Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/e

Back Matter Appendix C: Career

Planning Marketing

© The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

Career Planning in Marketing 683

very rapidly in marketing. Some even end up at the top in large companies or as

owners of their own businesses.

Marketing is where the action is! In the final analysis, a firm’s success or failure

depends on the effectiveness of its marketing program. This doesn’t mean the other

functional areas aren’t important. It merely reflects the fact that a firm won’t have

much need for accountants, finance people, production managers, and so on if it

can’t successfully meet customers’ needs and sell its products.

Because marketing is so vital to a firm’s survival, many companies look for peo-

ple with training and experience in marketing when filling key executive positions.

In general, chief executive officers for the nation’s largest corporations are more

likely to have backgrounds in marketing and distribution than in other fields such

as production, finance, and engineering.

Now that you know there are many opportunities in marketing, your problem

is matching the opportunities to your own personal objectives and strengths. Basi-

cally the problem is a marketing problem: developing a marketing strategy to sell

a product—yourself—to potential employers. Just as in planning strategies for

products, developing your own strategy takes careful thought. Exhibit C-1 shows

how you can organize your own strategy planning. This exhibit shows that you

should evaluate yourself first—a personal analysis—and then analyze the environ-

ment for opportunities. This will help you sharpen your own long- and short-run

objectives—which will lead to developing a strategy. Finally, you should start

implementing your own personal marketing strategy. These ideas are explained

more fully below.

Develop Your Own Personal Marketing Strategy

Marketing is often the

route to the top

Exhibit C-1

Organizing Your Own

Personal Marketing Strategy

Planning

• Set broad long-run objectives


• Evaluate personal strengths
  and weaknesses


• Set preliminary timetables
  
  
  • Identify current opportunities
  
  
  • Examine trends which may
    affect opportunities
  
  
  • Evaluate business practices
  
  
  
  

Develop objectives

• Long-run


• Short-run

Develop your marketing plan

• Identify likely
  opportunities


• Plan your product


• Plan your promotion

Implement your marketing

plan

Personal analysis Environment analysis