Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success

by Jordan Belfort

The creation of the Straight Line System changed my life forever.

The skill sets it embodies have allowed me to recreate my life in ways even I never thought possible.

In fact, either you’re selling or you’re failing.

students

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Just always remember the words of Spider-Man’s uncle, from the first Spider-Man movie. “With great power,” he warned, “comes great responsibility.”

“DON’T YOU GUYS GET IT? Every sale is the same!”

Let me repeat that: the reason every sale is the same is because, despite all that individual stuff, the same three key elements still have to line up in any prospect’s mind before you have a shot at closing them.

PLEASE INFLUENCE ME NOW! I CAN’T MAKE UP MY MIND, SO PLEASE HELP ME!

THE THREE TENS 1 The product, idea, or concept 2 You, trust and connect with you 3 The prospect must trust and connect with the company

You see, people don’t buy on logic; they buy on emotion, and then justify their decision with logic.

Remember, it’s not the job of salespeople to turn nos into yeses; it’s simply not what they do. Instead, we turn “Let me think about it” into a yes, and “Let me call you back” into a yes, and “I need to speak to my wife” into a yes, and “It’s a bad time of year” into a yes.

“In control, out of control,” I

“When you’re speaking, it’s directed. It’s powerful. Your words have meaning behind them; and the meaning is to create massive certainty in the mind of your prospect as you move him down the straight line, from the open to the close.”

profits to a certain charity, or a religious institution? It can even be that the prospect is an action junkie and they’re in it for the thrills. “Fifth, you want to identify their financial standards, insofar as

Colton Green was an eighteen-year-old Irishman, with a beefy skull, a budding drinker’s nose, and an IQ just above the level of an idiot. A nincompoop among nincompoops! But a lovable nincompoop, nonetheless. With a dead smile: “Green?” “What’s a continuum?” he asked.

I said, “Act as if you’re a wealthy man, rich already, and you will become rich. Act as if you have unmatched confidence, and you will become confident. Act as if you have all the answers and the answers will come to you!”

The prospect must love your product. 2 The prospect must trust and connect with you. 3 The prospect must trust and connect with your company.

In essence, pain creates urgency, which makes it the perfect vehicle for closing these tougher sales.

The only difference is that many of them will answer in a slightly defensive tone, as if it wasn’t their fault for flip-flopping on their answer; it was your fault for flip-flopping on your question. It’s as if their tonality is so much as saying, “Well, why didn’t you ask me that in the first place?” But, of course, that’s precisely what you did ask them; the problem is that they weren’t expecting to be called out on their bullshit, so now they’re trying to backpedal and save face.

Well, believe it or not, it’s actually quite simple—thanks to the existence of an extremely powerful language pattern that takes its name from the only person who possesses an IQ of 65 yet has still managed to get himself invited to the White House on three separate occasions to accept various achievement awards—including one for engaging in Ping-Pong diplomacy with China. If

Haha this sentence remined me the Forest's screen

Like a dog chasing his own tail, the salesperson goes back to the list of canned rebuttals and chooses the one that’s been designed to combat this new objection, and then repeats the process again—trying to sound as smooth and natural as possible—and then immediately transitions into asking for the order again.

What a set of balls on this kid! What—a—set—of—balls!”

Ironically, it’s these ultra-loyal, highly lucrative, high– action-threshold prospects, like my father, who end up slipping through the fingers of virtually all salespeople other than natural-born closers and those who have studied the Straight Line System.

lowering their action threshold.

pain threshold.

The answer is he went to the nearest gas station he could find and said to the owner: “I don’t care what it costs. I need you to fix my car right now!”

WHEN IT COMES TO THE real-world application of the Straight Line System, the most common mistake salespeople make is that they tend to be far too rigid when it comes to modifying the system’s core language patterns to fit seamlessly into their industry.

Remember, when I first invented the Straight Line System, it was designed for selling five-dollar stocks to the richest 1 percent of Americans by cold-calling them on the telephone.

The point I’m trying to make is that, when it comes to applying the Straight Line System to industries outside the one it was originally designed for, the key to success is to be as flexible as necessary while you’re creating your core language patterns—using your common sense as your guiding light to make sure that everything fits.

It all starts by mastering the art of persuasion, using the Straight Line System, while maintaining a clear understanding that you will never sacrifice your ethics and integrity along the way. After all, success in the absence of ethics and integrity is not success at all. I had to learn that the hard way, but you don’t—especially with this book as your guide.