Chris Ryan of Fusion Marketing Partners wrote an excellent article on SWOT analysis, SWOT = Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. SWOT analysis helps you find blind spots within your organization or plans. A detailed SWOT analysis will help you discover opportunities. Sometimes a SWOT analysis may appear to be a difficult task to accomplish but Chris explains how SWOT analysis works and provides marketing and sales examples to help you get started.

1. Use SWOT Analysis to Pinpoint
Strengths and Weaknesses
Chris
Ryan

2. “Nothing focuses the mind better
than the constant sight of a
competitor who wants to wipe
you off the map.”
- Wayne Calloway

3. Know Your Competition
It is necessary to know
your opponents
(business competitors)
because they’re:
– Strengths represent
threats to you
– And, their weaknesses
represent opportunities
for you to exploit
Marketing is war: To
win at war, you must
be acquainted with
yourself, your enemy,
and the battlefield.

4. The Need for SWOT Analysis
• SWOT analysis came from research conducted
at Stanford Research Institute between 1960
and 1970 to learn why corporate planning
failed.
• Fortune 500 companies funded the initial
research to find a way to overcome poor
planning.

5. Critical Insight to Support Planning
A SWOT analysis is a subjective
assessment of data that is organized
by the SWOT format into a logical
order that helps understanding,
presentation, discussion, and
decision-making.
Read Chris Ryan’s article on SWOT analysis here!

6. SWOT Categories
A SWOT analysis always focuses on four categories:
1. Strengths – What are we good at; where do we excel; where do
we have a unique advantage or significant head start?
2. Weaknesses – What are we not good at; where are our
vulnerabilities; where are we less than adequate; where have we
been ineffective in comparison to the competition?
3. Opportunities – Where can we take advantage of current market
trends; where can we exploit our strengths and the competition’s
weaknesses; what are the possibilities for a big win; what excites
us the most?
4. Threats – Which of the competitors are coming on strong; where
are the market trends working against us; what are the gaps that
can be exploited by our competitors; what scares us the most?

7. Expose Your Blind Spots
Every individual, and every company, has one
or more blind spots. Your ability to discover
these blind spots is critical to the
achievement of your marketing and sales
goals. However, it is not just weaknesses that
you must discover, but also your strengths,
opportunities, and
threats.

8. Ignorance is Not Bliss
Ask the tough questions:
1. What are the weaknesses in you, your department,
your marketing strategy, the company?
2. What are the internal and external threats that can
take you off your game or take you out of the game
altogether?
Note: Marketing & Sales are tough. Root out your weaknesses
and find ways to minimize and/or overcome them.

9. Performing the SWOT Exercise
• Perform the SWOT analysis on two levels:
– Macro (the entire company or division)
– Micro (your department)
• Perform SWOT analysis to ensure all relevant
issues are on the table. And, be sure to:
– Gain consensus from necessary stake holders
– Guide the actions that have the greatest chance of
achieving your objectives

10. Achieving the Right Outcomes
Use the 4 SWOT quadrants to address issues that will help you achieve
the right outcome:
1. Strengths – How do we maintain our strengths, build on them, maximize
our advantages, and create greater leverage in the marketplace?
2. Weaknesses – How do we get the team (or company) to recognize its
weaknesses, fix what is fixable, mitigate what is not fixable, or utilize
outside resources to bring us up to par?
3. Opportunities – Of the many opportunities we have, how do we
prioritize them given our strengths and weaknesses? Where can we get
the greatest return on our human and financial investments?
4. Threats – Which of the threats against us are most likely to derail our
business; how do we minimize or counter these threats; what can we do
to get out of the line of fire?

11. An Example of SWOT Analysis

12. Summary
• Know your competition. Capitalize on your opponents
weaknesses and recognize their strengths.
• Gain critical insights through your own SWOT analysis,
with the goal of creating positive change to improve
decision-making.
• Expose your blind spots. This will help you achieve your
marketing and sales goals.
• Perform the SWOT analysis at the macro and micro
level. Get all relevant issues out on the table.
• Ask the tough questions and achieve the right
outcomes.

13. Free SWOT Analysis Template
Free SWOT Analysis Template
Get started faster. Download this free SWOT guide
and template to accelerate your decision analysis.
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