By DEIDRE BASTIAN

Assessing your company’s strengths and weaknesses can enlighten you as to how it is performing and what can be done better. Whereas looking into your threats, such as business rivals and competitors, can identify weak areas and perhaps alter your business plan or marketing strategy to out-perform the competition.

What do you need? A SWOT analysis. SWOT means ‘strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats’. Strengths and weaknesses can be found internally, whereas opportunities and threats are external to your company. You need to be fair but quite ruthless when writing a SWOT if it is to have any impact. Here are some questions you may need to ask to assess your business:

Strengths:

What advantages does my business have?

What does my business do better than anyone else?

What is my company’s’ unique selling point?

What do customers identify as my business strengths?

Weaknesses:

What should my business avoid?

What could my business improve on?

What factors cause my business to lose sales?

What are people in my market likely to see as weaknesses?

Opportunities:

What good opportunities can customers spot?

What interesting trends are customers aware of?

Can useful opportunities come from changes in technology, markets, the economy and in population size?

Threats

What obstacles does my business face?

What are my competitors doing?

Does my business have bad debt or cash flow problems?

Could any of my weaknesses seriously threaten my business?

Ultimately all of this data can be factored into a comprehensive assessment of what your company does best, and where its efforts might be improved. There is a lot you can learn about your company by simply viewing it through the lens of the competition. Just as you strive to examine your business objectively, take an equally dispassionate look at what your competitors are doing.

Evaluating your company’s strengths is likely easier than taking a hard look at its flaws. One helpful source of information is customer complaints. If you are not already monitoring the frequency and substance of these complaints, this is a good time to start.

Armed with an all-inclusive comprehensive understanding of your company’s performance, you will not only be more equipped to make informed decisions on how to grow and develop your business, but also to compete in the industry and stay ahead of the curve. Until we meet again, live life for memories as opposed to regrets. Enjoy life and stay on top of your game.

• NB: Columnist welcomes feedback at deedee21bastian@gmail.com

ABOUT COLUMNIST: Deidre M. Bastian is a brand marketing analyst/skilled graphic designer, international award-winning author and certified life coach.