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Mastering SWOT: Strengthen Your Business Strategy | Marketing Vitals · Pharmacy Podcast Network

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  Speaker 1: You are listening to the global network of podcasters dedicated
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  Speaker 1: to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy podcast Network.
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  Speaker 2: As your business is marketing flatlined, find your pulse again
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  Speaker 2: with Marketing Vitals, bringing you innovative, in turn key healthcare
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  Speaker 2: marketing solutions from industry experts who have developed a knack
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  Speaker 2: for solving problems. A co hosted publication from GRX Marketing
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  Speaker 2: and Finch Marketing, sister companies that are passionate and knowledgeable
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  Speaker 2: about healthcare marketing.
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  Speaker 3: Hey everyone, Nicole McClure back with another episode of Marketing
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  Speaker 3: Vitals podcast. Today I am joined by Kelly Bailey, our
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  Speaker 3: vice president of marketing.
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  Speaker 4: Hey everybody, So today our.
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  Speaker 3: Focus is going to be on a SWAT analysis and
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  Speaker 3: why it's important for your business. So a SWAT is
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  Speaker 3: stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. All types of
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  Speaker 3: organizations use it and it's just a great tool to
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  Speaker 3: help you put together your plan for twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 3: So it gives you an opportunity to sit down and
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  Speaker 3: really look at what are the strengths of my businesses,
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  Speaker 3: what are the opportunities that maybe I'm not tapping into,
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  Speaker 3: and can work on for this year while looking at
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  Speaker 3: where are my weaknesses, what things do we need to
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  Speaker 3: improve on? And then finally what are our threats either
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  Speaker 3: in the industry outside external things that you can't control
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  Speaker 3: in your business, but something to be mindful of. So
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  Speaker 3: today we're going to talk through different questions things to
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  Speaker 3: think about with each component of the SWAT analysis, but
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  Speaker 3: also then look at common mistakes pitfalls to avoid when
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  Speaker 3: put in your SWAT together, and then discuss next steps
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  Speaker 3: and how it can help you with a marketing plan.
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  Speaker 3: So to get started, Kelly is going to kick us
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  Speaker 3: off with strengths yep.
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  Speaker 5: So when focusing on strengths, you want to focus on
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  Speaker 5: internal capabilities.
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  Speaker 4: So what do you excel at, What is.
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  Speaker 5: Your unique selling proposition? What makes your business different from
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  Speaker 5: your competitors? What are your sales and marketing focuses to
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  Speaker 5: differentiate you?
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  Speaker 4: So again you want to look.
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  Speaker 5: At like internal capabilities, resources that you have that others
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  Speaker 5: do not, or maybe others do, but it's a strength
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  Speaker 5: of yours as well, and positive factors that help your
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  Speaker 5: company serve its customers and your objectives. Basically, So to
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  Speaker 5: kind of give you some example questions, you can ask
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  Speaker 5: yourself to figure out what are your company's strengths. You know,
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  Speaker 5: what is your competitive advantage? What is it that you
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  Speaker 5: do better than anybody else.
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  Speaker 4: Where?
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  Speaker 5: Do you, you know, excel compared to you know, your competitors.
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  Speaker 4: And this may this may.
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  Speaker 5: Be regarding your service in terms of the service or
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  Speaker 5: product you provide, but it could also be your team.
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  Speaker 5: It could also be you know, anything else internally that
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  Speaker 5: you have that others do not. It doesn't necessarily have
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  Speaker 5: to just be the product or service that you sell.
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  Speaker 5: What resources do you have available to you? You know,
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  Speaker 5: do you have proprietary software, do you have you know,
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  Speaker 5: great partnerships in place that help support your business? You know,
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  Speaker 5: things along those lines, and then what products or services
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  Speaker 5: are performing well. So when you're doing a suad, it's
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  Speaker 5: important to look at your entire business, but you can
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  Speaker 5: also focus on a specific product or service line within
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  Speaker 5: your company, so you know, looking at your company as
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  Speaker 5: a whole, and then also looking at the individual services
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  Speaker 5: that you offer. So say you offer three or four
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  Speaker 5: different product or services, which ones are doing well?
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  Speaker 4: Why are they doing well?
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  Speaker 5: What is it about them that sets them apart from
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  Speaker 5: the other services or products that you're offering? And focusing
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  Speaker 5: on those types of strengths to kind of figure out
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  Speaker 5: where you excel. Additionally, kind of focusing and switching gears
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  Speaker 5: to weaknesses. So again these are these are internal limitations,
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  Speaker 5: so areas for improvement, competitor advantages, so things that you
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  Speaker 5: you know your team struggles with, so you know, basically
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  Speaker 5: looking at any negative factors that may interfere with your
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  Speaker 5: company's overall performance. So where can you improve You know,
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  Speaker 5: looking at online reviews can be helpful here, So what
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  Speaker 5: are what are people complaining about with regards to your company?
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  Speaker 5: You know, what are team members complaining about with regards
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  Speaker 5: to how they you know, have to do their jobs,
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  Speaker 5: those types of things, What products or services are underperforming?
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  Speaker 5: You know which ones are not doing as well and
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  Speaker 5: figuring out why and then where are you lacking any
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  Speaker 5: sort of knowledge.
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  Speaker 4: Or resource or support or service.
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  Speaker 5: Basically any internal limitations that you're facing that are negatively
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  Speaker 5: impacting your company's overall growth and performance.
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  Speaker 3: And I think sometimes for a weakness.
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  Speaker 4: So it's.
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  Speaker 3: It's just acknowledging it. It doesn't always have to be
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  Speaker 3: something that you can change, right. So here with RX
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  Speaker 3: and Finch, we do a SWAT analysis every year where
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  Speaker 3: we go through each component and sometimes our weaknesses, for example,
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  Speaker 3: are just things that we don't offer as a company.
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  Speaker 3: So that's considered a weakness to some of our competitors,
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  Speaker 3: but that's okay. It's not something that we're going to do.
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  Speaker 3: We just know that we can't compete in those arenas.
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  Speaker 3: So I think sometimes a weakness can just be something
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  Speaker 3: you don't do but don't necessarily want to or have.
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  Speaker 4: To change it. Correct.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's more about acknowledging than it is about trying
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  Speaker 5: to fix everything.
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  Speaker 4: There may be a lot of weaknesses.
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  Speaker 5: That you have that are just like you said, are unrealistic,
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  Speaker 5: things that you don't want to but compared to your competitors,
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  Speaker 5: it is something that you don't offer. And so just
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  Speaker 5: making sure that you're aware of what your weaknesses are
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  Speaker 5: and how you can differentiate yourself from your competitors while
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  Speaker 5: focusing on your strengths is definitely going to be supportive
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  Speaker 5: of your overall business plan moving forward. So you know,
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  Speaker 5: you know what other what competitors are doing that you don't,
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  Speaker 5: and so how you can differentiate yourself with what you
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  Speaker 5: do offer for sure.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So now moving on to opportunities, So this would
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  Speaker 3: be areas of growth and development for your company, and
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  Speaker 3: it's looking at favorable factors or trends outside of your business.
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  Speaker 3: So now thinking externally that you might be able to
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  Speaker 3: take advantage of to grow your business. So that could
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  Speaker 3: be looking at new targets that you are trying to
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  Speaker 3: go after. So maybe you've always captured this one group
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  Speaker 3: and now looking at are there opportunities either based on
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  Speaker 3: new products and services that we offer or just a
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  Speaker 3: switch in our focus that we want to target different audiences,
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  Speaker 3: or maybe it's starting a new product or service altogether.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe something has happened in the industry that lends itself
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  Speaker 3: to Hey, we could launch this new product to serve
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  Speaker 3: that need. Other things to look at, what new technology
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  Speaker 3: can we use? So how can we perform our duties
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  Speaker 3: smarter for our business? Let's work smarter not harder. Looking
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  Speaker 3: at things to implement for your team that makes their
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  Speaker 3: jobs easier, things like that, can we.
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  Speaker 4: Expand our operations?
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  Speaker 3: You know, maybe this is are there opportunities to deliver
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  Speaker 3: or to a community that's you know, maybe five ten
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  Speaker 3: minutes away, or moving operations to a different part, maybe
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  Speaker 3: it's a physical move something like that. What new segments
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  Speaker 3: can we test again target audiences, can we expand upon
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  Speaker 3: or you know, maybe it's diving deeper into your current
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  Speaker 3: customer base. You know, they always come to us for
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  Speaker 3: this one service. Is there something else we could be
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  Speaker 3: offering them? And you know, maybe they just don't do
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  Speaker 3: it because they're not aware of it, you know. So
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  Speaker 3: then looking at do we need to kind of build
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  Speaker 3: out some marketing messaging around that? And then finally what
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  Speaker 3: has changed either just in the economy and the industry
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  Speaker 3: that we can take advantage of. So listening out all
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  Speaker 3: of those opportunities to see where your business can grow
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  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty six. And the last one is threat,
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  Speaker 3: So that is future strategy and preparation support. So a
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  Speaker 3: threat is going to be things that are threatening basically
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  Speaker 3: again outside of your company, but threatening to your business
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  Speaker 3: that presents challenges to the company's performance. So obviously Slee
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  Speaker 3: pharmacy industry, you know the continued issues with PBMs and
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  Speaker 3: IRA now happening. You know, things like that that you
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  Speaker 3: really have no control over. But how is it going
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  Speaker 3: to impact your business in twenty twenty six? You know,
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  Speaker 3: other regulations that are changing that could affect your company.
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  Speaker 3: What are competitors doing is as a competitor offered a
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  Speaker 3: new service that maybe you just can't compete with or
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  Speaker 3: is going to affect your bottom line, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: looking at how you can adjust your tactics to healthfully
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  Speaker 3: minimize that impact. And then finally, consumer trends, how are
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  Speaker 3: they changing that's going to impact your business. So again
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  Speaker 3: on the pharmacy side, it's you know, Amazon pharmacy is
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  Speaker 3: doing a big push. How is that going to impact
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  Speaker 3: your business? Is that you need to shift and focus
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  Speaker 3: on services that are only available inside the pharmacy. Is
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  Speaker 3: it trying to compete in some other fashion? Like what
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  Speaker 3: does that look like on a threat level? So as
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  Speaker 3: you would as you do this, just know that no answers.
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  Speaker 3: There's no right or wrong answers in the initial round.
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  Speaker 3: So kind of going from there to develop it out,
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  Speaker 3: refine it, making sure that you're you know, including all
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  Speaker 3: of your staff, because some of your support staff maybe
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  Speaker 3: they have different takes on what they see their strengths
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  Speaker 3: and weaknesses and opportunities, So making sure that you're including everyone.
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  Speaker 3: And then so Kelly's going to hit on a few
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  Speaker 3: common mistakes that we see with putting together a squad analysis.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, and just kind of going back a little bit there.
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  Speaker 5: It is possible that something lives is both a you know,
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  Speaker 5: an opportunity and a threat. It can live in more
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  Speaker 5: than one of the areas. Like you know, for us
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  Speaker 5: as a marketing company, AI can be seen as both
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  Speaker 5: an opportunity and a threat.
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  Speaker 4: It's an opportunity for us.
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  Speaker 5: Because it is a great tool for inspiration and you know,
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  Speaker 5: helping to you know, just come up with different ideas
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  Speaker 5: or different you know, topics or taglines or you know.
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  Speaker 4: It's a great inspiration creative tool.
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  Speaker 5: It's not the end all be all by any means,
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  Speaker 5: but it is a great tool that can potentially help
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  Speaker 5: from a marketing and creativity standpoint.
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  Speaker 4: But it's also a threat because.
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  Speaker 5: People believe that AI can just be their marketer and
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  Speaker 5: so they feel like they can do it all in
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  Speaker 5: house and just have AI do everything, which we do
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  Speaker 5: not recommend for several reasons. And we have a podcast
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  Speaker 5: that we do talk about that, so go listen to
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  Speaker 5: that if you need that. But basically, it is possible
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  Speaker 5: for something to live in more than one category.
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  Speaker 4: It can be both an opportunity and a threat. It
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  Speaker 4: can be both a strength.
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  Speaker 5: And weakness, So don't feel like you have to limit
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  Speaker 5: things just to one category. So, like Nicole said, we're
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  Speaker 5: going to kind of switch to you know, what are
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  Speaker 5: some common mistakes that people make when it comes to
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  Speaker 5: building out analysis. You know, first and foremost, one of
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  Speaker 5: the biggest mistakes is just failing to be objective and honest.
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  Speaker 5: If you're not going to go into this with a
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  Speaker 5: very open mind and be brutally honest about your company,
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  Speaker 5: your strengths and your weaknesses, you're not gonna get a
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  Speaker 5: good picture. Basically, you're gonna if you you know, if
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  Speaker 5: you overestimate your strengths or downplay your weaknesses, you're going
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  Speaker 5: to lead to you know, missed opportunities for improvement, and
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  Speaker 5: it's going to leave you vulnerable to threats. If you
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  Speaker 5: ignore something or downplay the importance of something, then that's
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  Speaker 5: going to leave you vulnerable and could come back to
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  Speaker 5: bite you down the line as you're building out your
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  Speaker 5: marketing plan for twenty twenty six. Another common mistake, as
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  Speaker 5: Nicole said, failing to get input from others. You know,
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  Speaker 5: you should definitely try to get input from all employees
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  Speaker 5: at a variety of levels.
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  Speaker 4: You know, don't just rely on your leadership team.
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  Speaker 5: You know, talk with your the people in your call center,
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  Speaker 5: the people who interact with your you know, your customers,
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  Speaker 5: your sales team. Everybody at every level is going to
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  Speaker 5: have a different and take on where your company's strengths
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  Speaker 5: and weaknesses truly lie. Talk with your customers, talk with
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  Speaker 5: your suppliers, talk with other industry experts. It doesn't also
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  Speaker 5: just have to be people within your company. You know,
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  Speaker 5: get solicit feedback from everywhere, because that will give you
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  Speaker 5: a truly good picture of how people view your company
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  Speaker 5: from a variety of different standpoints. And so another common
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  Speaker 5: mistake is just treating it as a one and done exercise.
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  Speaker 5: You know, you should be prepared to do your SWAT
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  Speaker 5: analysis at a minimum periodically.
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  Speaker 4: Like Nicole said, we do ours.
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  Speaker 5: Annually, and every year that we have done it, we
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  Speaker 5: have had changes to it. So, you know, the business
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  Speaker 5: environment is constantly changing, either with regulations, with the economy,
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  Speaker 5: with new technologies emerging with new trends, and your SWAT
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  Speaker 5: analysisicists should be updated to you know, remain relevant and
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  Speaker 5: applicable to what's happening in the world today. So those
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  Speaker 5: are just kind of some common mistakes with SWAT analysis.
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  Speaker 4: And I'm going to turn it over to Nicole and
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  Speaker 4: she's going to talk about next steps.
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  Speaker 5: So what do you do once you have your SWAT
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  Speaker 5: analysis all put together?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you've got it. You know, I would put
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  Speaker 3: it up so everybody can see it, so if there
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  Speaker 3: was anybody on your team that's not was not involved
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  Speaker 3: in the process, so they're aware of it. But also
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  Speaker 3: it's a good reminder for everybody. You know, what are
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  Speaker 3: our strengths, what are our weaknesses? How can we change
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  Speaker 3: those that sort of thing.
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  Speaker 4: And then from there.
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  Speaker 3: The next step would be to how do you incorporate
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  Speaker 3: this into a marketing plan for your business going forward.
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  Speaker 3: So our recommendation is to pick one or two either
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  Speaker 3: from each of the category or from total. So it
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  Speaker 3: could be, you know, one opportunity, one weakness, a strength
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  Speaker 3: that you want to build upon, a threat that you
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  Speaker 3: want to address, that sort of thing that will have
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  Speaker 3: the biggest impact on your business. So maybe it's a
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  Speaker 3: new opportunity has become available to you and that's really
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  Speaker 3: what you want to focus on. So from there kind
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  Speaker 3: of build out, Okay, how can we achieve this goal
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  Speaker 3: by taking advantage of this opportunity? So building out the
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  Speaker 3: tactics to make that change. So maybe it's there's an
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  Speaker 3: option to move into a different market or offer a
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  Speaker 3: new product or service. You know, how are you going
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  Speaker 3: to go about actually doing that?
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  Speaker 4: The biggest thing to.
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  Speaker 3: Remember is to not ignore the other things or only
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  Speaker 3: focusing on opportunities, because those are generally the most the
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  Speaker 3: positive part of the SWAT analysis. It's easy to just
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  Speaker 3: always look at, okay, what opportunities we have, what can
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  Speaker 3: we do without really looking at the total picture. Because
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  Speaker 3: if your weaknesses are one of the main things that
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  Speaker 3: need to be addressed, but that's not really happening, the
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  Speaker 3: opportunities aren't going to matter because you're just you haven't
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  Speaker 3: addressed maybe potential issues with your business, whether that's operationally, financially, uh,
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  Speaker 3: you know, whatever it is. So the new opportunities aren't
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  Speaker 3: really going to matter or come to fruition. So if
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  Speaker 3: you choose an opportunity to focus on, make sure the
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  Speaker 3: next thing that you're going to look at is your weaknesses.
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  Speaker 3: Don't always focus kind of on the the S and
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  Speaker 3: the W. Make sure that you're looking at the O,
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  Speaker 3: N T as well, and then vice versa. I guess
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  Speaker 3: you know, So if you start you're looking at your weaknesses,
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  Speaker 3: make sure you then flip over too opportunities that you
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  Speaker 3: that you have or some strengths that you can build upon,
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  Speaker 3: because always focusing on the weaknesses is just going to potentially,
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  Speaker 3: you know, affect your staff and kind of demoralize them
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  Speaker 3: and and everything. So to make sure that you're kind
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  Speaker 3: of going back.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: And forth on that.
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  Speaker 3: So this SWAT analysis is great for a company where
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: you recommend it for for all of our clients typically
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  Speaker 3: when they sign up either on the j X or
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Finch side, that's something we kind of go through is
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: looking at those four components because I do think it's
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  Speaker 3: it's a great way to lay out a marketing plan
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  Speaker 3: for a company. So I guess just to wrap up, Kelly,
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  Speaker 3: do you have anything else to add?
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  Speaker 4: I think we pretty well covered it, got it for good.
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  Speaker 4: I think for good. I think we crushed it well.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you to listen for listening to another episode of
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Marketing Vitals podcast. We are your host Kelly and Nicole,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: and thank you for joining us.