Cespedes opens by arguing that the sales profession is drowning in hype — breathless claims about AI replacing salespeople, big data transforming every interaction, and e-commerce eliminating the need for human sellers. He demonstrates through research data that these narratives are dramatically overstated and that leaders who make strategic decisions based on them will misallocate resources, mishire, and misstructure their organizations. The antidote is evidence-based sales management: making decisions grounded in what research and data actually show rather than what conference keynotes and vendor marketing claim. This is not anti-technology; it is anti-lazy-thinking. The best sales organizations adopt technology selectively and skeptically, always asking "does this match how our customers actually buy?"