Whether you use a document or an e-mail message, a well organized and timely report to your team members or your boss will always be received with appreciated and will always communicate to others that you’re serious about doing your job. By using guidelines below, you’ll be on your way to improving your image and your productivity (even if you’re already doing company reports).

When To Create a Report Reports are excellent for recapping a meeting or important conversation. Once details are agreed upon by all attending, it is much easier to move forward with confidence. If you’re attending a meeting where you’re expected to give a status of your activity, you should always have your update written to make it easy for you to give your report and for your audience to use as a reference during meeting and afterwards. Other appropriate moments for a good report are following: when delivering a project (or milestone), to summarize analyses or research findings, or to assign or hand over a task or project to someone else.

Don’t Be Afraid to Take Notes There is nothing more frustrating than trying to remember an important point that you don’ have written down. The best way to make sure that your report has all of important details is to make sure that you have all of details available to you. Taking meticulous notes from start to finish (even if they don’t seem important at time) will ensure that you get your report right first time. It may seem like a lot of work in beginning, but as my mom always said, "A stitch in time saves nine."

Completing a SWOT analysis helps you identify ways to minimize affect of weaknesses in your business while maximizing your strengths. Ideally, you will match your strengths against market opportunities that result from your competitors’ weaknesses or voids.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Basic SWOT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can develop a basic SWOT analysis in a brainstorming session with members of your company, or by yourself if you are a one-person shop. To begin a basic SWOT analysis create a four-cell grid or four lists, one for each SWOT component:

| Strengths | Weaknesses | Opportunities | Threats |

Then, begin filling in lists.

* Strengths - Think about what your company does well. What makes you stand out from your competitors? What advantages do you have over other businesses?

* Weaknesses - List areas that are a struggle. What do your customers complain about? What are unmet needs of your sales force?

* Opportunities - Try to uncover areas where your strengths are not being fully utilized. Are there emerging trends that fit with your company's strengths? Is there a product/service area that you could do well in but are not yet competing?

* Threats - Look both inside and outside of your company for things that could damage your business. Internally, do you have financial, development, or other problems? Externally, are your competitors becoming stronger, are there emerging trends that amplify one of your weaknesses, or do you see other threats to your company's success?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Advanced SWOT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~