Once prospects have been identified, it is up to the salesperson to find out who influences the purchase decision and who makes the final decision. In consumer products, when sales might be made to families, it is important to understand who actually makes the purchases and who will actually use the product. In business$-$to$-$business marketing, it is important to know the purchasing process and know who needs product information and who is in charge of allocating resources $($money$)$ within the customer's company. Using this information, the salesperson can prepare information and decide which sales approach will work in any given situation. For some products, a prepared sales approach, such as a script for a telephone sales call, may offer enough information to make a sale. For other, more complicated products, a salesperson may plan a discussion with a prospect to determine what he or she needs by asking a series of questions about how he or she might use the product and then listening for cues and telling the prospect about how the product or service might solve problems the prospect faces. This is known as the consultative selling approach. Still other products and services may call for a selling formula approach, where the salesperson has a prepared presentation, but uses several places in the presentation to ask questions and tailors the remainder of the presentation to the customer based in their responses, indicating their attitudes and needs. The salesperson delivers the presentation to the correct person or group, being sure to answer questions or concerns along the way, and closes the sale, or gets a commitment or other action indicating the sale has been made. A successful salesperson understands that the sale only begins with the customer signing on a contract or paying for a product or service. Follow$-$up is necessary to keep customers on board and build loyalty, thereby increasing the chance for a repeat sale.

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Identify the steps of the personal selling process. Move each label to the correct drop zone box. The notes button next to a label provides more information.