Find out if your business idea is good for you

If you are like me, you would probably have so many business ideas that you would love to start. Well the truth is that you just can’t start all these ideas you think are unique and extraordinary at the same time, except you are superwoman and you have 48 hours in your day. Unfortunately, I do not av e48 hours in my day. So I have to prioritise and so do you. Which means you might have to start with the idea that is most likely to succeed and most likely to suit your life season now. 

But how do you know which of your multiple business ideas it would be? In this blog I want to share a very technical business tool which you can actually use to sort out the multiple business ideas you have. Though technical, I have found an easy way to make it practical  for myself and it works. The business toll is the SWOT analysis tool. You can use it to analyse the internal and external factors that would determine how your business would evolve. 

Let’s start from a place of excellence and positivity. 

You might look at your life and conclude that you do not have any skills or talents. I say this because we receive so many comments and questions from young people visiting my website – joadre.com, who chat us up asking what business ideas they can start but they then drop off the comment of “I do not have any talent”. Seriously? Who said you must start a business with a talent? 

Capitalising on your talents is not the only way to start a business. You start a business based on the deep desire you feel to start the business. How you think about yourself will extremely affect the results you get. Of course you have talents. So let’s talk about your strengths as I would like to rather refer to talents as such. Strengths is the first letter in the technical business tool I talked about earlier called the SWOT. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. 

What are strengths and how can you use it to sort out your business ideas?

Strengths are those internal factors, characters, attitudes, skills, access, reccources, talents, abilities etc. that you have. It is internal because it has to do with you and you alone. Only you influence these things. And here is the good news, you can build on your strengths. I was not born able to read and write, neither where you but we all learned to do it. At first, I was not passionate about sports but I knew I had to somehow start my fitness journey so I began to learn. Digital marketing was never something I felt interested in but I came to love it and develop the skills I need. 

So you see, strengths are your greatest asset. 

We all have one or more of them but if you still end up concluding you have none, then one thing you can do to fix this is to build your strength asset. When you look at  your business ideas, where do you see that you have the most strengths or can grow the most strengths now? If you have 3 business ideas and they revolve around these 3 different areas for example – customer service, digital and manufacturing. 

Ask yourself, which strengths do I have now or am I willing to grow that can serve me in any of these areas? For customer service, do you have great human relation skills? For digital? Are you internet savvy or willing to learn? For manufacturing? Do you have the technical skills to actually manufacture whatever it is you intend to manufacture or are you willing to learn that skill? Watch my video about Strengths on YouTube to understand more.  

What about areas for improvements, a.k.a Weaknesses?

Weaknesses makeup the second part of the SWOT analysis technique which I highly recommend you examine. Weaknesses like strengths are also internal factors. Something you can influence by actually improving on them. Because weaknesses are just like strength but the opposite. If you know your strengths, find out which areas you need to improve for all your business ideas. Run with the business idea that you know that the areas to improve is something you are interested in now. Watch my video about Weaknesses on YouTube to understand more. 

Opportunities bring growth!

Unlike the first two above, opportunities are external factors that you may not be able to directly influence. So when you have multiple  business ideas, examine all these ideas to see how the prospect looks like ahead. How the industry, the environment is for the ideas. Is it a growing industry? Will there be more opportunities in the future or even now? Of course you will navigate towards the idea with the most opportunities. Opportunities are possibilities to scale your business ideas in the future, so learn more on my Youtube channel video about Opportunities. 

Threats you should be aware of. 

People hear threats and are already nervous when they hear this, but I urge you to see threats as opportunities. They are also external factors that you often cannot influence. Take for example a government legislation or new industry regulation that could affect your business negatively. You might not be able to envisage all of them, but merely being aware of this possibility will keep you open to counter them or react swiftly in favor of your business.

So before you dive into a specific business, it is always helpful to quickly dedicate a short moment to think about the potential threats beyond your control. Then take action to come up with ways to combat these threats. So at the end of the day, you get to choose just that one with less threats from the multiple business ideas that you have. Here is a YouTube video of mine about threats to watch. 

Concluding for an idea to start based on the SWOT analysis.

After you have analysed all ideas based on the strengths you have or willing to acquire and the weaknesses as well. Then you weigh the opportunities and threats, you can confidently rank your business ideas accordingly. Run with the one with more opportunities, less traits and more avenues to improve later. However, keep the other business ideas open as there is always the option to engage in them after you have kickstarted the first one nicely. 

3 key take away from this blog
  • You have strengths and identify them. 
  • Be open and willing to grow through learning. 
  • See treats as opportunities. 

Hey, thank you so much for stopping by and reading through to the end. I really appreciate it, because it takes so much to put this together. Hope you liked it. If you did, remember to share this blog on social media. Yes, more free training and videos on this topic will be out this month on YouTube. Not to miss out,  subscribe and turn on the notification on Youtube. It would be nice if you follow me on instagram as I share daily strategies and personal fun stuff. I am on facebook as well but to get it all in one place, subscribe to my free newsletter. Drop your comments, questions, feedback beneath using the comment section and I will be happy to answer your questions in my next video or blog

Look forward to hearing from you soon!

Cheers, 

Joana

 

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Joadre
Joadrehttps://www.joadre.com
I am Joana, a Nigerian-born Austrian-based entrepreneur and activist. Founded Joadre in 2012 and continue to develop content to engage and empower African SMEs.

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