Grow Your Small Business with a SWOT Analysis

Thinking of expanding your small business or adding new products or services? Before you take the leap, it’s a good idea to perform a SWOT analysis to help you size up the competition, discover viable opportunities, and identify and leverage your strengths. Read on to learn more about what a SWOT analysis is and how it can help your business grow.

What is a SWOT Analysis?

The acronym SWOT stands for:

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

A SWOT analysis is generally performed by creating 4 grids on a piece of paper, whiteboard, or electronically.

You and your team will get together and brainstorm answers to the following questions for each grid and input them in each of the respective sections. Here are some questions to get you started:

Strengths:

• What does your company do well?
• What advantages do you have over your competitors?
• What do you think your competitors see as your strengths?
• Why do your customers choose you?
• What internal resources do you have?
• What assets do you have?

Some examples of strengths could be a good location, positive company culture, access to capital, skilled employees, strong leadership, or a patent.

Weaknesses:

• What do your competitors do better than you?
• What can you improve?
• What do others see as your company’s weaknesses?
• Are there any resources your company is lacking?
• Where are you underperforming?
• What is holding you back?

Some examples of weaknesses could be a high employee turnover, lack of expertise in certain areas, a poor reputation, or a lack of capital.

Opportunities:

• Are there any new or emerging needs your company can fulfill with your products or services?
• What are the latest trends and how can you take advantage of them?
• Do people have a positive opinion of your business and if so, how can you leverage that to your advantage?
• Are there any upcoming events you can participate in?
• Is there a way to turn your strengths into new opportunities?

Some examples of opportunities could be implementing new staff training, the chance to acquire a competitor, new technology you can take advantage of, taking courses to broaden your team’s skillset, or a favorable change in the market.

 Threats:

• Are there any trends that could impact your business negatively?
• What obstacles could your business face?
• Could new competitors take some of your market share?
• Could advancements in technology propose any problems for your business?
• Do your weaknesses pose any threats to your company?
• Could supply shortages affect your business?

Some examples of threats could be new regulations, natural disasters, potential cybersecurity attacks, or rising costs of supplies or materials.

How Can a SWOT Analysis Help My Business Grow?

Conducting a SWOT analysis helps you gain valuable insights and uncover new opportunities. Reflect on what you’ve learned and use that information to help you improve operations, increase efficiency, plan for the future, and grow your business. Truly understanding your strengths and weaknesses and those of your competitors will help you gain a deep understanding of how to best position your company for sustained growth.

Finally, examining your weaknesses will help you identify and mitigate risks by creating contingency plans to deal with potential threats before they occur.

Ready to Grow?

SBG Funding can help you seize opportunities and grow your business with access to financing that is not limited by the same time-consuming, stringent regulations as traditional banks. For more information about how we can help your business grow, click here or call us at (844) 284–2725.

SBG Funding

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