Know Your Business Strengths: SWOT Your A-S-Ps

The way I see it, being in business is hard. And fun. Even when you're working for yourself, you gotta do what you don't like doing. And you gotta have fun, or find a way to make it seem like fun.

Maybe that's true when you're working a job, working for someone else. When you're employed you have the right to bitch and moan, or think you do. Working for yourself, you expect it to be more fun, which of course, it isn't always.

You must attract, sell AND profit. For some, attracting prospects is the fun part. That's the blogging and social media part. Getting found, getting known, getting leads. Marketing, content marketing involves writing, branding, looking good and being everywhere on the Web.

For others, selling is fun. That's where you look at your product funnel, calls to action, the sales, the numbers, how many leads convert to clients, how much money, honey...

Making money is a big driving force for going into business, if not the biggest. Even when you love your work, if you'd do what you do for free, you can't do it for long if you're not making money.

Still for others, profits are the fun part. How much do you keep at the end of the day, how much do you invest back into the business, how much can you invest in learning, attending seminars, hiring a coach or mentor. Without profits, you'll have a good time, but won't stay operational for long.

Having fun is highly underated and devalued when it comes to business strategies and planning. If you're not enjoying yourself, you won't last at any endeavor.

This is why so many business coaches stress you should really know yourself well. I recently ran across this reminder, when I was reading Naomi Dunsford's Marketing School. If you haven't bought a copy of this funny yet smart ebook, do so now.

Naomi reminds us about the SWOT analysis, used for getting clarity about your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for your business.

Strengths and Weaknesses are internal. They’re about you and your biz.

Opportunities and Threats are external. They’re about the outside world.

Strengths and Opportunities are the things going for you. Weaknesses and Threats are the things working against you.

When you know your strengths and weaknesses and you know the situational opportunities and threats you can make really smart decisions. When you don’t, you’re trying to make marketing decisions while knowing nuthin’ about nuthin’.

Take out a blank piece of paper and write down some things for each quadrant in a square table, strengths, weakensses, opportunities and threats.

Then, put each of these words into the four squares:

• Attract
• Sell
• Profit

Which of your business attraction strategies are a strength? A weakness? Where are the opportunities? Threats?

What about your selling strategies? Profit strategies, take a look at each of these three business essentials and where you are strong, where you aren't.

Chances are, you're strong in the areas where you have fun, weak in the areas you don't have fun doing.

In any case, before you can take action where it is needed, you have to know where it is needed. This exercise will help you get clarity on where to spend your time, money and energy.

Want to actually DO this? Here's a SWOT analysis worksheet...Download SWOT Analysis Assignment

Comments

[Lucy]

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Lucy

http://dataentryjob-s.com