This may be hard for you. You may be a small business owner trying very hard to keep things together. The last thing you want is someone else telling you what you need to do better. Where’s the time? Even if you had the time, how would you go about figuring out what needs to be changed?
Analyzing your company, taking a closer look at who your company is, and what your company does is a very personal thing. Let me introduce you to two friends of mine:
Suzy Sales-pitch: She might have a hard time thinking of weaknesses of her business. She is slick. She is poised to give the best image of the company, always. But when analyzing strengths, it’s just as important to own up to the weaknesses so that you can make a plan for how to change them.
Walt the Weak: He might always think his business could use more of something, or not recognize the strength that he has in his company’s industry already...this is crucial for his being able to present himself accurately to the industry and to the customers he needs so badly.
Can we ever get them together? If we can get strengths and weaknesses to be honest with each other, we will be able to make a very good match; being honest, but not bending backwards in the opposite direction. Every company has strengths and weaknesses. When you find out what you need to improve on in each direction, you are able to make a better match. Which, in the business world, is a seamless business represented in a successful way that highlights the best features it has to offer. Internal analysis is something you can begin on your own, but if you want it to be true, helpful and relevant, it needs to come from someone outside of your business that knows how businesses work and isn’t going to be partial. The outsider should help you determine what you actually are good at (might be different than you think!), what you can do without (like that fax machine that was signed by Bill Gate himself!), and what steps you can take to make your business better.
Outside perspective is crucial:
Be honest and open.
When going into an internal analysis, you need to be as honest and open as you can about your business. Sharing this information like you would with a very personal friend. Don’t withhold information or try to show yourself in the best light as that will be detrimental to the outcome for you.
Be ready to hear feedback.
Be ready to listen with open ears, and ready to commit to make changes. The amount of pushback you give to the feedback obtained, many times, will cause years of the same failures and thousands of dollars before you realize, they were right and you had held on just because you were not ready to commit to that direction at the time.
A lot of work goes into your company, many sleepless nights worrying about how things will go the next day. We get that. Analyzing your strengths and weaknesses will lead to creating a plan towards the success you want in your industry/field. It’s not a good/bad, pass/fail, it’s merely a getting to know your company so that your best self can be represented. We will save you time, and money by getting you ahead of the game quicker, and pointing you in the right direction.
What is the internal analysis process like?
There are a series of factors that are crucial to business success. An internal analysis identifies simply how you are doing at key factors of how your business is run.
There are many different things to gauge but some of the aspects are: Your company’s strategy and how it ties employee interaction into everyday tasks. How are marketing efforts created internally, and how are they received by customers? How does quality control occur and what happens if a product or service becomes defective? What type of program or system do you utilize to track product or services, and how does that system help decision making within the company? How do new product/service ideas come about in your company and whose feedback plays a key role in the new ideas?
A parent/friend always tells you what you want to hear. We are a friend that tells it like it is, and helps you build what you already have into something you never realized was possible.
For an Internal Analysis/Value Chain Analysis Session
We will ask a few simple questions and get a well rounded list of honest strengths and easily fixable weaknesses. Many of our clients have turned those weaknesses into strengths and have benefited immediately with new customer base simply due to the slight change in direction we’ve recommended.