How to Identify Your Business’s Weaknesses to Drive Revenue

Being flexible and aware of your business’s weaknesses is an essential part of keeping it thriving. In order to adapt to a changing economic landscape and overcome business-related challenges, you need to understand where your business is lacking in the first place. 

Conducting a SWOT analysis can be useful with a focus on the W (weaknesses) and the good news is you don’t have to hire a consultant outside of your company to do one. It can be completed by anyone within your organization who has a firm understanding of your organization.

By conducting these analyses you can help improve your organization’s productivity while at the same time driving revenue. 

What are weaknesses?

Weaknesses refer to any internal factors that take away from your business or leave your business at a disadvantage, compared to threats which are due to outside forces. Weaknesses are the weakest links of your business model and/or weak spots in your sales funnel. It also includes what is lacking from your team and missing from your investments.

Some examples of questions you can ask to figure out your weaknesses include:

• What does our team perform the worst at?
• Why do we think we feel that way?
• What are some of the disadvantages we have as an organization?
• What feedback have we received from our peers and customers related to what we need to work on? 
• What do our employees need more training in?

Tips for collecting insight and information on your weaknesses:

Consult with your peers.

Of course, you might be the expert on your business but you could also divulge particularly valuable information if you set aside time to consult with others including stakeholders, customers, suppliers and your own employees.

You can do this through formal or informal means, seeking out others’ input into your company’s perceived weaknesses can show you a different perspective. There is a strong likelihood  that you will gain insights into many different departments such as customer service or even your pricing strategy, that you might have never considered yourself. This data can be included into a comprehensive look into where your company efforts might need to be improved. Always remain open-minded, even if you hear things you don’t agree with.

Monitor customer complaints.

Another area where you can gain a lot of insight into your company’s weaknesses is by monitoring customer complaints. Your customers are a great source of feedback both good and bad. If you aren’t doing so already, this is a great time to start. This information will help you identify patterns of complaints because you will see similar complaints being made about your policy, product or service.

Be critical of your business.

Now isn’t the time to view things through rose-colored glasses. It’s time to be completely honest with yourself. Be prepared to look at your company through a critical lens. Compare your company to those of your competition. See what they are good at and where they are lacking, and what you could do to get an edge on them. This analysis will help give you a valuable perspective on how you are running your own operations. 

Remember that every business has weaknesses.

Being focused only on your weaknesses can leave you feeling a bit defeated afterwards. Always remember that every business out there has weaknesses. Going through these motions today will lead to a larger process that will help you improve your business overall. 

Keep your list of weaknesses close by.

Make sure you keep your list of weaknesses somewhere easily accessible so you are able to monitor your progress at minimizing them and make sure you are moving along the right track. 

How is revenue linked to weaknesses?

Once you have successfully identified where your company’s weaknesses lie, you can focus your efforts on minimizing them so they have the least amount of impact on your bottom line. For example, if your company struggles with providing quality customer service you might be missing out on a chunk of sales due to not gaining any new clients at your organization. Or maybe you can get your manufacturing costs lower to gain a pricing advantage over your competitors that can help boost your bottom line.

Ready to Level Up Your Company?

1Huddle is the perfect platform to level up your employees and even the playing field with your competition. If one of your weaknesses has to do with employee training and development, then 1Huddle has got your back.

1Huddle offers cloud-based employee training software where you can easily upload and customize your training content for a seamless training experience. All of your employees will have the ability to access their training anywhere, anytime and at the push of a button. This helps make training engaging and kept up-to-date. You can use our game platform to measure their performance and make key decisions on where you should take your training next. 
Do you want to learn more about how 1Huddle can help you level up your own workforce? Request a demo today.