Upon successful completion of course, students will be able to: define marketing and the elements of the marketing mix and describe factors in the marketing environment that interact with and affect the marketing mix; describe the steps in a customer’s purchase decision process and explain how companies use customer relationship marketing to manage the customer relationship; identify how companies use internal databases, marketing intelligence, and marketing research to acquire marketing information; explain the marketing management process and how companies use market segmentation and target marketing; identify characteristics of financial services that are unique from consumer products and describe the concepts of product development and product pricing as they apply to financial services; describe the marketing communication process and the promotion tools of personal selling, advertising, and publicity; describe the characteristics of direct (company-controlled) distribution channel and an indirect distribution channel that uses intermediaries and explain factors a company considers when selecting a type of distribution channel; describe the personal selling process financial professionals use to identify, contact, and qualify prospects and explain how they generate proposals, make sales presentations, answer objections, and close sales; and describe the four types of fraudulent, misleading, or unethical sales activities that financial professionals are prohibited from engaging in and specific regulatory oversight, from entities such as FINRA, the SEC and NAIC, aimed at preventing these practices.