This document discusses the realities of a career in marketing and provides tips for successful marketing. It notes that marketing often involves analyzing numbers rather than glamorous roles. The most successful marketers 1) enjoy analyzing data, 2) are driven to find answers, and 3) are good at basic math. The key role for marketers is analyzing financial data like profits and losses using simple math. Playing card games helps develop these math and social skills. Following the 80/20 rule by focusing on the top 20% most profitable products can significantly improve a business's profits. The document provides a 3 step process for evaluating business opportunities using basic financial analysis and metrics.

1. Marketing Uncomplicated... simple solutions to business problems marketinguncomplicated.com
Marketing is truly a
Numbers game
80-20 Rule ……….. eliminates Opportunity Cost

2. Table of Contents
Marketing Perceptions
Reality Real Numbers,
Real Practice
Step 1….Evaluation
Step 2….Profit?
Step 3...80-20 rule
Sales Team to Apply
Key Traits
Buried Treasure
Proof
3 Steps to Success

3. College students perceive marketing to be a glamorous and exciting
role in an organization, between
● shooting TV commercials
● photo shoots with aspiring models and
● launching New Products
It is the most sought-after coming out of post secondary school

4. The reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. In the early
stages in CPG companies like these, marketing is one of the teadiest
roles
But a marketing position, buried in numbers, thoroughly prepares you
to become a General Manager …….because you are learning
everything from the ground up

5. Traits of the Most
Successful Marketers
1. They love playing the game
2. Have an insatiable drive to search for answers
3. Good at simple, fast, basic math

6. Digging for Buried Treasure
The key role of any Marketer/General Manager is looking at and
grinding out the numbers
Not Calculus (it totally escapes me why Business Schools mandate this)
What is really needed to succeed is simple math to navigate the P&L
(Profit & Loss), be it for the entire business, or for individual items
within a business

7. Improves Social Interaction
Simple math, adding and subtracting, making sure that you include
everything (the best surprise, is no surprise at all!), is the type of math
practiced playing cards, counting in Bridge, Cribbage or Hearts
Playing frequently mandates face to face contact and social interaction,
skills which every successful marketer must have. It allows you to
embrace walking around and caring about feelings and people

8. Proof
A self-made female millionaire I know went from flat broke, with
an infant, in a new province to becoming President and sole
owner of a company which generated $10M in top line sales
She struggled with simple math. Weekends of card games
delivered rapid counting skills and strategies, just by having fun
and practicing. Loving the game of cards means loving the game
of business
Her math skills morphed over to her investment strategy for her
personal money allowing her to reap even bigger dividends. She
is working smart all the time!

9. 3 Steps to Success

10. Evaluating the Franchise Numbers
Pro forma P&L’s on websites or the ones you are given by the seller are meaningless
without FIRST validating the top line number of customers and sales
Sit in front of the store or business that you are looking to buy and estimate the
average sales/day based on customer traffic. Extrapolate these out over a full year,
and then you can be confident that the sales numbers are indeed possible
If they are, then move to step two

11. STEP 2
What is the estimated profit on those sales?
What is your salary to be and what is left over to pay off costs of the business?
These can even be the back of the napkin calculations. If there is nothing of
significance, then you just bought yourself a job and are not working for yourself,
but for your landlord and the government

12. STEP 3
You have an hour a day where you are not selling and there are no customers
Evaluate the profit on your biggest 5 items, applying the 80-20 rule where 80% of
your profit comes from 20% of your items being sold (inventory).
These most profitable items are to be promoted, prominently featured at the front of
the store, near the checkout
Have your cashiers communicate these benefits to stimulate the incremental
purchases

13. All of your Sales Team should…...
Not knowing unit sales or the profitability of key items, off the top of your head is
not knowing where the easy money sits!
After evaluating the top five items in your portfolio, then work your way down the
list. Once you approach 20%, become ruthless. These are items that are making
little money because of either low sales or high costs. Get rid of them!
Get your Sales Team to focus on the most profitable items and you improve your
profit mix (more profitable items, with no extra work). Easy to pick low hanging
fruit