When you are planning strategically with any company--online or offline--it is useful to complete an analysis that takes into account not only your own business, but your competitor's businesses and the current business environment as well. A SWOT is one such analysis.

Completing a SWOT analysis helps you identify ways to minimize the effect of weaknesses in your business while maximizing your strengths.

Ideally, you will match your strengths against market opportunities that result from your competitors’ weaknesses or voids.

Basic SWOT

You can develop a basic SWOT analysis in a brainstorming session with members of your company, or by yourself if you are a one-person shop. To begin a basic SWOT analysis create a four-cell grid or four lists, one for each SWOT component:

Then, begin filling in the lists.

• Strengths - Think about what your company does well. What makes you stand out from your competitors? What advantages do you have over other businesses?
  
  
  
• Weaknesses - List the areas that are a struggle. What do your customers complain about? What are the unmet needs of your sales force?
  
  
  
• Opportunities - Try to uncover areas where your strengths are not being fully utilized. Are there emerging trends that fit with your company's strengths? Is there a product/service area that you could do well in but are not yet competing?
  
  
  
• Threats. Look both inside and outside of your company for things that could damage your business. Internally, do you have financial, development, or other problems? Externally, are your competitors becoming stronger, are there emerging trends that amplify one of your weaknesses, or do you see other threats to your company's success?
  

Advanced SWOT

A more in-depth SWOT analysis can help you better understand your company's competitive situation. One way to improve upon the basic SWOT is to include more detailed competitor information in the analysis.

Note Internet-related activities such as trade organization participation, search engine inclusion, and outside links to the sites. This will better help you spot opportunities for and threats to your company.

You can also take a closer look at the business environment. Often, opportunities arise as a result of a changing business environment.

Some examples are:

• A new trend develops for which demand outstrips the supply of quality options. For example, early on, the trend toward healthy eating coupled with an insistence on good-tasting food produced a shortage of acceptable natural food alternatives.
  
  
  
• A customer segment is becoming more predominant, but their specific needs are not being fully met by your competitors. The U.S. Hispanic population experienced this phenomenon in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
  
  
  
• A customer, competitor, or supplier goes out of business or merges with another company. With the demise of many pure-play dot-coms, examples of this abound. As each went out of business, opportunities arise to gain the defunct business--customers.
  

You can also enhance a SWOT analysis through surveys. You can learn more about your own as well as competitor sites and businesses. Areas you can research include 1) customer awareness, interest, trial, and usage levels; 2) brand, site, and/or company image; 3) importance of different site or product attributes to your customers; and 4) product and/or site performance.

Whether using a basic or more advanced approach to SWOT analysis, you are sure to come away with newfound insights. Use these to increase your company's effectiveness and as input into your business or marketing plan.

Bobette Kyle is creator of WebSiteMarketingPlan.com and author of the marketing plan guide "How Much for Just the Spider? Strategic Web Site Marketing."

source: MarketingProfs

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How to write a good proposal

1. Create a powerful, but concise executive summary.
   
   
   
2. Focus on results, which matter more than methods and processes. Clients buy methods and approaches only when they know you can deliver results. 
   
   
   
3. Be generous with your ideas; don't hoard them. Show clients how innovatively you think.
   
   
   
4. The length of the proposal doesn't win, but quality does. Projects are not awarded because proposals pass a weight test.
   
   
   
5. The proposal content must be about the client, not the consultant. Take a back seat and focus on how you will solve problems.
   
   
   
6. Your liberal use of "best practices" will label you as uncreative. Find the blend of outstanding practices and innovative solutions that fit your client's needs, not answers that worked for someone else.
   
   
   
7. Accuracy is essential. Validate all data and double-check to make sure it's right before you present it.
   
   
   
8. Sweat every small proposal detail, watch for typos, use high-quality materials and make sure the right people receive the proposal on time.
   
   
   
9. Rewrite your resume for every proposal. Highlight the skills in your resume that demonstrate your qualifications. Your boilerplate resume is rarely up to the task.
   
   
   
10. Let your proposal sit for a day and then reread it completely before sending it out.
    
    
    
11. Let your personality shine through your proposals. Give clients a sense of the firm and your style of working.
    
    
    
12. Don't let your proposal claims outdistance your true capabilities. Write an honest proposal, or you'll pay dearly in the future with blown budgets and unhappy clients.

The consulting proposal is a necessary evil. A great proposal can be decisive in winning a project; a poor one can cause you to lose a project, even if everything else in the sales process has gone flawlessly. Use these guidelines to a write a killer proposal every time.

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