What are My Strengths & Weaknesses? [Free Download]

What are My Strengths and Weaknesses

A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is a key tool to help you develop your marketing strategy. As part of your SWOT analysis, you will have to identify your company’s strengths and weaknesses.

By identifying your strengths and weaknesses, you’ll be able to build a more effective marketing plan. Your new marketing strategy can highlight your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses in a way that better attracts customers.

Because you’re the one identifying your strengths and weaknesses, the process can be very subjective. To make the process more objective, ask your mentors, advisors, employees, and even customers for their input.

When you’re identifying your strengths and weaknesses, keep everything in mind – your products, services, staff, location, etc.

Scroll down to the bottom to download your free SWOT analysis template!

Strengths

When you’re trying to identify your strengths, ask yourself some questions:

  • Do I have more experience than my competitors?
  • What do I do better than my competitors?
  • What do I do that’s unique to my industry?
  • Is my product or service better than my competitors’?
  • Do my customers come back time and time again?
  • Do my customers send me new referrals?
  • Have I gotten any awards or special recognition?
  • What makes my company stand out?

The answers to these questions will help you determine what your strengths are.

Remember, however, that you should always consider your strengths in relation to your competitors. For example, maybe you think you sell your items at a pretty low price point. You might sell a sweater for $19.99. If your competitors are selling that same sweater for only a dollar or two more, then you might not be able to claim ‘low prices’ as a strength.

Examples of Strengths

It can be difficult to figure out what your company’s strengths are. To help you get started, let’s look at some possible strengths for a clothing boutique:

  • High quality materials
  • Unique and exclusive clothing pieces
  • Experienced sales staff
  • Loyal, returning customers

Weaknesses

If it was hard for you to come up with a list of your company’s strengths, it will be even harder to come up with your weaknesses. You’ll have to be brutally honest with yourself because it’s never easy to admit that your company has issues and weaknesses.

To identify your weaknesses, ask yourself some questions:

  • What areas does my business need to improve?
  • What problems are customers always complaining about?
  • Do I know who my target market is?
  • What do my customers think are weaknesses in my company?

By answering these questions honestly, you’ll be able to determine what your company’s weaknesses are. Once you know your weaknesses, you’ll be able to determine whether you need to fix the issue causing the weakness.

Examples of Weaknesses

Let’s look at some of the weaknesses for that clothing boutique from earlier:

  • Small product selection
  • Only offer sizes 0-12
  • Prices are between 5% and 10% higher than competitors’ prices

SWOT Analysis Template

Now that you know how to determine your company’s strengths and weaknesses, you’re on your way to conducting a thorough SWOT analysis. Download your very own SWOT template below:

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