SWOT Analysis for Small Business and Solopreneur
A popular methodology to evaluate a project or business venture is by using the SWOT analysis. This is part of the company and competitors research.
SWOT analysis can be difficult because of the subjectivity of the data gained by the researcher. What you think or see about different components in the SWOT analysis based on the data obtained during the research depends heavily on your knowledge and standpoint.
What is SWOT analysis? SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
As a small business owner, or even solo entrepreneur, you must list the attributes that can help you achieve the objective of the business. Harmful attributes should be listed in the weaknesses section to be solved later.
Opportunities are external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective. This is kind of subjective but with a bit of brainstorming or masterminding, you can get a lot of ideas. Threats are external conditions that are potentially harmful to achieving the objective.
You don't have to get into all the formal analysis unless you need it. A quick overview of what you can leverage and what points you need help with will be enough to identify the bottle neck.
These points, of course, need to be eliminated if you want to grow your business fast. Creative use of SWOTs involves answering these questions:
1. How can you possibly use the strengths effectively and efficiently for your business?
2. How can you stop each weaknesses? Are there options to replace them?
3. How can you exploit each opportunities to grow your business?
4. How can you defend against each threat?
Each of those questions should be self-explanatory. During recession, marketers who plan against threats should have a plan to continue promoting their products and reaching customers. The result is, they can survive or even grow by leaps and bounds during what we believe to be the difficult time.