Way of the Wolf: Straight line selling: Master the art of persuasion, influence, and success

by Jordan Belfort

“DON’T YOU GUYS GET IT? EVERY SALE IS THE SAME!”

You see, when I said that every sale is the same, what I meant that night, and what turned out to be one of the most profound ideas I’ve ever had, is that despite all those aforementioned differences—individual needs, objections, values, pain points—despite all that stuff, the same three key elements must still line up in any prospect’s mind before you have a shot at closing them.

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.

If in a single moment in time, you can create these three crucial elements in a prospect’s mind, then you’ve got an excellent shot of closing. Conversely, if even one of them is missing, you have basically no shot at all.

Now, in sales, when we talk about certainty, the first thing that pops into people’s minds is certainty about the actual product being sold. In other words, before there’s any chance of a prospect buying a product, they first have to be absolutely certain that the product makes sense to them, insofar as it filling their needs, eliminating any pain they might have, being a good value for the money … and so forth. So—the first of the Three Tens is your product.

THE THREE TENS The product, idea, or concept In essence, your prospect must be absolutely certain that they love your product, or as we like to say with the Straight Line System, your prospect must think it’s the best thing since sliced bread!

This includes both tangible products like cars, boats, houses, food, clothing, consumer products, and all the various services people perform; and also intangible products, like ideas and concepts and values a...

For example, if you were to ask this prospect what they thought about your product, a dead-honest answer would sound something like: “Oh my god, it’s literally the best thing since sliced bread! Not only does it fill all my needs but it’s also a great value for the money! I can only imagine how great I’m going to feel when I get to use it in the future. It’ll be like having a huge weight lifted off my shoulders!”

However, with the Straight Line System, we view a 5 in a far more positive light. In fact, to a seasoned Straight Liner, a prospect who is at a 5 has a big sign on their chest, saying: PLEASE INFLUENCE ME NOW! I CAN’T MAKE UP MY MIND, SO PLEASE HELP ME!

In other words, their current state of certainty is just that—current. It is not permanent, and they are eagerly waiting to be influenced by you.

From a practical standpoint, if your prospect is anywhere below a 5, you have basically no chance of closing them. The reason for this has to do with something called positive intent, which serves as the very foundation from which all human beings make their decisions.

In other words, human beings don’t buy things that they think will make their lives worse; they buy things that they think will make their lives better. However, the operative word here is think.

Let’s say you’ve just made an absolutely kick-ass sales presentation to a financially qualified prospect who needs your product, wants your product, and who’s also been feeling a bit of pain as a result of an unfulfilled need that your product perfectly meets. In addition, let’s also say that your sales presentation was so “on target” that when you asked your prospect for the order, they were at a 10 on the certainty scale, and damn sure of it. My question is, will the prospect buy from you, yes or no? The obvious answer is yes, isn’t it?

The correct answer is maybe. Maybe they will, and maybe they won’t.” You see, I was purposely being a bit coy with you before, and I left out one crucial point from that scenario I laid out.

What if the prospect doesn’t trust you?

For instance, let’s say that, during your sales presentation, you accidentally said something or did something that rubbed the prospect the wrong way, to the point where they no longer trusted you. What are the chances of them buying from you then? I’ll tell you what they are: Zero! Nothing! Zilch! Plain and simple, if your prospect doesn’t trust you, then there’s absolutely no way they are going to buy from you. And, again, I don’t care how certain they are about your product; they still won’t buy from you. In fact, if they’re that intent on purchasing your product, then they ...

So, that’s what makes up the second of the T...

THE THREE TENS The product, idea, or concept You, trust a...

For example, do they think you’re a likable, trustworthy person, who is not only an expert in your field but also prides yourself on putting your customer’s needs first and making sure that if any problems arise you’ll be right there on the spot to resolve them? That would be a 10 on the certainty scale. Or do they think you’re an unlikable “snake in the grass,” a stone-cold novice who’ll stick the knife in their back the moment they turn it from you, because all you care about is extracting the maximum amount of commission out of the deal and then moving on to the next target as quickly as possible? That would be a 1 on the certainty scale.

Whatever the case, my point is that, in the same way that you have varying degrees of certainty for how the prospect feels about your product, there are also varying degrees of certainty for how the prospect feels about you.

In consequence, if you want your prospect to say yes when you ask for the order, then you’re going to need to have them as close to a 10 as possible for both of those things: you and your product.

You see, like last time, I left out one very crucial point from the scenario—namely: What if your prospect doesn’t trust the company you work for?

It’s really quite simple: if your prospect doesn’t trust the company you work for, then there’s absolutely no way they are going to buy from you—so long as you continue to work there, or until you can convince them otherwise.

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

In fact, this is why it’s so much easier to sell to existing customers than to new ones, even if you don’t have a personal relationship with them. The fact that they have an existing relationship with your company means that the third Ten has already been established, leaving you with only the first and the second Tens to address.

My point here is that, no matter what product you’re selling, whether your prospect walks in your door or answers your cold call or clicks on your website, they will always enter the encounter with a preconceived notion about you, about your product, and about the company you work for.

Two Types of Certainty Before we move forward, there’s just one more thing about certainty that I need to fill you in on—namely, that there are actually two types of it: you have logical certainty, and you have emotional certainty, and they’re entirely different things.

LOGICAL CERTAINTY Logical certainty is based primarily on the words you say. For instance, does the case you’ve made to the prospect add up on an intellectual level? I’m talking about the actual facts and figures, the features and benefits, and the long-term value proposition, as it relates specifically to that prospect.

When a prospect is feeling logically certain about your product, they can go from start to finish and connect all the dots in the logical case you’ve made without finding any holes in your story.

EMOTIONAL CERTAINTY On the flip side, emotional certainty is based on a gut feeling that something must be good. Once it hits us, we feel a craving inside that simply must be fulfilled, even if there’s a heavy price to pay for fulfilling it.

Unlike logical certainty, emotional certainty has to do with painting your prospect a picture of the future where they’ve bought your product and can see themselves using the product and feeling good as a result of it. We call this technique future pacing, and it serves as the very backbone of how we move someone emotionally.

When you future pace someone, you’re essentially playing out the post-buying movie in the best fashion possible—allowing that person to experience your product’s amazing benefits right now, along with the positive feelings they create. The prospect’s needs have been filled; their pain has been resolved; any itch ...

Now, if you’re wondering which of the two kinds of certainty is more important, the answer is they’re both important—and they’re both absolutely crucial ...

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

The logical mind is analytical by nature, so the more information you give it the more information it wants to know. In consequence, if you get your prospect to a high level of logical certainty, they’ll say, “It sounds great, let me think about...

However, if you skip making the logical case and focus strictly on creating emotional certainty, it won’t do the trick either, because the logical mind serves as a human bullshit detector. It stops us from being swept away by our emotions if things don’t add up logically. In consequence, if you want to close at the highest level, then you’re going to have to create both types of certainty—logical and emotional—which i...

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.

You see, at the end of the day, objections are merely smoke screens for uncertainty for one or all of the Three Tens.

“Me too,” added another. “There are thousands of objections. I can’t get a pitch off either. It’s a lot harder than with penny stocks.” “Exactly,” added a third one. “I’m getting smashed with objections.” He let out a deep sigh. “I vote for penny stocks too!” “Same here,” added another. “It’s the objections; they don’t let up.” The rest of the Strattonites began nodding their heads in agreement, as they muttered their collective feelings of disapproval under their breath. But I wasn’t the least bit fazed. With the exception of that one reference about “voting”—as if this were a fucking democracy!—I’d heard it all before.

Send me some information!’” “Okay, that’s a good one,” I remarked, jotting it down as well. “Keep going. I’ll make it easy and we’ll shoot for a thousand. There’s only 997 to go.” I flashed them a sarcastic grin. “It’s totally doable.” “‘It’s a bad time of year!’” someone yelled. “Good,” I shot back. “Keep going.” “‘I need to speak to my wife!’” yelled another. “Or his business partner!” shouted yet another. “Excellent,” I said calmly, writing both objections down. “We’re making serious progress here. There are only 994 to go. Keep going.” “‘I’m not liquid right now!’” yelled a broker. “Ah, now, that’s good a one!” I said quickly, scribbling it down on the board. “Although, you have to admit that you’re not getting that one quite as much since we started calling rich people. Anyway, let’s keep going. There are only 993 to go.” “‘I only deal with my local broker!’” one of them yelled. “‘I never heard of your firm before!’” shouted another. “‘I’ve been burnt before!’” “‘I don’t like the market right now!’” “‘I’m too busy!’” “‘I don’t trust you!’” “‘I don’t make quick decisions!’” And on and on they went—calling out objection after objection, as I wrote each one down, in progressively worse handwriting. By the time they were done,

I’d covered the entire surface of the board with every objection they could possibly think of … which, at the end of the day, turned out to be only fourteen.

That’s right. There were only fourteen objections, and half of them were variations of two: First, that it was a bad time of year, as in it’s tax time, summertime, back-to-school time, Christmastime, Miller time, Groundhog Day. And second, that they needed to speak to someone else, as in their spouse, their lawyer, their business partner, their accountant, their ...

fact, it was in that very moment that it truly hit me that, at the end of the day, they were all basically the same—that the common objections were nothing more than smoke screens for what was really holding a prospect back, which was a lack of certainty. In fact, now that I thought about it, no matter what objection the prospect hit me with, I would never just answer it and ask for the order again. That would be pointless, since the objection was merely a smoke screen for uncertainty. By itself, in fact, all an answer would do (even a perfect one) is force a prospect to shift to a new objection, because the root problem still hadn’t been addressed.

In consequence, after I answered an objection, I would then loop back to the beginning of the sale and make a follow-up presentation that picked up where my initial presentation had left off—with a goal of increasing the prospect’s state of certainty for all three Tens. And, once again, as with the rest of my strategies, I would execute each one of my loops in precisely the same exact way, every single time.

It was at that very moment when it suddenly hit me—the idea that every sale was the same. In fact, all at once, that very concept came bubbling up into my brain, followed a millisecond later by an elegantly simple image that I could use to explain it. The image, as it turned out, was a perfectly straight line. But that was just the beginning. Something had clicked inside my brain, and a window of clarity had swung open, giving me unfettered access to a seemingly infinite reservoir of what can best be described as pure sales wisdom. I’m talking about radically advanced stuff here—ideas and concepts and tactics and strategies were flashing through my mind at an incredible rate. In my mind’s eye, I could see my own sales strategy being pulled apart, into its elemental pieces, and then put back toge...

Until that very moment, I simply hadn’t known why I had been able to far outsell every other salesperson, at every single company I had ever worked for. But now I knew. My own sales strategy, which had been mostly unconscious until then, had suddenly become conscious. I could see each distinct chunk of my strategy, as if it had the defined edges of a jigsaw piece, and each ...

For example, if I looked at the point on the line marked “sales presentation,” then I immediately knew that there were three things that had to be addressed before the prospect would say yes; and then, if I focused a bit harder, the word “certainty” popped into my mind, followed, a millisecond later, by each of the Three Tens, which seemed to be floating above the line and tethered to scenes going back all the way to my childhood, of random sales situations I had been in on either side, as salesperson or prospect, and a vivid memory of why I had said no or yes to the salespeople, or the prospects had said no or yes to me. All of those things, each compressed into a millisecond, had flashed through my brain while I stood before the whiteboard, staring at the objections. From end to end, the entire experience was maybe one or two seconds, but when I turned to face the Strattonites I was an entirely different person.

Typically, what happens is that your prospect keeps trying to take you off the straight line and take control of the conversation.” I drew a series of thin arrows, pointing upward and downward (↑↓), away from the straight line, to illustrate that point. “So, basically, you want to keep the prospect on the straight line, moving forward towards the close, and he keeps trying to take you off the straight line, and spiral off to Pluto”—I wrote the word “Pluto” near the top of the whiteboard—“or down here, to Your-anus”—I wrote the word “Your-anus” near the bottom of the whiteboard—“which is not a very good place to be, at least for most of you.” I threw my hands in the air and shrugged, as if to say, “To each his own!”

“So what we have are these healthy boundaries, above and below the line—one here and one here,” I continued, drawing two dotted lines that were parallel to the straight line, one of them six inches above it, and the other six inches below it. “When you’re inside the boundaries, you’re in control of the sale, and moving forward towards the close. When you’re outside the boundaries, the client is in control and you’re spiraling off to Pluto, or down here, to Your-anus, where you’re talking about the price of tea in China or politics in America or some other irrelevant topic that’s not germane to the sale.

“Anyway, I know what you guys are thinking—that the more time you spend bullshitting with these people, the more rapport you end up building.