So you have your DREAM chart/story/recording and have developed those into GOALS. Or did you? Have you looked at last week’s task and said “ wow, that’s great but seems like so much hard work!” and then left it for another day! The time to start is now! So let’s begin on our wonderful journey to success!

To start we are going to take a closer look at your business. To do this we will use a SWOT analysis. This is a technique developed by Albert Humphrey while leading a research team at Stanford University in the 1960s. It is designed to help organisations in their strategic planning and is a simple way of putting your business in perspective so as to allow you to make decisions about your future.

It allows you to take a critical look at your business by assessing your STRENGTHS These are those things that you consider to be ASSETS to your business. This could include things like:

• Your Uniqueness in your area both technically and physically
• The staff that you have and their level of training and competence
• Your location
• Your level of debt in the business (could also be a weakness if it is negative)
• Your physical assets
• Your level of expertise in your industry
• And many more things specific to your business

These are things that you can build on and turn into unique selling points.

Secondly, you need to look at your WEAKNESSES. Here you need to be brutally honest and don’t gloss over things because you think that they are insignificant. Even find an “unreasonable friend” who will be honest with you and ask them to list weaknesses for you. Many people get an outside opinion for this often through surveys or engaging with a consultant. Client feedback is another valuable source of information. Examples could include:

• Comebacks on your products
• Slow service
• Bad administration
• No or little marketing
• Attitude
• Lack of training for staff
• No procedures or processes
• Weak management of time, money and people
• A lack of consistency in delivery of your product or service
• Spending too much time working “IN” your business and not enough time working “ON” the business.
• Your drive as a business owner with very little motivation and direction
• No plan as to how to move forward.
• And many more………

Don’t worry it is always a trend that we are able to list many more weaknesses! The important thing is not to ignore them, to rather understand them and see which ones we need to address in order to get ahead. Changing some of these weaknesses can often lead to gaining low hanging fruit and changing your business in a positive manner.

The third part of your SWOT Analysis is to look at your OPPORTUNITIES. These represent an assessment of the environment within which you operate. What are the things/areas in this environment that you can exploit to your businesses advantage? Look to things like:

• What you offer that your competitors don’t
• Gaps in the market place that you can fill
• Areas that are not exploited fully and are ideally suited to your strengths
• Things which are allied to your business and if you were to enter that part of the market would be a strength
• Systems available to you that could make you more efficient
• Training that might give you an edge
• Expansion possibilities
• And many more.

These can be both INTERNAL and EXTERNAL OPPORTUNITIES.

The last part of the Analysis is the THREATS. Threats are those things or elements in your environment that could cause you trouble in the future. Such as:

• Competitors
• Bad service in your business
• Political issues
• Corruption
• Distance
• Safety issues
• Lack of resources
• Lack of investment
• Etc

Once you have done the analysis for each of the GOALS you have set for yourself/your business then you can look at whether there are possibilities and it will inform your plans.

TASK for the coming week: Perform a SWOT analysis. Dig as deeply into the Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that affect each of the GOALS and assess their viability.

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