Student S.W.O.T Analysis
Barbara Findlay Schenck
Lessons
What's On Your Business Wishlist?
31:46 2Business Idea Considerations
23:33 3Start Your Business Planning Engines
28:28 4Custom-Tailor Your Business Planning
25:17 5What's In Your Plan Overview?
40:48 6Structure & Organize for Success
26:35 7Protect & Stake Claim to Your Business
51:09$$$ Raising It, Making It, Managing It
31:33 9Planning for Profitability
25:46 10Managing Your Finances w/ Q & A
22:24 11Setting Your Goals
20:05 12S.W.O.T. Analysis
31:46 13Student S.W.O.T Analysis
26:32 14Growth Strategies & Action Plan
34:15 15Planning for Change
29:25 16Marketing Planning
38:41 17Defining Your Brand & Position
27:59 18Marketing Q & A
17:35 19What Goes Into Your Plan?
32:10 20Asking the Right Questions
30:22Lesson Info
Student S.W.O.T Analysis
Does anybody here want to talk about their purpose, their goals, their objectives or their strategies? Brighi I understand that getting more private clients is not necessarily a scaleable goal, but it does really help financially at this point. And so I can acknowledge that as a goal and then I can create an objective too generate five more private clients um but then I guess going to the next step of of implementing ways to do that, I think is where I kind of find the gap. Sometimes you used the term in your purpose statement about inspiration. Is there anything you could do with product development that is not reliant on your time? Bridget does private courses, she does group courses and she does retreats and including one to costa rica that's coming up is that on your web site is that signal available? It is. I got to tell you that would be awesome. I've looked at it's worth it to go to her website. What is your website? Ggo? Guinea dot com dogg dot com and check out the costa rica ...
retreat so you do those those air all reliant on your time, right? And you have commissions from video you told me and you have some training materials. Do those create enough sales to build growth goals on I mean, if you double them, would it matter this is always a question to ask yourself if a double if you doubled them would it matter compared to getting a new private client if I doubled the commissions the product revenues um yeah, okay, I and I ask you that not really just for you I ask it for everyone it's always worth it to say if I doubled it would it make a much money a ziff I got a ten percent gain here and what would doubling it take because you have to do a cost analysis a risk analysis if it would take ah whole lot of money to double it and hardly anything this gets backto low hanging fruit at the same time you have to be thinking how do we diversify? Sometimes you have to make the investment if doubling it would be the beginning of a nice uphill trend then you say you know this year it's going toe it's going to cost and I'm gonna have to invest in it but the next year it's going toe that's your three year projection was the three year forecast if I do that but I do think in your case anybody who has revenues that are reliant on time on the amount of time you personally have in the day you have three choices one is to build alternate revenue streams one is to hire other people that you can train to do what you do which means systemized what you do so that you're sure at all times that what they are delivering is consistent with what you want to deliver and that you have adequate oversight to protect your reputation and the third thing is to decide I'm willing to cap my business I'm willing to say that when I have thirty five or fifty or whatever private clients that's and I'm full doctors do it doctors quit taking patients um and as I said yesterday that is a choice some businesses she want to make if you make it you have to commit very, very strongly to swat analyses viewing the horizon watching for consumer interests and adapting, adapting, adapting because you've basically quit marketing to new customers and so you have to keep the customers you have extremely happy so extremely happy that when one moves air leaves for one reason or another there's somebody that they've referred or another customer has referred because you've capped your business so you can't you can quit growing you can't quit changing yes I will I think prove she is addressing that with yeogu audacious yes, the platform that you're building to connect with women and empower them with all sheet of all shapes and sizes um I feel like that's a natural progression that that that online audience is going to grow exponentially and then somehow these videos that you're making right now for your provides they're either going off for you more your she's gonna have so much clientele coming in that they're going to see or she's gonna have toe you just used a really important word that small businesses all over the place need to listen for and build upon somehow it won't happen somehow it will happen because you have a goal and objective business plan that works and strategies that get you where you want to go so every time everybody all over the world finland's switzerland south africa wherever everyone is every time that you think somehow we will get people to this no no no no how how and that's where your strategies come in to say um okay you're building a bridge it has opened a new division of her company I guess you might call it that called yoga audacious and it's wonderful it has a yoga and the a begins the word audacious and you go there it's a big be brave it's really quite lovely it's lovely website and uh and it's for women who just want to celebrate love of whatever situation they're in through yoga jesus bring whatever you have to the mat um I getting that right and so this is a wonderful platform but does it have a business model yeah so it was a sense that it's not a direct profit generator but conceptually it's away it features a different woman every week so it's creating a larger audience and mailing list and really connecting to people who have like minded andrius interested really in many ways that's that's a beautiful it's, a beautiful mission and in many ways it's fashioned in the way a lot of blog's air fashioned they speak to a very unique audience with a very unique point of view consistent voice and blocks monetize they monetized by selling sponsorship ads by having affiliate relationship so that anything that's what are your favorite products? And then you highlight the menu link to them and you let people buy that person of the week's didn't let them take their advice you sell your own offerings through it so that's another state of affiliate revenue you have your own product revenue, you have ad revenue and then you also make yourself available as a speaker on this right on this project on this product and and there is a thing one inspiration at your next event click here and it goes to your online media center so somehow becomes a process right? Is that an example that works for anyone else? Comments on the question in the chat room a story from a guest sixty three to four she's saying well, he's saying cover she's enjoyed covering a yogurt company, but they look to your company that features adventure sports combined with acro yoga what exact yoga yoga is multiple people doing creative poses together so one person might be laying on their back with their legs up in the other person would be balancing on their feet you know and playing with more acrobatic combination poses interesting ok do you do adventure sports only do adventure retreats so yoga's is offered in the morning or in the evening and then during the day we'll do surfing like this is the retreat to costa rica there's surfing theirs waterfall adventures there's rock repelling there's all these activities in there but yes for people who really liketo get after life great that's a great example of having supplied you to your business I know that years she is in a really interesting spot shared by many a great idea that's in development it's still in the testing phase she knows she wants to do it I think that much is clear but she's not quite sure how it will work but she's not stuck in somehow she's stuck in how so are the thoughts is anything from here moving you along or questions that I can answer you know my brain feels for weld and overwhelmed ok yeah ok sure. This comment with um with barbara has come from the rainy day store she's one of our regular creative life supporters and always great to see her in the chat rooms she actually now runs a clothing business online but in a previous life she says she had a cell phone repair store s so what she did, she handed out coupons for stores that were in the same mall thiss help people keep people in the mall while they fix the person's phone. They brought in five hundred new customers a month to the mall, and they ended up charging for the fly, which is beneficial for the other stores in the area, so everybody benefited from that in her business grew as well. So through her cell phone business, she created a revenue stream through cooperative advertising. I mean, is that amazing that if you look at your strength and opportunities, a weakness of that business was a long wait. The people were hanging around, and she didn't probably have big enough space to accommodate them or keep them happy and almost anywhere in the world and particularly in the united states, people want to eat something every twenty minutes, so she didn't have all that to provide to them, so she figured out how my going to do it. I'm going to get them to enjoy the time in the mall and, hey, I'll give coupons and all chart that's really very, very smart that could come out of a of a swat analysis. Thank you rainy day what the rainy day stole the rainy day story yesterday I got a tweet from so somebody put in I can't believe it I'm on creative life and melissa melissa I can't remember her whole twitter handle I can't believe it I'm on creative life unlike questions being answered right now so I do that's the beauty of creative live is that you can actually interact and get your question answered online unlike a lot of other online training, so tune and keep your questions coming I hear you warren, do you have any questions right now? Still waters run deep he's just over there just planning, but see he warren also does this for a living, so I don't worry about him coming up with his goals, but sometimes the cobbler's children don't have shoes, so those of us in the field also have to but anyway, any of you and terror as you're doing your analysis this swat analysis I do think we'll help you because it forces you to really say but will these women who need this support and everything else on their journey will they pay for it? Will they be shy about it? Will people be shy about giving it as a gift? Would it work as a kit that they assemble and you do professional photos that key periods therefore reducing your involvement in, in some ways, taking away some of their inhibitions and possibly even bringing in some cooperative sponsors. So these are things for you to think about. The swat analysis will help you with that development. We do have a few minutes left for questions, more questions of anybody wants them. Otherwise I'll keep giving examples. I actually just sort of something is released to the swat analysis, the strengths and weaknesses or things that are fairly internal, what air some resource is that you use or recommend, tell monitor and, you know, fill the gaps when the opportunities and threat side of things. So, for example, if you're looking at competitors, you might set a google alert border, some other resource is that, first of all, I appreciate him so much. That is very good question, I would say, start with the association for your business arena almost any business, if you put it in yoga association, uh, breast cancer survivor research put in the word research with it, it will lead you to findings reports it doesn't matter what feel gold golf, golf club, pro shop research up comes everything all kinds of findings about trends in your industry, if that doesn't work, go to the major magazines that share usually they have a website I mean a media kit on their website that's meant to sell advertises on why buying in their magazine buying ads in their magazine is a good deal and part of why it's a good deal is because of trends in the market place you can learn a lot about marketplace trends. Frankly, a lot of the numbers I share here I get from following because social media's important to what I do, I follow mashable I follow techcrunch I follow social media examiner start following the groups that you think might have a finger on the pulse of your clientele or your industry, because on facebook on twitter and put them in a special twitter feed. So when you only have a few minutes, you go straight to research and on ly those followers show up and you see what they're posting and you will learn an awful lot about what that's part of our andy that's really part of our india's saying, how are we going to do it? And anybody who has a twitter feed with more than three hundred, followers cannot keep up on it all. So create lists a list of favorite business resource is favorite research, you know, and then just move him into that, and when you're in a hurry, you just go to that list and you only read that feed I'm sure you all do that, but frankly it took me a while to learn it so but then I learned slow anyway that's one place to go if for local demographics go get your if you have a local business, go get the rape kits from your local television stations and newspaper because they will list that kind of information. There is a wonderful book that I always recommend for consumer information it's called the s r d s is no, no, no not not the ideas the lifestyle index it's going to be in the upcoming slides in marketing but it's the it is the sa ideas lifestyle index. You go to the library, any big library has a research a resource center you cannot get this particular thing online without subscribing, but you go and get the book and in it you look up your area of interest yoga and it will tell you every single major market in the in the united states and I don't know if it goes beyond the united states but which communities are over average in participation. So if you're looking for a test market, you would know here's one that's at one hundred sixty percent of participation compared to this one that's at eighty two percent now if you want to test something to see, can you get people into yoga who aren't already then you might want to go to an underperforming area so you it's a wonderful resource for figuring out where opportunity is but in terms of just monitoring trends start with start with your industry analyses provided by leaders in your industry media in your industry associations we can get a great response from one of our online audience greg d he's joining us great days in the graphic design business and he's actually put together a swat analysis for us which will share him way started with strength and he said a formal design background degree et cetera experience in the industry for x years strong portfolio those air strength described the weaknesses as a graphic designer he doesn't know web design which had clients requiring now and also is not familiar with other mediums like video and then he went on to describe opportunities big paying clients need design consultancy remote work contract work partnering with photographers, web designers, printers, et cetera a lot of opportunities on he sees the threat says people can now afford creative design software themselves sites like ninety nine design et cetera means it's now a commodity design is outsourced to lower paid countries lower paid workers so he sees those is the threats and there's a very valid they are valid threats and I would say two things from listening quickly to that one is that he feels that his expertise is somewhat out of date for the interests of today's clientele. It wouldn't take much for somebody it's harder to acquire the design skills he has, then it is to develop the technical expertise that would get him to a more contemporary skill set. He's got the hardest party you know in hand, so that would be an opportunity that he might choose to strengthen the idea that people can outsource. Yes, they can, they can always get it cheaper. And let me tell you last the time that I did creative life, we rode with a driver to creative live, and the driver told us the most interesting story. He had a one person agency that he ended up selling for good money because he was known for one thing he could get it done fast. He ended up getting all the work from the big agencies when the big agencies, with all their skill in competition and awards and everything else that these major clients committed to when they couldn't get it done in time, they referred to him and he got it done in time. So, yes, people can go to another country or to somebody who's not as good and get it done, he needs to build the niche if you want it professionally done, and I don't know, I don't know how fast he is, but if you want it professionally done toe look like it was done by the biggest organization in the world, but it was done around the corner and in a week call me or whatever he needs a point of distinction that matters to the customer that he has x years. He needs to use the which which means I have this which means this and figure out which means this that is capable of overcoming the objections of those who think it's cheaper to go to another country. To those who think they can give it to a nephew, whatever. But he's, his swat analysis is right on its now synthesizing that in two strategies that will overcome weaknesses of earth threats. And just to be clear, we actually misunderstood greg. He was just doing the exercise for a graphic designer. I appreciate that. I kind of knew that. Yeah, yes. Yeah, because, yeah, I wouldn't tell him. He needs to bush, you know, howto build a website that he's? Actually, yes. You just want tio ask him if he agrees with sort of where I took it. Sure, sure. Okay. Family is not in the graphic design is even more impressive. Is you did really good, sweet spot he could be standing up here, tell him thank you for the example. We actually have some feedback for tara from purpose catalyst that I thought maybe we could share a little bit of think about a collective project of a few women creating a story together with your guidance best leveraging group support creating and healing and benefiting from your conductor role and then the way to monetize would be with a membership site by subscription so it's affordable for all the women reliable revenue to you and build up expanding group strength yeah can I tell you I love small business? This is small business that somebody on the spot came up with that to help another small business person um that's why you have to reach out to others you have to you're here you're all here so you all do reach out to others but find people that you can interact with and find people outside your immediate comfort zone not people who look just like you. You don't want to look into a mirror when you're getting help you want to get help from somebody who with whom you khun sink and understand and be honest and communicate quickly and in shorthand even but somebody who had zings in from a different direction from time to time I was really a beautiful example and it is helpful isn't it thoughts I'm starting to percolate consider how to change the business model so it's not so reliant on my time finite it's finite and keep in mind the scaleable at all times if your business isn't scaleable now if there's a cap on what you can do or if the more you sell the more expensive and cumbersome it gets that's not scaleable are you satisfied capping your growth and if you are that's great then you just keep saying how do I get better and better every day how do I deliver better service and I did yesterday to keep this capped clientele that is not captive um happy and the alternative is how do I you know punch a hole that we can grow through and that hole's going to be another stream of revenue all right stop thank you very much we appreciate all the interaction from not only online orders from our students as well what are we going to talk about when we come back? Well nobody wants to see this but I really do and I I would even like through the rest of the day to have people throw out their goals if they think it would be helpful to do so what are your goals as they relate to your purpose? My business is this I want to accomplish these three things this year I don't really care as much that you share it with me is that you do it yourself and if you want to share with me I'd love to hear it it's really this this slide is what I want you to think about what is our purpose and that's where we started a lot of you know a lot of people online and here brought it in um one woman this morning christie who is just a lovely person at creative life told me her mother no eat well anyway somebody told me that their mother was even following it and working on her business description last night people are working all over the place on their business descriptions that is gratifying get your business description nailed down if it isn't now keep working on it and then turn it into a success for begin to use that as the basis of your success story by setting three to four goals that you intend to accomplish it may be that one of your goals is to determine the product to determine the business model not every business not every business is going to have action goals. A lot of them are going to be planning goals I am going to complete my business plan I am going to I work with one woman who and I bet you she's watching right now who is really working on when can she quit her day job and do photography full time and she's really working on a very, very unique form of photography and that the develops into a product that is not just on her shoulders but her goal will be when can she do that? It's? Not to do it yet, she's planning toward that? I'm doing a part time until then, a lot of people in that situation, so it doesn't mean it has to be full time. A lot of these goals may be planning goals, planning or sales goals. I want to start seeing you bring that down because you can't really move forward without that. So now you know the fact the building blocks that were too now is that I want everybody to know the purpose of their business. I want everybody to know or be combatted to knowing their business model. Where does the money come from? How does the money arrived? When does it arrive? How soon will it arrive? Business purpose, business model goals? With that, you'll be ready for the next session, which is setting strategies to reach your goals. You saw kind of a a skeleton version of it in in this slide how it comes into strategies next session were really going to talk about these happen to be the marketing strategies, but strategies for everything from building your business, too. Building your marketing plan that's what's next
Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Really looking forward to this course with great anticipation to learn how to put a comprehensive business plan together for a full-time & part-time wedding & portrait photography business, what are the important steps involve to create a business plan and what all should be included in such plan, when or if you should amend your business plan, should you have two business plans (a simple plan & a very detail plan).
Christina Majoinen
This course was great. I'm at the very beginning stages of creating my business, and this course really helped me to think through everything I need to plan for.
Diane
Great class!!