Need a tool to help you gain clarity about your business?

A great way to gain clarity and plan for the future of your business is to do a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, and it’s an exercise to examine internal and external factors that affect your business. We did one at our staff retreat last summer and it was really interesting to see what the team had to say. If you don’t have employees to participate, think about your customer’s viewpoint, or ask a trusted friend if they have any input. You’ll be surprised at what others see.

Here’s the questions you should be asking for each element:

Strengths-What do you do well? What makes you unique? Do you have an especially skilled staff or other technologies / processes that give you an edge?

Weaknesses-Where do you have fewer resources? Where can you improve? Is your brand message unclear?

Opportunities-What trends are emerging? What is happening in the world right now that you can take advantage of?

Threats-What is your competition doing? Are customer attitudes or the environment changing?

Don’t be surprised if your answers here are connected and that there is some crossover. For example, your strengths can be leveraged into opportunities and your weaknesses may leave you vulnerable to specific threats.

Having this all down on paper gives you a birds eye view of your overall business. Using it as a jumping off point, you can make choices about where to invest extra time and resources, what to highlight in your marketing efforts, and where to tighten ship.

Need help getting started? We have a handy template at linktr.ee/missoulabookkeeper to help you get everything organized and in one place. If you try it out, we would love to know what insights you gain!