Let’s face it, we’re all busy and value our time. Lately, it seems all I have been getting is internet marketing service requests, but no business. Email follow ups haven’t been working either.
As a part-time, “wannabe” full time entrepreneur, not even being able to hook a lead gets a little disheartening after a while. So I have decided to come up with a process that will hopefully yield better results. I call it: The 5 Minute SWOT Analysis.
In this post I’ll cover my 5 minute process to create a deliverable that entrepreneurs and small business owners can use to provide a quick and useful analysis to help identify ways to hook initial leads.
What is a SWOT Analysis?
A SWOT analysis is an analysis of the most pertinent items that you will use to address a particular service or task. It’s a great aid in the beginning stages of the sales process and will help you identify key areas to focus on to get a lay of the land and to get buy in for your services.
Tools Needed
You can create a SWOT with pen and paper, Excel or pretty much any tool; however, I have found XMind to be a great idea mapping and collaboration tool for my web development endeavors so far.
Below, I used X-Mind to create my 5 minute SWOT to analyze a website’s searchability.
Creating a SWOT
A SWOT can be made for just about any project or process and focuses on four key areas: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
You can spend as much time as you want to create a SWOT, however, my 5 minute approach to a SWOT is what I recommend for a quick analysis for an initial sales lead that will help you lay out your road-map for the next step in the sales cycle.
- Strengths – Identify strengths of the potential clients’ product/services
- Weaknesses – What are the weaknesses in their product/services?
- Opportunities – What opportunities can they capitalize on?
- Threats – What is hurting them that needs to be addressed ASAP?
In my above example on a website SWOT analysis, I noted that the client had a strong website authority, brand awareness and social media presence, however, they were missing out on opportunities to be found online because of some improvements that need to made to their meta tags and some important website files.
I also noted weaknesses and threats that explained that their website URL’s are poor, content is duplicated and poorly optimized, and they are lacking important website files.
In the analysis portion I broke down why they needed to correct these issues to improve their searchability online. I also explained how I could get them there and the work I have done to prove it.
Breaking Down the Analysis
Marketing and SEO consultants are a dime a dozen, so I want to make sure that I am going to highlight how I plan on getting results by utilizing some key points from my SWOT.
The strengths are good things for them to know what they’re doing right. However, I want to focus on those weaknesses and threats to present how we’ll take full advantage of existing opportunities and to get them hooked in my services because that is where I can demonstrate how I’m going to achieve those results.
Using X-Mind there is a note section you can expand on each section, which I highlighted above. Whatever tool you use, make sure to write some quick bullet point notes on each section so you can touch on those points when discussing to the client.
The weaknesses and threats are what you really want to expand on and demonstrate on what you can do to help them. This is where your unique selling point should show through.
For example, I’ve highlighted the main areas that need to be improved on the website are two files that are vital to website searchability: sitemap.xml and robots.txt, and addressing page not found (404) errors.
It’s important for me to highlight the reason why these are so important and what I need to communicate that will help them care about fixing them and show them why I am the best person for the job.
Experience and results are your two most powerful weapons, so any way that you can demonstrate that will really help you make the sale.
Hook and Sink
Now that you have your SWOT put together, it’s now ready to be used to hook the potential client in. Remember to focus on the weaknesses and threats and tailor your experience and unique selling point to the opportunities available to them:
- What are the most pertinent items that are costing them business/sales?
- How can you help get them there?
- Why are you the best person for the job?
- How have your past experiences worked for other clients?
If you have any questions on tools or how to use the SWOT model, please feel free to get in touch. Please share any successful ways that have helped you generate new business by sharing in the comments section below.