The sales process · Strategic plan
Most SWOTs end up as a list of complaints about other departments.
A SWOT analysis is an inventory of four things. What your business is genuinely better at, where it is weak, what is changing outside that you could use, and what could take orders away. It is a list, not a plan. GullySales builds it from evidence rather than from the room's opinions.
In one paragraph
A SWOT analysis is an inventory of four things. What your business is genuinely better at, where it is weak, what is changing outside that you could use, and what could take orders away. It is a list, not a plan. GullySales builds it from evidence rather than from the room's opinions.
The four boxes are easy to draw. Strengths and weaknesses sit inside the business, where you can change them. Opportunities and threats sit outside it, where you cannot.
What makes the difference is evidence. A strength is something a customer has said out loud, or a number in your own books. Holding a tolerance for nine years without a rejection is a strength. Good quality work is not.
Core values was the step before this. The TOWS analysis is next, and it is the half nearly everybody skips, which is why so many SWOTs are still in a folder from two years ago.
Where this sits
Stage 1 of 10, strategic plan. What the business is for, what it is aiming at this year, and the numbers that say whether it got there.
- The stage after
- Customer research
If you want this done for you
Check whether a decision is a good idea before spending money on it.
The work
What this step is actually like.
“A weakness that is somebody else's fault is not a weakness”
Marketing does not send us good leads is a complaint. We have never written down what a good lead is, so every enquiry gets argued about, is a weakness. You can act on the second one next week.
“Strengths need a customer's words behind them”
Ring four customers and ask why they have stayed with you. You will hear two reasons you expected and one you did not, and the one you did not is usually the real strength.
“An opportunity with no date or trigger is a hope”
A road opening, a rule your association has circulated, a competitor's unit that has shut, a hospital being built two kilometres away. Each of those has a date. Someday people will want this does not.
“Who is in the room, and for how long”
The owner, the person who prepares quotations, the senior technician, the accountant, and one salesperson who is not your best one. Two hours, once a year, with somebody chairing who cuts off speeches.
What we do
What you end up with.
The artefacts this step produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.
One page, four boxes, evidence in brackets
Four to six lines per box, and every line carries its source: a customer, an invoice, a competitor's price list, a circular. Anything without a source moves to a second page.
Result: Nobody can argue with a line unless they bring a better source than the one written beside it.
The weaknesses rewritten as your own
Each complaint about another department turned into something the people in the room control. If it cannot be, it belongs under threats instead.
Result: A weakness list that produces work rather than a bad mood.
The threat list with dates
Each threat with what would have to happen for it to arrive, and roughly when you would first notice it.
Result: You can tell the difference between what is coming and what merely worries you.
The discard pile, kept
The lines nobody could evidence, held on a separate sheet with the date. Some of them turn out to be true next year.
Result: A short honest page instead of a long comfortable one.
Why us
Why owners pick GullySales over an agency.
Marketing and sales, as one job
Most agencies stop at the enquiry. We also fix what happens after it: the reply, the follow-up, the quote and the CRM.
The person on the first call does the work
No account managers in between. You are never handed to someone you have not met.
A baseline before anything starts
Your numbers are written down on day one, so every monthly report compares against something honest.
The fee in writing, split three ways
Our time, your media spend and production on separate lines. You always see what goes to us.
No lock-in, no guarantees we cannot keep
Three to six months at a time. We never promise a ranking or a lead count, because nobody controls those.
One office, and we say so
Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru. We work across India by call and WhatsApp and travel when a session needs to be in person.
#257, 3rd floor, Sri Nanjundeshwara Complex, Nagarbhavi 8th Block, Outer Ring Road. How we work.
The offer
Start with a free audit of how you sell.
It is useful on its own, whether or not you hire us.
What you receive
- A 90-minute call with the person who will do the work
- A written, scored report on the six places orders leak, within a few working days
- Every fix ranked by what it returns and what it costs
- The one thing to do first, and why
- An honest line on whether you need outside help at all
- If you do, the scope and the fee in writing
No invoice. No obligation. No sales script.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
How long should a SWOT be?
Should we do it with the whole team?
How often is it worth redoing?
We wrote one before and nothing happened. Why redo it?
Can you do this for us?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
Where to go next
The work that carries this step further.
The rest of strategic plan
Or read the whole sales process in order.