A SWOT Analysis Template for Your Small Business

As a small business owner, you make tens (maybe even hundreds) of decisions every day—how to handle a specific customer service problem, where to store excess inventory, how to reroute a shipment gone wrong, etc. Most of these, you probably make from years of experience and gut instinct. But what about when it comes to the big decisions—especially when they may mean venturing into an uncertain future?

With well-worn strategic planning that takes into account internal and external factors, SWOT analyses can help you make the right call when it comes to big business decisions and optimizing strategic management. 

Read on for a breakdown of how to conduct a SWOT analysis, a template your business can use, and an example to help you get started. 

Unlock Your Business’s Potential with a SWOT Analysis

A good SWOT analysis covers your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats honestly. Its primary goal is to help your business be fully aware of all the variables involved in making important business decisions. 

While the reasons for running a SWOT analysis vary, there are a few times when you definitely should perform one. For example, you should always perform a SWOT analysis before committing to any big changes to your processes or business as a whole—things like internal restructuring, policy changes, examining new initiatives, and changing course once a plan is already underway.

Why SWOT: Understanding the Benefits

Regularly evaluating your processes through SWOT analyses ensures that you are operating at optimal efficiency and charting the right course. At ground level, this takes the form of overall improved decision-making, a better understanding of your market, and increased chances for success—not to mention raising your bottom line.

Improved Decision-Making

Unfortunately, not every decision can come down to a science, carefully calculated using primary variables to piece together the most likely desired outcome and how to get there. However, conducting a SWOT analysis gets you as close as possible. You’ll follow a step-by-step procedure based on logic, reasoning, and research instead of just relying on gut or guessing. This allows you to uncover the strengths you should play to, opportunities to take advantage of, and factors that threaten you. 

You’re essentially giving yourself the gift of the big picture before you dive in and start making massive changes. This allows you and your team to make well-informed decisions that will play out in your favor. 

Better Understanding of Your Market

One of the major benefits of a SWOT analysis is that it helps you better understand your market. Evaluating your business from every angle, including external resources, allows you to more accurately grasp your place in your market—who you’re catering to, who your competitors are, etc. Clearly understanding your external environment should be one of your main SWOT analysis focuses.

Increased Chances for Success

Most importantly, SWOT analyses increase your chances for success by helping you to better understand your business and the competitive advantages you possess. Learning your strengths helps you capitalize on them and use them to confront opportunities and threats. Understanding your weaknesses tells you exactly what’s holding your business back, which allows you to better allocate resources.

A Closer Look: The Four Components of a SWOT Analysis

When conducting a SWOT analysis, there are four main components: 

• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats

It’s important to note that threats and opportunities often refer to external sources while weaknesses and strengths typically cover internal ones. 

Strengths

Your company’s strengths are advantages that are unique to you. Is your legal team trained in multiple types of litigation? Is your dental staff bilingual? Are you bigger or smaller than other competitors? Are you able to pivot or adapt quickly as a result of being smaller, or able to take on larger (or multiple) projects because you are bigger? Think critically about unique advantages that make your business successful and why.

Weaknesses

When it comes to internal weaknesses, be fair but honest. Maybe your staff is well-equipped, but are they relatively limited in experience? Is there a target demographic you’re not able to reach because of your messaging? Do you have recurring issues with quality control? Other weaknesses could be more general—too much demand, high overhead, poor bookkeeping, or problems with your cash flow. When evaluating this section, keep in mind standard practice, relativity to competitors, and industry performance.

Opportunities

Your opportunities will often tie into your strengths. For example, perhaps out of the twenty dental practices in your area, yours is the only one that can provide bilingual service— consequently, you have the unique opportunity to serve a key demographic that other practices can’t serve the same way. Maybe because your team is smaller than others in the area, you are able to give clients a more personalized experience. Perhaps your product is already cheaper than others on the market, you have particularly loyal customers, or have seen a rise in customer demand for a specific product.

Threats

Finally, you need to assess potential threats. Are your strengths easy for other companies to exploit or develop? For example, if one of your strengths is that your staff is bilingual, consider the possibility that other businesses can help their staff gain a language skill or hire multiple language speakers. Perhaps your competitor has a product that is similar to yours, plans to open a location close to you, or has just launched a new (successful) marketing campaign.

SWOT Analysis Example

Let’s take a closer look at how all of this works. Using a mini swot analysis template, we’ll examine a hypothetical life sciences consulting company. 

Putting it All Together: Steps for Conducting a SWOT Analysis

Ready to put it all together? Let’s examine the SWOT framework from start to finish. 

Gather Your Data

The data you gather should center around your business, but should also be holistic. Make sure to include data around market trends (especially new technology, shifts in consumer needs/expectations, and upcoming products), external factors that could put you at risk, relationships with partners and suppliers, regulations from political, economic, and environmental standpoints, consumer profiles (especially demographics), and economic trends.

Organize the Information

As always, you should organize your information in a way that makes the most sense for your business. It is especially helpful to use something visual, like a vision board with images or a large whiteboard. Make sure that everyone can see it and that the designations are clear. Most people organize SWOT analyses by separating the information into four quadrants, but it can also be helpful to organize in terms of internal versus external factors. 

Identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

The key here is to do your research and be honest with yourself. A SWOT analysis isn’t a time to try and make your business look good. It’s a time to be straightforward—brutally so—about your situation and position in the marketplace. A SWOT analysis only works if it’s done without subconscious intentions to prioritize one category over another. You can’t solve problems or elevate your business if you’re not willing to confront the real challenges you’re up against.

Analyze the Results

Once you’ve performed your analysis, interpret the results and outline what needs to change. This is arguably the most important part of the process for your business strategy. Treat your SWOT as a brainstorming session with key internal stakeholders. Debrief with your team about what you’ve found, carefully covering each element, and determine which findings will have the biggest impact on your business.

Making the Most of Your SWOT Analysis: Tips and Tricks

Want to optimize for success? Let’s look at how to involve stakeholders, update regularly, and turn your analysis into actionable insights. 

Involve Stakeholders

You should always involve stakeholders to get their perspective on what is going well, what isn’t, and about market trends of which you may not be aware. If possible, include both internal and external stakeholders—for example, you should talk to your product manager and your customer to learn what is going well, what isn’t, and where they see opportunities for improvement. 

Update Regularly

In fast-changing markets, things can take a turn quickly. There could be new government regulations or policies that affect what you can do as a business. You need to be aware of such changes in order to make well-informed decisions. This is especially true if you work in a particularly innovative industry, such as tech. You don’t want to rely on your current business model or portfolio alone because these might not be adequate to face future challenges and needs. 

Use the Results for Actionable Insights

A SWOT analysis is a useful tool for diagnosis. To turn it into actionable insights, you must determine, as a company, which opportunities to prioritize and which strengths you can leverage to best capitalize on those opportunities. 

Take your SWOT analysis into your business planning meeting. Use it to inform decisions concerning future launches, expansion, and business direction, and use it as a guide to directly prioritize your assets. For example, if you’re considering launching a new product line, use your SWOT to guide your goals—what can be achieved and the areas you can have the highest impact in a way that presents the least amount of risk. 

Grow Your Small Business with Podium

Now you’re ready to conduct your own SWOT analysis—and when you’re ready to make some changes, we’ll be ready to help.

Whether you’re looking to level up internal communications or your customer experience, Podium’s got you covered. Podium helps businesses of all sizes turn website visitors into leads, improve customer communication, add convenience to payment processes, and more. 

Ready to see how Podium’s suite of tools can make your customer journey smooth from lead to payment and lighten your employees’ load at the same time? Click here to start a free trial.