The Boy Scout Fieldbook which I read many years ago advised neophyte campers to empty your pack after your first-ever campout and make three piles. The first pile should contain items you used every day. The second pile was for items used occasionally, and the third was for items that you took but never used. For your next campout, you should leave the first two piles at home. (The only exception is emergency equipment.)
That was excellent advice that carries over into other areas. I actually still follow it in my business travel, which is one reason I can go halfway around the world for two weeks with only carry-on luggage. The ability to travel light makes me more flexible, saves time, and ensures that I never lose my luggage. Just last week I arrived at Bangalore airport one hour before my scheduled class time (after a 26 hour delay—thank you, British Airways); if I had had to wait for luggage I never would have made it in time.
Another area where the advice also applies is in strategic presentations. The average presentation is packed with a lot of unnecessary weight. If you take a look at your first draft, you can actually sort your content into four “I” piles:
If you put your left hand into a bucket of cold water, and your right into hot water, and then plunge them both into a single bucket of room-temperature water, a funny thing will happen. Your sensations will reverse: your left hand will feel warm and your right hand will feel cold. There’s no magic in it, it’s simply the contrast between the starting and ending points of each that makes the difference.
In a similar way, the contrast between your start and end points in a presentation or sales call can make all the difference between success and failure.
Contrast is important for two reasons: it can create attention and it can affect the perception of the facts.
In her excellent book, Resonate, Nancy Duarte tells us that “People are naturally drawn to contrast because life is surrounded by it.” She then adds, “Your job as a communicator is to create and resolve tension through contrast.” The difference between contrasting ideas generates interest like the opposite poles of a battery generate electricity.
I first heard this story during a speech given by G. Gordon Liddy in 1979 when he spoke at Florida Atlantic University. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but in the words of Jimmy Buffett, “don’t care if it’s true, ‘cause I love it so well.”
When Henry Kissinger became President Nixon’s National Security Adviser in 1969, he brought a reputation as a demanding taskmaster. So, when a staffer was given an assignment to write a position paper for his new boss, he understandably put in extra hours and took great pains to produce top-notch work. A day after he had turned it in, Kissinger called him into his office and asked him, “Is this the best you can do?”
The staffer promised he could improve it, and went back to his desk. He cancelled his other appointments, called his wife to tell her he would be home very late, and worked feverishly on the report: fine-tuning it, adding information, clarifying where necessary, etc. At the end of the week, he turned it in.
The biggest change in selling in recent decades has been the shift in power from sellers to buyers, as noted in The Challenger Sale and To Sell Is Human. Pre-internet, there was a condition of information asymmetry: salespeople used to have the balance of information and knowledge power, and that has shifted. Now buyers have done much more of the research and decision-making before they even contact salespeople.
But if sellers have lost the power of information asymmetry, they have at least retained the power of production asymmetry. Because their companies have controlled the means of production, they could dictate what is built, how much, and when it will be delivered. A buyer who needs a mass-manufactured product still has to talk to the relatively few providers, make choices among a fairly limited range of options, and negotiate appropriate pricing, volume and delivery terms.
But what happens when the balance of manufacturing power also shifts, when buyers themselves can either make things for themselves or have much more control over the production process?
3D printing offers that promise to buyers with its corollary threat to sellers. In essence, it comprises the hardware and software that allows one to manufacture objects using a printer. Instead of depositing a 2 dimensional layer of ink on a page, these printers deposit successive layers of plastic resin or powdered metal to build up complex 3D objects. As the technology improves, 3D printing is becoming capable of printing larger, more complex, and more variegated objects. There is little theoretical limit to what they can produce, and—thanks to Moore’s Law– they are getting cheaper and better at an astonishing pace, with devices ranging from desktop versions to full-scale factory versions. It’s true that most of what 3D printers can turn out now includes cheap-looking toys or jewelry, but GE Aviation is also using it to produce jet engine parts out of titanium, others are fabricating individualized medical devices, and still others are printing human-scale structures.
The bottom line is that the means of production are being democratized and spreading to many more hands. If the internet set information free, 3D printing will set the means of production free to a certain point. Because buyers are going to gain much more of the means of production, they’ll be able to design their own products, build only as many as they need exactly when they need, and make changes in designs as often as they want.
What will this mean to salespeople? One of the advantages of making predictions about things several years out is that, if you’re right, you can look really smart; if you’re wrong, no one will remember. That’s a good thing, because the history of prognostication is filled with vastly more misses than hits. But here goes:
Less power for most salespeople. On a macro level, the balance of power will probably shift even further towards buyers, because they will have greater options of manufacturing for themselves rather than outsourcing the manufacture. Even if they still choose to outsource, there will be many more providers to choose from.
More power for some. On an individual level, I believe it will give some salespeople more power, because they will have much more flexibility to design a unique and perfect solution for clients. Those who take the time to deeply understand the customer’s situation, problems and opportunities will be able to design and deliver exactly what the customer needs, and become more valuable to customers as a result.
Smaller deals. Economies of scale will lose their iron grip on pricing and volume, so customers won’t need to make big purchases to lock in lower costs. Customers will become less loyal because they will have lower switching costs.
Need for speed. Right now, 3D technology allows for much more rapid prototyping, which makes it faster, easier, and safer to make tweaks and design changes. Products will evolve faster and sales professionals will have to move faster just to stay up with the state of the art. They will also have to find ways to get involved in customers’ and prospects’ decision cycles earlier, because once they find out about opportunities, it may be too late.
More free agents. In fact, barriers to entry may be lowered so much that just about any individual with a good idea will be able to conceive, design, and deliver physical products, using manufacturing-as-a-service. Most won’t be able to afford their own printers, of course, but it will be easy to find contract manufacturers to do it for them. Today, big manufacturing is akin to the Field of Dreams: “If you build it, they will come.” Tomorrow, it will be the Dream of fields: “If they come, you can build it.”
To be relevant, salespeople will still have to add value, but what value do you add when the other side holds all the cards? What cards will be left?
One thing is sure. Human ingenuity knows no bounds, especially that of salespeople whose livelihood depends on rapidly adapting to change. Smart sellers will always find a way to add value and make money, no matter what the conditions are—but it never hurts to think ahead. According to Gartner’s Hype Cycle[1], 3D printing is now at the peak of inflated expectations, which will soon be followed by a trough of disillusionment. Assuming Gartner is right, though, the key point is that the technology will reach the plateau of productivity and have mainstream effects is five to ten years. This may be too long for salespeople focusing on this quarter’s quota attainment, but it is certainly short enough for forward-thinking sales and marketing management to start paying attention.
, Nancy Duarte tells us that “People are naturally drawn to contrast because life is surrounded by it.” She then adds, “Your job as a communicator is to create and resolve tension through contrast.” The difference between contrasting ideas generates interest like the opposite poles of a battery generate electricity.
and 
. Pre-internet, there was a condition of information asymmetry: salespeople used to have the balance of information and knowledge power, and that has shifted. Now buyers have done much more of the research and decision-making before they even contact salespeople.
