A: One reason I am so qualified to dispense sage business advice every week, Allen, is that I have made just about every business blunder you can imagine. I am like Evel Knievel of small business world, if Evel Knievel wrote a weekly column on motorcycle safety.

One of more unpleasant things I've had to do is fire a good friend who was not doing job I hired him to do. He needed a job, I needed an employee, so I thought I would give him a shot. It turned out to be a match made in business hell. He took advantage of our friendship by showing up late for work, spending time goofing off instead of working, and making a joke out of my complaints about his behavior. Because of our friendship I defended his actions to my other employees, but after a few weeks I knew I had to show him door. We're still friends, but certainly not like we were before.

The blunder I made was hiring a friend in first place. I let emotion, i.e. desire to help my friend gain employment, get in way of my business sense. That's what you are doing now, Allen, and I hate to be bearer of bad news, but you are going to have to deal with this situation soon or your entire operation may be affected by actions of this one person.

The blunder you have made is that you have befriended an employee, which is something you should never do. I'm not saying you can't be friendly with your employees, but you have attached a considerable amount of emotional baggage to employer/employee relationship and result is situation you are faced with today.

Friends expect preferential treatment simply because they are your friends. The workplace, however, must be a level playing field for all your employees, friends or not. While employees deserve your respect (if it is earned), giving one employee preferential treatment over another is never a good idea. This is a problem experienced by many business owners and managers who allow themselves to become too close to their employees.

I understand that he has become your friend over years and you'd rather eat rocks than fire him, but you have to consider how his behavior is impacting your business over all. What effect is he having on employee morale, on work schedules, on customer relations, on time spent fixing his mistakes, and most importantly, bottom line?

A: Laurie, before you call in SWOT team to deal with this investor (sorry, couldn't resist that one), let me tell you exactly what a SWOT Analysis is and how it can not only help you plan for future, but get a gauge of how your business is doing today.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT Analysis is a written exercise that can help you clarify and focus on specifics that make up four areas that most affect your business. The purpose of a SWOT Analysis is to help you build on your business' strengths, minimize and correct weaknesses, and take greatest possible advantage of potential opportunities while formulating a plan to deal with potential threats.

Think of a SWOT Analysis as a checkup for your business. By spending a little time examining internal and external factors that affect your business' health you can better gauge present state of your business and identify things that may adversely affect your business' health in future.

It's a good idea for every business to perform a SWOT Analysis on occasion, especially if you are doing strategic planning, contemplating a change in direction or formulating new strategies for distribution, marketing and sales.

Should you hire a consultant to perform a SWOT Analysis for you? Speaking as a consultant who has been paid to perform SWOT Analyses for companies in past, I can honestly (and yes, without bias) say that depends on three factors: (1) size of your company; (2) how in-depth SWOT Analysis needs to be; and (3) how much of your investor's money you'd like to spend.

Larger corporations are most likely to hire professional firms to perform such analyses, primarily due to complex nature of big business. Some corporate SWOT Analyses can run on for several hundred pages. Typically, a consultant will charge up to $100 or more per hour to perform a detailed corporate SWOT Analysis and most large companies consider this money well spent as a good SWOT Analysis can reveal otherwise ignored factors that might increase company's bottom line or help avert future losses.

For a smaller business, however, a professional SWOT Analysis can be an exercise in overkill. For your money you will get an impressive, detailed report that will make for great show at your next investor or board meeting and a wonderfully expensive door stop rest of time. I don't mean to belittle value of a professional SWOT Analysis for small businesses. It's just that smaller companies can learn as much from their own efforts as that of an expensive consultant.

You can perform a simple SWOT Analysis with a #2 pencil and a fast food napkin, but to get a truly accurate view of your company's SWOT factor I suggest you do things a bit more formally (and without aid of condiments). I recommend that you involve all key players in your business, including management, employees, your attorney, accountant, even your spouse. My wife often gives me insights into my business just from listening to me talk at dinner. Sometimes we business owners and managers can't see forest for trees. It's good to have someone else point out things we might miss.