It was based on a conversation with "Duane Sparks", author of “Selling Your Price, How to escape the race to the bargain basement.”,

According to him, customers always go through five “decision-making” states.

Decision 1: Do I want to do business with this particular sales professional?
Decision 2: Do I want to do business with the firm this sales professional represents?
Decision 3: Do I want and need the products and services this sales professional is offering?
Decision 4: Does the price and value of those products and services meet my expectations?
Decision 5: Is this the right time to make a decision to buy those products and service?

I very much liked the way he put it down, I am not into sales, so i welcome any suggestions, if anybody feels i am wrong. but, if we look at it from a customers perspective, these are surely the five important decisions he has to make before he decides to take out his wallet and make the purchase, and theres no doubt about that, yet, as i ponder over it i kind of have some conflict wrt the chronological order of decision 1, and decision 3, there are times when the customer would rather prefer to decide whether he wants or needs the product first, well, that is how i would take my decisions, than trying to decide whether, to do business with a particular sales professional or the firm he represents first.

if i wouold require a new vehicle, or a microwave or an LCD TV I would rather decide what i need and then set out to find a suitable sales professional or a retail outlet where i would get it.

On the other hand, this order might hold good, for those kind of customers who just walk into a mall or an outlet without any particular need or want, the kind for who are more interested in window shopping and dont really have an intention to make a purchase, or maybe if the sales rep moves from door to door, trying to convince the customer about his product, like Eureka Forbes or even Amway for that matter, but even in this case, the answer to Decision 3 kind of leads to Decision 1 followed by Decision2.