Selling the Wheel- Cox and Stevens

A story of Cassius the Closer, Toby the Wizard, Ben the Builder and Caleb the Captain. They follow the Technology Adoption Life Cycle of a Wheel.

Egypt. Long long ago. A man named Max thinks of a circular device that can roll about its axis. Under the desert sun, buried in hot silken sand, appears, THE WHEEL. A concept with no takers. Then Max meets Cassius...

Cassius the Closer doesn't care about much except selling dreams and making his margins. He is a master of human psychology and uses fear and greed to his advantage. He wants fresh challenges periodically and likes to leave as soon as customers shake off the stars from their eyes and confront practical problems. He can sell anything. And he sells- the first Wheel.

Customers realize they want more than dreams..they want solutions. Toby the Wizard is highly educated, smart, credible, efficient, technically oriented and can solve problems with an authoritative wave of her wand. Information and education are her twin credo. She will sell customers the wheel and provide maintenance, training and even upgrades. She delivers end to end solutions.

At this point in the story, everyone knows what the Wheel is and all customers seem to require, are quotes for different colors. Ben is a builder of relationships. He knows everybody in the business and sells them products according to their specification. Ben sells the Wheel with incremental improvements and at marginally lower costs every year.

Alas! As we reach the decline of the Life Cycle, as the wheel slips into a commodity with nothing to differentiate the product but price. Caleb the Captain of sales takes up the challenge with a well trained sales force and bets on large volumes and razor thin margins. His customers only worry about price and convenience. His sales people provide differentiation.

So ends the story with a recommendation to spin off portions of the business that cause Max to lose focus of his core competency. Max appoints Caleb COO of a wholly owned subsidiary and goes off to meet Archimedes about a screw pump.

Question. Has learning this over a period of 6 hours vs reading a summary similar to the one above, caused me to be better off?

I really can't tell :)