SWOT classifies a business’s strengths, weaknesses, market opportunities, and competitor threats in a chart to aid the business owner in developing a calculated plan for moving the company forward in a positive direction. It assists in helping recognize which opportunities need implementation, and which threats need to be overcome, in order to improve the success of the company. It also shows the business's relative position within the market.

SWOT is successful because of its simplicity and representation in visual form. The following outline will assist business owners in creating their own SWOT analysis spreadsheet.

When a business owner contemplates the sale of his business, the idea of hiring a real estate agent (sometimes referred to as a real estate broker) may seem reasonable, especially if commercial property is included in the sale of the business. In fact though, there are many tasks a business broker is uniquely equipped to handle, whereas a real estate broker is not skilled in the same areas.