Pressing: Manufacturing may be one of your biggest expenses. There are a few different ways this can go down: If you have a distribution deal, your distributor may pay for manufacturing up front and then recoup the costs from sales.
When a opening takes place (someone retires) then the Marine Corps promotion board looks at the available candidates and their fitness report scores to fill the vacancy. So make sure you have excellent scores and reports. I picked up SSgt (E6) in 10 years. Gunnery Sergeant (E7) may take up to 14 to 16 years.
If my info is right, the SFC board is once a year every January. With that said, it is a minimum of 2 years as a Staff Sergeant before you get looked at. I had to wait 2 1/2 years because I was promoted to Staff Sergeant in July. have to have before i am eligible to be looked at for 7. Well considering you dont even know how to get promoted to the next rank I would say you need to keep your new SSG rank for a little bit before you try to move up again.