, it's not some dangerous military maneuver. It's actually a fun and incredibly helpful business development exercise that will give your company focused direction and great marketing ideas -- whether your business is brand new or has been around for years. Business Planning and the "Bozo" Factor "Bozo" - A clown with a forlorn look, always finding negative implications in every activity or event. A person who tries to find a way to prevent you from moving ahead, giving excuses such as "we've always done it this way, or this is not our culture" when presented a new opportunity or challenge. Sony's PSI Project In 1989, Sony founded its Institute of Wisdom at the request of its founder Masaharu Ibuka and former chairman Akio Morita.What the Institute did was something only whispered for a time. Fail to plan... or Plan to FAIL?? Running a business, whether it be an offline multi-billion dollar company or an online part time home business, they share many similar traits.One of the biggest obstacles I have endeavored to translate to many, many small business / home business people, is a very simple phrase. GOT MEME? How to Attract Your Clients and Customers Attention No "meme" isn't a typo and Got Milk, the more commonly know phrase, is actually a marketing meme. If you've opened up a magazine or watched TV in the last ten years you've seen the fun and memorable Got Milk ad campaign using celebrities with a milk mustache. Microsoft Great Plains Implementation: Pharmaceutical Corporation Specifics - overview Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains serves mid-size and large clients in horizontal and vertical markets. Historically Great Plains Software was encouraging ISV partner to write third party modules and later on - Great Plains Software had a chance to select the product for incorporation into their core set of modules: Manufacturing, Project Accounting, Purchase Order Processing, Collection Management, etc. Is Your Company Growing Fast Enough for You? Are you frustrated by the lack of growth in your firm, or the effort required to squeeze any up-tick in performance? Are inadequate policies and procedures a root cause? To find out, take this simple self assessment to see if this may be inhibiting real growth at your company.Q. Corporate Venturing For Emerging Growth Companies The boom of the dot-com era in 1999 brought the emergence of corporate venture capital as a major source of funding to the private equity markets. Corporate venture investments peaked in the third quarter of 2000 with 608 deals totaling a combined $4. ![]() |
home | site map |
© 2013 |