The “W” in SWOT stands for Weaknesses. For many of us, this will be easier than assessing our strengths. As one breeder said during a recent SWOT meeting, “I am keenly aware of what I am not doing well.” While our desire is not beat ourselves up and feel like failures, it is paramount for us to get a handle on areas of weakness. As we will learn in future articles, weaknesses that are not addressed become threats quickly. 

If you are following along in each part, what you want to do now is to make a list like how you did it for strengths. List anything that you are not doing well that needs to be done better or not doing at all that needs to be done. As we did in the Strengths article, make sure you include every aspect of your breeding program: facilities, staff, marketing, branding, systems, customer relations, dogs, post-sales support, etc. Once you’ve compiled all your weaknesses into a master list, categorize them under the above-mentioned categories. As before, go through the list and identify your top two or three weaknesses in each category and circle them. 

Then, like before, pick out the top two or three problems in each group. Next, take each of these circled problems and think about why they’re problems. This is super important. Be honest with yourself. Is it because of specific things like not having enough staff or money? Or is it more about how you feel, like being confused or worried about something? Understanding why these things are problems will help figure out how to fix them. At this point you should have a list of weaknesses and why it’s a weakness. Your chart might look something like this chart: