Nowadays, everyone who is in the world of work is familiar with what SWOT analysis means. SWOT is one of the simplest and yet most effective analyses that can help companies, brands, and individuals to review where they are and where they can be from a holistic perspective.
Looking at the image below for a simple graphic of what a SWOT analysis actually looks like.
At FLOW Coaching Institute, our students learn how to coach through SWOT by using these business coaching questions that you will read below.
Before we come to these powerful business coaching questions, let’s remember briefly what SWOT analysis is about.
- Strengths: Strengths are the things that you or your organization are stronger and better at in the overall marketplace. Examples of strengths include unique/better products or services, an established customer base, a good reputation in the marketplace, strong management, experience and know-how, experienced employees, ownership of patents and trademarks, or anything else that sets you apart from the competition.
- Weaknesses: These are the areas that make you or your products/services/brand vulnerable to compete in the marketplace. Weaknesses might include slow agility in a rapid change environment, lack of expertise and market understanding, employee and management problems, high turnover, lack of capital, bad location, poor products or services, a damaged reputation, and so on.
- Opportunities: Opportunities are things that could make your business stronger, more enduring, or more profitable — for example, the emergence of new technology or the expansion of an old segment; possible partnerships, acquisitions, or strategic alliances; or the recruitment of desired talent.
- Threats: Threats are the things that could adversely affect a business. Threats might include changing buying habits, changing marketplace conditions, rising company debt, cash-flow problems, the entrance of a strong competitor in the market, decreasing profitability, regulations, laws, or taxes that may negatively affect the overall profit and business success.
30 Business Coaching Questions to Ask Through SWOT Analysis
Strengths
- What makes your company or yourself attractive to your industry?
- What are your inner strengths?
- What are you more efficient at?
- What can you do for less money?
- What can we do in less time?
- What do we do better than our competitors?
- What makes you stand out?
- What do your clients love most about you?
Weaknesses
- Where do you lack efficiency?
- Where are you wasting money?
- Where are you wasting time and resources?
- What do your competitors do better?
- Where do you lack expertise/knowledge/skills?
Opportunities [keep in mind these are growth areas]
- What do you know that others do not know?
- What is missing in your market?
- What could you create/do better than a competitor?
- What new trends are occurring?
- What openings in the market are there?
- How/where could you grow?
- Do your strengths open up new opportunities?
Threats
- What changes are occurring in your market's environment?
- What technologies could replace what you do?
- What changes are occurring in the way you're being discovered?
- What social changes could threaten you?
- Are there any threatening government policies or regulations?
- What outside resources and companies do you depend on?
- Do any of our weaknesses expose us to additional threats?
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