Speaker 1: 0:00

Do you sometimes wish you could be more prepared to handle potential obstacles in your business or more focused on achieving your goals? Well, there is a way. In today's episode, I am going to share a simple but powerful way to get more in touch with your business and external factors that may impact your business. Welcome to the Operations Toolbox podcast. I'm your host, tonya D Harrison. Let's create version 2.0 of your business, and this is the version that is called Growth Without Burnout. So let's get started.

Speaker 1: 0:42

Today, I want to share with you a powerful tool, a simple but yet powerful tool, and it is called a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that is used to identify and evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing your business. Now we're going to go into a little bit more detail, but let's talk a little bit more about the SWOT analysis. This SWOT analysis has been around since the 1960s, so businesses have been using it for a while now, and it is still widely used today. Not only is it used in business, but it's also used in the professional growth arena and is something that I used to use when I was a career coach. Performing a SWOT analysis allows you to take an objective, look at the risks and opportunities for your business, and it gives you time to prepare and put a game in place to minimize or mitigate the risks or take advantage of the opportunities. Now I advise that, when you are preparing to conduct your SWOT analysis, that you take a look at the five pillars of business.

Speaker 1: 2:05

These are the five areas that I recommend for all solopreneurs as well as small businesses. These five areas are number one financial stability and growth. So the first thing you want to do is you want to make sure you're you are financially stable, and then you want to look at. You want to make sure you are financially stable and then you want to look at how you can grow. This is a specific area that you want to focus on. The second one is customer value and success. How do you create more value for your customers or potential customers, and how do you increase lifetime value of the customers that you already have? We've heard the saying that it's cheaper to keep a customer than it is to get a new one. The third area is operational excellence. This is your operations. In this area, we're mainly talking about how efficiently you get things done. So this is around your processes, tools, technology, anything that creates efficiency and increases your profits. Sales and marketing is the fourth area, and this is taking a look at your marketing. Is it landing? Is it converting into sales? How is all of that working for you? The fifth area is professional growth and team development. As a solopreneur, you want to make sure that you are growing professionally, since you are one of the or the primary resource within your business. Also, you want to think about ways that you can expand your team as well as develop them once they're on board.

Speaker 1: 3:50

So let's talk about, or let's break down, each component of the SWOT analysis. Let's dig a little bit deeper. The first one is strengths. So these are internal. These are within your business, so you have more control. These are internal factors that contribute positively to your business's success. Strengths may include things like a unique skill or expertise, a strong brand recognition, customer loyalty, efficient processes, access to valuable resources. These are your strengths within your business. Weaknesses they are internal as well, but these are things that hinder your business's performance or your growth potential. These may include things like lack of expertise, limited financial resources, inefficient processes or poor brand recognition Anything that internally that impedes growth.

Speaker 1: 5:02

The next two areas are external factors. The first one is opportunities. So this is an external factor that the business could take advantage of, capitalize on to achieve growth or competitive advantage. This could include things like emerging market trends that you can jump on, new technologies you could use. Expanding customer segments right, so you may have a product or services that you're using in one industry that could be expanded to another industry, or maybe there are gaps in a market that you could feel.

Speaker 1: 5:43

The fourth one is threats. This is again external, but these are things that could potentially harm your business or pose obstacles to its success. This could be increased competition, like a lot of people talk about. The market is saturated, so maybe that is a potential threat. Economic downturns, the talk about inflation we're in a depression All of those things may have a direct impact on your business or could potentially have a direct impact on your business. Changes in regulations there could be a law or something that's coming into place that may directly impact how you do things. Shifting in consumer preferences they now like something different, right that could be a threat. Or technology disruptions. So think about all of these things. Be objective, look across the different areas within your business and think about what are the potential threat.

Speaker 1: 6:51

Now, when you're doing your analysis, because it's only you as a solopreneur, you're going to have to do some research. Some of this information you're going to have readily about available because it's internally, so you're just objectively looking at your business. But for the external things, you're going to have to do some research, some market research. You're going to have to go out there and do some analysis as to what is going on, looking at your competitors, looking at again any laws, looking at different marketing trends and things like that. So you are really going to have to do your work, your homework, in order to make this as effective as possible. The ultimate goal is, when you identify these things, you want to have a plan how you can utilize them to your benefit, or things that you could put in place to minimize or mitigate risk.

Speaker 1: 7:45

Now here's why small businesses in general should conduct a small SWOT analysis. The first thing is strategic planning. So conducting the SWOT analysis helps small businesses identify key factors affecting their success, right? So it's just like we just talked about. You're able to develop strategies to leverage your strengths and address your weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities and mitigate threats. So you are in a position where you have a roadmap for strategic decision making and resource allocation. The second thing is risk management. It puts you in a position where you can now manage your risk by identifying potential threats and weaknesses. You are able to proactively address these risks and vulnerabilities before they escalate into major problems. So you could put something in place. You could be proactive, which is what we want to do. We don't want to wait until something happens right. We want to make sure we are proactively doing things.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Resource allocation Now, understanding your business strengths and opportunities, you can allocate resources more effectively. You can prioritize those investments and those things in areas that is going to help you achieve a competitive advantage or where there is potential growth. So you could really optimize your resources, and we know that we have limited resources. The last one is competitive advantage. So a SWOT analysis helps small businesses identify unique strengths and competitive advantages, allowing you to separate yourselves in the market, differentiate yourselves and attract customers. It also enables businesses to stay agile and responsive to changes in the market.

Speaker 1: 9:47

Now, when it comes to solopreneurs specifically, there are some additional benefits Because we are the primary resource within our business solopreneur. One of the benefits is self-awareness. It allows solopreneurs to gain a deeper understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, and now you can leverage these skills more effectively. Leverage these skills more effectively or, for the areas that you have a weakness, now you can implement some personal and professional development so that you could get ahead of it. And when I say self-awareness, I'm talking about everything, right? Something as simple as if you scroll social media too, too long, if you're spending two, three hours on social media scrolling, that could be two to three hours that you are working in your business. So nothing is too big or too small. Really, think about everything when you're doing this SWOT analysis.

Speaker 1: 10:56

The second thing is focus, so you can gain insights from SWOT analysis to help you prioritize your activities. Again, we are going to focus on those strengths and opportunities so that we can leverage them. So you could think about what those tasks are. We're going back to the 80-20 rule, right? 20% of the activities usually lead to 80% of the outcomes. What are those activities that you need to be focusing on to achieve greater results? Efficiency is the next one. By identifying potential threats and weaknesses, you can take proactive measures to address these issues and minimize the impact to your business. Again, this proactive approach helps solopreneurs operate more efficiently and effectively.

Speaker 1: 11:54

Now, the SWOT analysis although it's been around for a while and a lot of companies use it, there are alternative approaches. A lot of companies use it, there are alternative approaches. There's something called the score analysis, the PESTO analysis, soar, noise analysis, and each of these tools have pros and cons, so you can go out and you can research some of them. I like the SWOT analysis because it is simple and straightforward. What are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, what are your opportunities, what are your threats? I like it because it's simple, it's straightforward. It forces you to look at things that you may not have necessarily looked at before, as long as you're doing it from an objective perspective. Again, you gotta do your research so that it is complete. And then also, the other thing is, like I said, once you complete your SWOT analysis, you want to make sure that you have a plan that addresses each of these your strengths and opportunities, as well as your weaknesses and your threats. That's how you're going to get the most out of it, by doing something about it.

Speaker 1: 13:08

So, if we go back to the example of the weakness of scrolling social media, what is the plan to stop that right? So it may be to put. Where notifications don't come through on your computer or on your phone, or block certain apps during a certain time of day, there has to be a plan to address it in order for it to be effective and useful. This wraps up another episode of the Operations Toolbox podcast. I hope you found this information helpful. Go forth and do your SWOT analysis and create that proactive plan so that you can continue to grow your business without burnout. I'm your host, tanya D Harrison, and I want to thank you for joining me. Until next time, keep pushing forward on your entrepreneurial journey.