SWOT Analysis Made Simple

Tips for how to approach a SWOT analysis and why it's important for your business.

Ready… Fire… Aim seems easy enough to identify as a bad approach to business, but it is very much a common practice in today’s world where tight deadlines reign supreme and perceived inactivity is feared. This performance pressure pushes many of us to take action that is lacking strategy, leaving us with failed or disappointing results, not to mention wasted time and resources. Strategic planning is a vital tool for business that should not be overlooked, and the SWOT Analysis is something to incorporate into your strategic planning process. It will help guide your decision making, giving you a vision, purpose and pathway to achieve your goals.

So what is a SWOT Analysis?

A SWOT Analysis is an exercise to help you identify your business’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. When you have flushed out these details, goal setting comes naturally and is aligned with where your business is and where you want it to go.

SWOT Analysis Tips

• Consider this a group exercise. Depending of the size of your business, you could ask your company leaders to participate and provide their feedback from their points of view. You may also want to seek an outsider’s opinion from a consultant or trusted advisor to offer a fresh perspective.
• Think about Strengths and Weaknesses from an internal perspective, with Strengths being existing things that are helpful to your business, like a strong social media presence for example, while Weaknesses are existing harmful internal issues, like having a high turnover rate or inexperienced sales team.
• Opportunities and Threats should focus on external factors, with Opportunities focusing on factors that are helpful to your business and Threats being harmful. New competition is an example of a Threat.

What comes after a SWOT Analysis?

Once you have completed your SWOT Analysis, the next step is to formulate your strategic action plan. Use your findings from the SWOT Analysis to help set your measurable goals and objectives, and build out your strategy based on your priorities and what is deemed to be most urgent. Once the plan is set, start to execute and be sure to monitor performance and refine your approach as needed. For more information on the SWOT Analysis and the strategic planning process, please contact the team at Flashlight Marketing. You can also download our SWOT Analysis Worksheet to get started.