 side. Thank you, Mike. So here we are. This is the second second practice exam review for the course. And you've made it through the reviews of all eight units. You've made it through the review, the first review of the first practice exam review. And here we are with the last one. So we've really come a very long way in the course. I hope you've enjoyed it. I hope that you have learned a lot. And as always, I'm open to taking your questions. So feel free to write them in the chat box. And Mike will pass those along to me. So last week, I covered one of the case studies for the practice exam review. And today, I will go through another of the case studies within the practice exam review. So here's the situation. So Pam Beiler was looking to purchase a retail store called Big Valley Cheese and Gourmet, which we will call for this case, BBCG. She used all of her savings to buy the business. And the business is located in a suburban strip shopping mall. And if you have any shopping malls or strip malls near you, you know that they're generally six to eight stores. They generally have their own private parking lots. People come to the stores, they shop, they park, they shop, they leave. And generally, if there are popular stores in those locations, there's quite a bit of poor traffic. So in this, in Pam's cheese shop, she offers a large variety of cheeses, over 60 varieties, as well as a variety of gourmet food products. So she had the case points out that she had no previous business experience during her years as a homemaker. But she feels that having her own business would be profitable, would be personally rewarding. Being an entrepreneur is very challenging, very time consuming, very difficult. But again, has tremendous rewards if you can make a successful go of it. So she listened to advice from her accountant, from her husband, when it came to how to run the business, and how also to market her products to her local customer base. So let's remember that she's specialty cheeses, and that she offers a variety of gourmet food products. So think about what that what kind of store that would be, what kind of customers, the demographics and lifestyles of the customers that she would be appealing to, and what that would mean in terms of her business and marketing strategies. So I've selected 10 of the questions from the exam bank to review with you. And these really cover, for the most part, most of the concepts that are explored throughout the exam. So the first question I have for you is Pam decided to offer a 5% discount on retail customer purchases over $100. What type of strategy is this? So there are a variety of different strategies. The correct answer is a push strategy. And it's important here to understand the difference between a push strategy and a pull strategy. And a push is basically when you're giving your customer a direct reason to make a purchase. A pull strategy, so you're going directly to the customer, a pull strategy is literally what it says you send them information and you're trying to pull them into your into your business to make a purchase. So here, Pam is specifically offering a discount, which is a direct push to appeal to customers to come and buy her products. The next question is some of the products that BVCG offers are available at a lower price at the large grocery store. What does Pam need to do to maintain her sales of these products? So the answer here might be your evaluation of the question of the answer choices might be a little challenging, but the correct answer here is to offer more product advice and service than the large grocery store. So smaller businesses generally cannot compete with larger grocery stores when it comes to price. Larger grocery stores are able to make their purchases in greater bulk. And to start competing with a large grocery store just never ends well for the small business. So matching the prices with the large grocery store doesn't really give any kind of advantage. Cutting her prices to be lower than the large grocery store is something that she really can't sustain. And it's not a good business strategy. And to spend more advertising money than the larger grocery store, chances are she won't be able to do that. And it also won't necessarily offer her a competitive advantage. However, what small businesses can do is they can offer more advice. They can offer a more personalized experience for their customers and provide them with greater customer service. And so the correct answer again here is to offer more product advice and service than the large grocery store. Next question. Pam plans to address certain inconsistencies in the promotional messages developed through different promotional media such as flyers, newspaper ads and her own website. This is best described as a strategy towards improving what? So the clues here are the mentions of the different media outlets that that Pam has used, such as flyers, newspapers, a website, and probably some other media outlets and media platforms. And so the answer here, the correct answer is integrated marketing communications. So it's important to remember that whatever marketing information material that company puts out should have a level of consistency so that customers are not confused. They understand what you have to offer there to recognize your slogan or your logo or your overall company image. And when all of your media outlets and marketing materials that go out are consistent, we talk about this as an integrated marketing communications strategy. So by addressing the inconsistencies here, Pam is specifically looking at integrated marketing communications. Pam observed that their main competitor increased prices by 15% and their sales decreased by 25%. Which statement best explains this? So here we're looking at the concept of elasticity. And what elasticity means when it comes to price and sales is that is you're addressing the impact of a change in price on your level of sales. So here when we say that the prices from the main competitor were increased by 15%, their sales decreased by 25%, this is a highly elastic situation. That increase in price significantly impacted the level of sales from the competitor. So we would say that this is a highly elastic. It means that they are directly related in a very, very strong way because the increase in price by 15% decreased sales by 25%. So that's a very, very huge, a very, very large impact. And again, so this would be considered to be highly elastic. Next question. Pam is concerned about a competitor that has just started offering higher-end food products. How would Porter's Five Forces model describe this firm? So the answer here as it relates to Porter's Five Forces is a substitute product. So while this is certainly a rival, it's not necessarily a supplier. And if we don't know that it's a new entrant and chances are it's not a new entrant to the marketplace, so it's a substitute. And substitute products important to remember are goods and services that consumers can buy in place of what they had already planned to buy. So a competitor that has really just started to offer higher-end food products, similar to the gourmet food that Pam is offering, can be considered a substitute for what she has to offer. Next question. New local county requirements have influenced BVCG's food service cleanliness requirements. Which of the following macro environmental factors would best describe this? So first of all, it's important to remember that macro environmental factors are factors that are outside of the organization. And in this case, the answer is regulatory. And the context clues here would be local county requirements. So when we talk about counties, we're talking about government agencies. And when we're talking about requirements, these are factors that companies have to adhere to. And particularly in the food service industry, regulations are very strict. And companies really need to make sure that they follow those. So in this case, we are talking about regulatory factors in the macro environmental forum. Next question. Pam was careful to use smart SMART objectives when developing their marketing and strategic plans. Which of the following describes smart objectives? And here, really, for this question, you really will have been required to make sure that you remember and identify and know exactly what the acronym SMART stands for. And so it stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-down. And you'll see that in many of the answer choices, they could potentially be the right choice, the right answers. So make sure that you read this carefully. Make sure that when you study SMART objectives, that you really understand exactly what each of the letters stand for, as well as what they actually mean when it comes to developing strategies. Next question. Pam analyzed the local competition to see how her store would be different from her competitors. This is an example of developing what. And the answer here is positioning strategy. And when you're developing a positioning strategy, your key focus here is identifying your USP, your unique selling proposition. Why is your business different than somebody else's? And why should consumers make their purchases from your business? And you need to make sure that you position yourself in a way that is appealing to your target market, that sets you apart from the competition, and really gives a consumer an understanding of what you have to offer. And be able to answer the question that consumers want to know what's in it for me, because it's always from the consumer's perspective. And also you need to be able to answer the question, so what? And a positioning strategy will enable you to do that to set yourself apart from the competition and give your customers and consumers a reason for making a purchase from your business as opposed to somebody else's. Next question. BVCG must show and offer their products along with various cooking recipes. This is an example of what. And here it's specifically service marketing. You're adding an additional, you're providing additional information, you're offering additional ways for consumers to use the products that the company is selling. And this is definitely an added service. And we talked earlier about how a small business can more effectively compete with a larger business. And we talked about customer service and offering, providing value added services. This is clearly in that category. So think about that and how small businesses can provide, enhance what they have to offer and really make themselves stand out from the competition. Which goes along with positioning that we were talking about just a moment ago. Next question. Pam knows the importance of having her products available to the consumer when they want them. This concerns what aspect of their marketing strategy. And clearly we're talking about supply chain here. And right now in the current times when we're recording this, there have been quite a few problems in the supply chain and distribution channels. So making sure that your supply chain is as strong as possible, making sure that your products are available to consumers when they want them in the current times. And in general, it takes a lot of time and effort, but can be more challenging at various times. So it's important to be able to plan ahead, to have an understanding of what your consumers are going to want, have an understanding of have an understanding of the demand that you can anticipate and being prepared in advance of making sure that you have a variety of suppliers available, making sure that you understand what those suppliers can offer you and what their time frames are. So the great deal of time and effort is is required to address your supply chain strategy. And those are the 10 questions that I selected from the exam to review with you. And again, I believe that they cover most of the topics or at least all of the topics, I would say, in this exam and give you a taste of what you can expect in the exam, as well as what that case study addresses. So, Mike, do we have any current questions from our viewers? No, we don't have currently any questions right now. I will tell you, if you're watching this later, feel free to leave a comment. I bet we could get to that before you get to the end of the course and respond to you down there. If you have any questions right now, why don't you leave them in the chat. I'm just going to go ahead and wrap up and thank everyone who's joined us through all of these things. And I will take, of course, thank Dr. Salazar for taking us through all of this. You did a great job. We could have done it without you, obviously. But I just want to thank you. So what I'm going to do real quick is I'm going to cut us over to a little question time slide. If anyone's there and does have any questions, we'll give you a couple of minutes to see if you have the questions. And then we'll come back and say, see you. And I'll cut it off the final one and you guys won't see any of this if no one has any questions. But thank you guys so much. We'll be back in a minute if anyone has any questions. And if you don't have any questions and don't think, we'll see you next time. Good luck on the final exam. I was about to say it doesn't look like we have any questions. And we just got a question. I'm glad I delayed a little bit longer than I had before. Okay. I'm reading this live. Usually I read them without, so if I miss big apologies, everyone. We have a question here. Can we say that discounts and offers are part of the push strategy, whereas advertisements are part of the pull strategy? I would say that's absolutely correct. Yes. Push discounts. Anything that's designed to immediately motivate consumers to make a purchase is a push strategy. Advertising is part of the overall marketing strategy to inform consumers and to educate consumers with the desire that they will come to you, that you can use that to pull in. Now, if you have advertising that is specific to sale, that would be considered a push strategy. But general advertising, general marketing, that informs, that lets consumers know about what a product has to offer, that would be a pull strategy. So I'll just follow up, and while people tell me if those answers work for them. So would you say, I guess, in that situation, like, hey, I'm loving McDonald's commercials that are just like, hey, aren't we cool eating McDonald's? Would be like a pull strategy, but then like the commercial one's like, hey, the chicken McNuggets are a buck or whatever. Would then be a push strategy? Kind of that question. Okay. Absolutely. Great example. Thank you, Mike. I walked by McDonald's the other day and I went, I could eat some McDonald's. But anyway, and so now, now when you, when you do that, you know exactly, instead of just saying, yeah, I want McDonald's, you can say, okay, I know what kind of marketing strategy I can say they're either pulling me to McDonald's or I'm being pushed towards McDonald's. That's right. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, that's great. It looks like a great thank you is what we got a response. So I think that answered their question. So if no one else has any questions while we're still here, feel free to put them in the chat. And of course, you have you have a later leave in the comments, but I will, I'll sign off right here and I'll just give Dr. Salser kind of the, the, the rain to take us out. So I just, first of all, Mike, I want to thank you for everything throughout this, you know, all the eight units that we've reviewed as well as the two exam reviews. I couldn't have done it without you. You've been tremendous in helping us through this and, and fielding the questions and all that. So thank you very much, much appreciated. And, and I want to thank all of you, all of the students who have taken this journey with me to explore all the materials in the units, to explore the course, to, you know, the questions that you shared throughout really helped us to, you know, explore each concept in greater depth. And so I thank you for your questions and hope that you enjoyed the course, that your knowledge is now enhanced. And most importantly, that you're able to use your new knowledge immediately and directly in your professional careers. And also as consumers to have a greater understanding of the marketing around you. So I thank you. I wish you all the best of luck. And I look forward to seeing you in a future class. Thank you.