SWOT analysis

Before starting up a business, one should carry out an SWOT analysis, SWOT refers to strengths(S), weakness (W), Opportunities (O), Threats (T).

Carrying out such an analysis will help you identify what your business strengths are and what are your major threats are, it will also help you find out where more opportunities are and find out what other niche markets that may want to buy your product, also understanding what your weakness’s are, will help you create a better marketing strategy.

A lot of business’s fail within a few years because they don’t perform these fore crucial steps when starting a business or even when they are up and running.

Understanding what your market wants and understanding what your competitors are doing will help you have a clear picture of how to carry out the right marketing strategy.

When you have carried out an SWOT analysis for your business, this will also help you pick out the right SEO strategy to take, so you can out rank your competitors in google.

They key benefit of a swot analysis is as followed.

Improved operations and processes

Improving operations and processes is so important in all types of businesses, identifying problems in a business operations and processes will help your business run more smoothly and will help reduce cost to the business where necessary.

For me I had a problem with doing art work for my business and it took me way to long for me to make the art work I liked, so to improve my operations and processes, I decided to outsource all my art I needed to overseas, this help me be more productive with my time and helped me speed my processes up 100%

Renewed and defined business goals and objectives

Sometimes you’re going to need to adjust your business goals and there is nothing wrong with doing that, some people get scared because when adjusting business goals they think it might take them off course, but it works the other way around, it’s OK to adjust your goals just don’t lose sight of your vision!

Identification of new opportunities

So many business’s get stuck in a rut and don’t focus on new opportunities, doing a swot analysis will help you find new niche markets that maybe be interested in your goods and services, and with less competition!

When I started my business I was only focused on one market and it had a lot of competition, I was a bit worried about how I was going to stand a chance with all the competition, so I carried out an analysis and I found 3-4 new markets that had plenty of potential in buying what I had to offer.

Identification of potential risk

What are potential risks? There can be so many different things that could hurt your business, it could be for negative comments about your business, competitions can be very aggressive, interest rates could rise etc.

Be prepared and try to eliminate any risk that could occur when running your business.

Defined competitive positioning

Defining competitive positions can be done through taken a look at what they are doing, where are they marketing, whom are they targeting, what keywords are they using etc.

Have a clear picture of what your competitors are doing will help you identify and better marketing plan.

Better allocation of resources

After performing a SWOT analysis you will find better resources that will help you grow your business, find better ways to market your business, and find better ways of doing things.