SWOT with a twist – on the way to the elevator pitch

Identifying with your business

I must say that I am pretty impressed how strong the content of The Online Marketing MBA makes me think about the fundamentals of my business. From experience, I know that I sometimes am not as precise in my formulations as I should be but get along nevertheless. Communication only works if the recipient understands what the sender really is meaning and not what he is saying.

If you happen to have someone to talk honestly with, he or she will call you out if everything you have to tell is hot air and your content sucks. However, if this person is missing, we can often fool ourselves into thinking we have all the answers and that the concept is sound. Perhaps I’m implying that we are not always true to ourselves and we avoid answering the question which we really should have focused on, often because it is hard.It is our mission statement. It is our motivation.

Without setting out our goals and understanding the very basics of our business then our growth is naturally confined. We have to push a lot further to really generate satisfying result, which both feel and sound right and help guide us in the weeks to come.

With the beginning of Module 2 we got an introduction to the well-known SWOT Analysis. As I am little aware of business administration lingo I was saying to myself “Booooring” and prepared to pull out my bullshit bingo card.

At University, the SWOT Analysis was just another consultant tool how to describe a business and how to position it, and yet it always felt so shallow with no depth since textbook examples and tuition schedules often fail the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) rule.

But what Dee pulled out of the drawer really made me smile again. With a simple twist, the SWOT Analysis actually becomes a pretty useful tool. I won´t give it away here but again Dee’s teaching style with simple yet powerful questions allow this method to dig deep in our own identification with our business.

You are what you do

I am often asked what I actually do in business and I realized that I don´t have a clear and precise answer yet. A communications coach I happen to know on a private basis here in Berlin is offering specialized workshops on how to develop your elevator pitch. You should be able to explain to anyone in less than 30 seconds what you do and what your business. I have the feeling that the course will cover this important part in the next lessons and I am grateful for that.

When you are asked in Germany “What do you do?” the answer is actually what you work AS (I am a chef, a journalist, a banker, an entrepreneur, a manager). In the UK the answer would sound more like what you work “IN” (I work in real estate, in media, in finance). So while we Germans have a stronger identification to our position and job description. Whereas the British might have a stronger identification to their general area of business and the company they belong to.

However, as an entrepreneur or business owner, this should look a little bit different. You need to have an answer that delivers both. for yourself. Because you are what you do. So what do you do?