Foundation 11 of 20 · Assess
How to Do a SWOT Analysis for a Small Business
A SWOT With No Weaknesses Is a Brochure. The Empty Box Is Where the Money Leaks.
"Business is good. Why go hunting for problems?" Because the biggest decisions usually get made right after a good month, on the strength of how things feel. Here is how to do a SWOT analysis that tells you the truth, checked by people who are not you, and turned into one real decision.
Last Updated: 11/02/2026 · Written by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA
The Short Answer
What Is a SWOT Analysis?
Textbook Definition
A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that sorts a business's internal strengths and weaknesses and its external opportunities and threats into four categories, so leaders can judge its position before setting or changing objectives.
In Plain English
It is four boxes on one page. Two describe what happens inside your business, the good and the bad. Two describe what is happening outside it, what could help you and what could hurt you. Knowing how to do a SWOT analysis well mostly means filling those boxes with the truth, not with what you hope.
Why It Matters
Why Do Owners Leave the Weaknesses Box Empty?
Most owners can rattle off what they are good at in under a minute. The weaknesses and threats are harder, because you cannot see them from where you stand every day. So those boxes stay blank, and a blank box feels like good news. Usually it only means nobody outside the owner was asked.
A SWOT analysis earns its place only when it is an honest look. A few customer comments, a page of your own records, and one straight answer from your team can turn a page of compliments into a page you can make decisions with.
Signs you have this problem:
- Your strengths list is long and your weaknesses list is blank.
- You filled in every box yourself, at your own desk.
- You explain away bad weeks as weather, luck, or a one-off.
- Your team has raised the same problem more than once and nothing changed.
- Your only opportunity is "more of what we already do."
- You did a SWOT once, filed it, and cannot remember a single thing it changed.
What It Looks Like
What It Looks Like When Every Box Is Filled From Inside
From the Fabled Forest · Chapter 11
Fast Frankie, a fox, ran three pizza trucks and a restaurant and was ready to spend four hundred coins on a fourth truck. Doctor Owl first showed him one week of the ledger: the coast truck had taken 90 coins and spent 102. Frankie called it a stormy week. When asked to fill in four boxes, he wrote eleven strengths in two minutes, left weaknesses blank, wrote "more trucks" for opportunities and "none" for threats.
Doctor Owl sent him to stand at the back of his own queue on the mill road. There he heard customers praise the pizza, grumble about the single window, and say the coast truck never showed up in storms. He counted eleven hungry mill hands give up and walk away. His foreman Marco then told him the coast truck had missed five of the last eight coast days, and that he had flagged it each time. With one rule, that every line had to be confirmed by someone other than Frankie, the four boxes were rewritten.
The new boxes were messier and truer. They also showed openings Frankie had never noticed: a winter market with no hot food and a long queue at shift change. He pulled the coast truck off the coast for winter, rewrote his one-year objective to fix the three trucks before buying a fourth, and Marco projected the week rising from 158 coins kept to 218. On its first market Saturday, Truck 3 brought in sixty-one coins, its best day since summer.
Fast Frankie's story is Chapter 11 of Strategy for Small Businesses, Book 6 of Dr. Paul's Fabled Forest Business School Series.
The Talon Way: A Plan With No Weaknesses Page
Put only the strengths in the plan, so it sounds sure of itself.
People who read nothing but good news tend to say yes.
The weakness stays hidden until it shows up as the headline.
The Fix
How to Do an Honest SWOT Analysis in 4 Steps
Four boxes, one rule, and one decision before you put the page away.
Draw the four boxes.
Strengths and weaknesses go on top, because they are about what happens inside your business. Opportunities and threats go on the bottom, because they are about the world around it. If you are writing this for a lender, Dr. Paul's guide to a SWOT analysis for a business plan shows where it fits, and his business plan templates already have a place for it.
Fill them in fast, by yourself.
Give it five minutes. Write whatever comes to mind. Then set the page aside. This is your first draft, not your answer.
Check every line with someone who is not you.
Ask a customer, ask your team, and open your own books. Cross off anything they do not back up and add what they tell you. Your competitive analysis feeds the weaknesses box, and a regular habit of environmental scanning feeds the opportunities and threats.
Make one decision before you file it.
Hold your next big objective up against the boxes. If the truth supports it, go. If not, change the objective. That is what the book calls testing an objective against the truth.
Dr. Paul's Insight
The mistake Dr. Paul sees most often is a SWOT that gets done once and then put in a drawer. Four boxes that do not change a single decision are just a drawing. Dr. Paul's rule of thumb is simple: if a box is empty, you have not asked the right person yet. Go stand where your customers stand before you write "none."
Watch
Watch: SWOT Analysis in a Real Business Plan
Two videos from Dr. Paul. The first is a short business plan writer's tip on what a SWOT analysis is and why it belongs in your plan. The second walks through writing a trucking company business plan, including where the SWOT fits.
Business Plan Writer's Tip #40 for Atlanta, GA.: SWOT Analysis… WTF?
Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA. (2:56)
How to write a Trucking Company Business Plan
Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA. (13:07)
From the Book
Read a Passage From Chapter 11
Chapter 11 · SWOT Analysis
Eleven Strengths, No Weaknesses: A Fox’s Four Boxes
“Best pizza in the forest,” said a beaver ahead of him, to a vole. “No contest.”
“Slow, though,” said the vole. “One window. You wait.”
“Still better than the coast,” said the beaver. “My brother’s on the ferry. He says the coast truck’s never there when it storms. He walked up to the dock for a slice twice last week and it wasn’t there either time. He’s started bringing bread.”
Frankie stood very still.
“Shame,” said the vole. “It’s good pizza when it’s there.”
“That’s the thing,” said the beaver. “When it’s there.”
Read what Frankie decides about the green truck in Strategy for Small Businesses, Book 6 of Dr. Paul's Fabled Forest Business School Series.
Get the Book on Amazon →FAQ
SWOT Analysis Questions Owners Ask
How do I do a SWOT analysis for a small business?
What is the difference between strengths and opportunities?
What if I cannot think of any weaknesses?
How often should I update my SWOT?
Keep Going
Related Foundations
An honest SWOT is one of the ways an owner assesses the business. These pages go deeper. New to a term on this page? Every one is in the strategy glossary.
How to Do a Competitive Analysis
Compare yourself to everyone who wants the same customer's money.
What Is Strategic Drift?
How a business slowly falls behind while doing what used to work.
How to Set Long-Term Business Objectives
The rungs your SWOT should test against the truth.
What Is the Industry Life Cycle?
Find out whether your whole market is growing or shrinking.
Written by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA, business consultant and author of Dr. Paul's Fabled Forest Business School Series. Want an outside set of eyes on your SWOT and your next big decision? See growth plan and consulting options.
This page is for general educational purposes only. It is not legal, financial, or other professional advice. Dollar figures are illustrations. The Fabled Forest and its characters are fictional. For decisions about your own business, consult a qualified professional.