---
title: "Before 30, Don't Expect to Earn Much Money!"
description: "This article advises that before age 30, career positioning and planning are more important than earning money. It outlines five key steps: analyzing hobbies, personality, and strengths; choosing the right industry; specializing in a career path; selecting the right company; and creating a career plan for the years before 30."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2014-11-27"
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# Before 30, Don't Expect to Earn Much Money!

> This article advises that before age 30, career positioning and planning are more important than earning money. It outlines five key steps: analyzing hobbies, personality, and strengths; choosing the right industry; specializing in a career path; selecting the right company; and creating a career plan for the years before 30.

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When people are young, they are sometimes arrogant and impetuous, always wanting to get rich overnight or reach the sky in one step. Although this saying is simple, I believe it contains profound career positioning principles. It tells all professionals under 30: How should you position your career before 30? Doing career positioning and planning well is more important than earning money.

Being impatient, restless, always looking at other mountains as higher, envying others' quick success, having high aims but low abilities, and jumping ship without hesitation for a higher salary regardless of industry, longevity, or future development direction—these are the most common workplace phenomena today.

As the ancients said, "Haste makes waste." Laozi said, "A tree that fills a man's embrace grows from a tiny sprout; a nine-story terrace rises from a pile of earth; a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Xunzi said, "Without accumulating small streams, you cannot form a river or sea; without accumulating small steps, you cannot reach a thousand miles." These truths tell us that career development must follow the natural law of gradual progress.

Before age 30, for a professional, I believe one should achieve the "Six Musts": must be free from arrogance and impatience, must be humble and pragmatic, must be honest and hardworking, must be diligent and eager to learn, must be cautious in the near term and think long-term, and must appear wise but act foolish. Only then can you have a good mindset; mindset determines a good positioning; positioning determines a good plan; and planning determines a good future. So before making a career plan, we need to do the following:

**■ First, analyze the three elements of career planning: hobbies, personality, and strengths.**

First, hobbies. I think hobbies should be the first consideration in a professional's career planning. Only if you like the profession will you actively invest, and only with active investment can you gain and achieve. If you don't like the profession, all work is passively accepted; your hands are there but your heart isn't, and without heart, you won't get good results.

Second, personality. As the old saying goes, "A leopard cannot change its spots," but personality is not unchangeable. I believe hobbies can change personality. Personality is usually divided into "extroverted, neutral, and introverted." As a professional, you need to analyze which type you belong to. Your career determines that most of your time is spent dealing with people, so an extroverted personality is naturally better. If you are introverted, you are not suited for sales; if you cannot or are unwilling to change (change is painful), you'd better choose another career.

Third, strengths. Strengths are the sum of your existing and potential strengths. In a market economy, professional mobility increases, and the space to change the external environment expands. Therefore, how to maximize your strengths becomes the core of self-improvement. Nothing in the world is perfect, and naturally no one is perfect. Leveraging strengths becomes key to success because sometimes shortcomings are hard to make up for, and spending time on making up for shortcomings is better spent on leveraging strengths. Thus, strength analysis is crucial.

**■ Second, choose the right industry.**

As the ancients said, "In every profession, there is a master." Another saying goes, "Men fear choosing the wrong profession; women fear marrying the wrong man."

Regarding industry characteristics, some industries are mature and have high requirements for professional quality; others are just starting and need energetic professionals. So if you like your major, you can choose an industry that matches it. If your major doesn't match (like economics or philosophy), choosing a mature field in the FMCG or durable goods industry is a good choice because you can get good training in such industries.

**■ Third, specialize in your career path.**

Any industry has many specific positions in enterprises, such as market sales personnel, marketing planners, brand managers, product developers, logistics support personnel, sales managers, or assistant to the sales director—all are called marketing personnel.

How do you choose among so many positions? Because you are just entering an industry, initial resistance may be high; a professional may not necessarily be an excellent planner, and vice versa.

**■ Fourth, choose the right company.**

After specializing, you need to select target companies. Of course, Fortune 500 companies are not necessarily the best; the right fit is the best.

First, we need to discuss whether to choose a foreign or domestic company. I think you should weigh the pros and cons based on your situation, as I said in "Who Should Chinese Marketers Learn From?"—everything has good and bad sides, and any decision must have prerequisites.

Going to a foreign company: First, your overall quality must be high, or you won't be hired. In foreign companies (like Coca-Cola), because they have operated for hundreds of years, their marketing systems are complete and standardized. No matter the position, you receive professional training, and they have a complete sales model (like Coca-Cola's 101 system) and methods (like Coca-Cola's route maps). You just follow their rules. So the good aspects are: First, you can receive good, standardized, and systematic training; second, you master advanced sales models and methods; third, you can add luster to your career. The bad aspects are: First, the fixed model limits individual innovation; second, strong brands keep salespeople in a dominant position, so you can't develop problem-solving skills in weak market conditions; third, because requirements are high, personnel changes are relatively small, and promotion space is limited.

Domestic companies are the opposite. The bad aspects are: First, it's hard to receive systematic training; second, you have to figure out sales models and methods yourself; third, the luster effect is not as good as foreign companies; fourth, because brands are relatively weak (like Coca-Cola vs. Wahaha), sales are more difficult. The good aspects are: First, salespeople can fully exercise subjective initiative and innovation; second, you develop problem-solving skills in weak market conditions; third, performance speaks for itself, assessment is relatively fair, and there are more promotion opportunities and space.

Therefore, we often say that a sales manager from a foreign company may not necessarily do well in a domestic company: first, they are not adapted and think the company is not standardized; second, the brand is weak, and they face many more difficult problems than in a foreign company. A foreign company's sales manager's market operation ability is not necessarily stronger than a domestic company's sales manager. Good sales performance in foreign companies is built on brand and good marketing models, while good sales performance in domestic companies is usually built on excellent sales managers (relatively speaking). Therefore, I suggest that HR departments of private domestic companies, when recruiting sales managers, may choose practitioners from excellent domestic companies rather than foreign companies.

After discussing foreign vs. domestic, we need to discuss the basic conditions for selecting a target company. For example, if you choose the FMCG industry, the target company should have the following characteristics: annual sales of over 100 million yuan (at least 50 million), the sub-industry is growing rapidly, the company integrates production, supply, and sales, the company has strong development momentum, and the boss is humble and dedicated. Such a company has a good foundation, and after several years of development, it tends to be standardized, not too chaotic or variable. At the same time, the company is actively achieving economies of scale, and compensation is considerable (compared to startups or mature companies). Moreover, the company has further development space, and personal development opportunities are more. Of course, a new company, a trading company, or a small company (annual sales below 10 million) is not impossible to choose, but the relative risk and the demand on your judgment are higher.

**■ Fifth, create a career plan before 30.**

As the ancients said, "Plan before acting," which is reasonable. After completing the above analysis and judgment, you should plan your 5-8 years of marketing career before 30. Form a clear career path and follow it.

In the plan, consider four important points.

First, choose carefully and prioritize stability.

That is, be very careful when choosing a company, even if it takes more time. Once you choose, you shouldn't jump ship easily. Why? First, jumping ship means spending time getting familiar with a new environment, and performance results will be delayed—this is wasting time. Second, due to lack of experience and low position, you'll still be a supervisor after jumping, which is starting over—wasting time. Third, in a new environment, you don't know people, and if the company has complex relationships, you might not last long, leaving a bad mark (HR departments don't like frequent job hoppers). Fourth, building a network takes time, and if you can't build it, how can you exert force in marketing without support? Eventually, you'll leave voluntarily. But if you stay in a company longer (at least 3 years), these problems may not occur. More importantly, only by deeply understanding a company over a long time can you truly grasp the essence of its marketing; a quick look only shows surface phenomena.

Second, every company has problems.

Don't think that a new company has no problems. Every company has problems, and each has its own; they just differ.

Third, clarify the issues of time length and time density.

Let's use frontline salespeople as an example. Usually, a salesperson should follow the 1235 career development time rule: 1 year as a sales representative, 2 years as a sales supervisor, 3 years as a regional manager, and 5 years as a provincial or branch manager. Why this arrangement? The first 3 years are the foundation, which must be solid; the last 7 years are about leading teams and management, which must be solid. After that, becoming a regional manager, sales director, or marketing general manager is much easier. But time length is not a standard for measuring experience and ability; it depends on the marketer's learning ability and comprehension. Some people's 1 year as a regional manager equals others' 3 years. So I say it's about time density—how well you master the old position's knowledge and your competence for the new position.

Fourth, set position and time goals, knowledge goals, ability goals, and salary goals at different stages in the plan.

Position goals are the levels you want to reach at each stage. Ability goals are how many people and how large a region you can truly manage. So don't be dazzled by job titles. If a company gives you the title of sales manager, but you only manage a district in a city and do the same work as a sales rep, I don't call that a sales manager; it's just a sales rep. Salary goals can give you motivation and reflect your ability and value, so set salary goals, such as 20,000 yuan in the first year, 60,000 yuan in the fourth year, etc.

Goals determine your direction; direction determines your results.

After doing the above five things, your career plan before 30 is complete, but how to execute it and make fine adjustments during execution is also key. I hope these suggestions can bring some effective help to marketers. I think if it runs well, you will definitely "succeed"!

(Article from: Daily Workplace)

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