Way of the Wolf Book Summary

Book Summary

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Brief Summary

The Straight Line System is a good way to sell products to prospects and persuade others. Build a good impression quickly, develop a rapport, ask permission when asking questions, ask the questions needed to target the right audience, make a strong presentation backed by a memorized script, use looping to defend against objections, uncover the prospect’s pain, and explain how your product or service will relieve it.

About the Author

Jordan Belfort is a motivational speaker, author, and former stockbroker. In 1999, he pleaded guilty to securities fraud and money laundering. He spent 22 months in jail after agreeing to testify against his partners and subordinates in his fraud scheme. His memoir The Wolf of Wall Street, published in 2007, was made into a film that was released in 2013. In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed Belfort.

Belfort was born in 1962 in the Bronx, New York City to a Jewish family. He was raised in Bayside, Queens. He graduated from American University with a degree in biology. He attended the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. He left the school after the dean told him, "The golden age of dentistry is over. If you're here simply because you're looking to make a lot of money, you're in the wrong place."

He sold meat and seafood on Long Island New York but later filed for bankruptcy at the age of 25.

He founded Stratton Oakmont as a franchise of Stratton Securities. He bought out the original founder. It was a boiler room that sold penny stocks and defrauded investors with “pump and dump” type of stock sales. Belfort became extremely wealthy. He often resorted to drugs and parties. His favorite drug was Quualude, which he became addicted to. Stratton Oakmont had over 1000 stockbrokers and was involved in the initial public offering for footwear company Steve Madden Ltd. Law enforcement officials targeted the company for many years. It was the subject of two movies including the Boiler Room in 2000 and the 2013 The Wolf of Wall Street. Stratton Oakmont’s pump and dump scams caused investors to lose approximately $200 million. In a civil suit, Belfort was ordered to pay back $110 billion to stock buyers.

In jail, he shared his cell with Tommy Chong, who encouraged him to write about his experience as a stockbroker. Belfort went on to write two books about his life.

Belfort now works as a motivational speaker, spending three weeks out of each month on the road for speaking engagements. He talks about the importance of business ethics and what he learned from his mistakes. He speaks mostly about his Straight Line System, teaching people how to sell and persuade others.

He divorced his first wife, Denise Lombardo in the 1980s. He then married British-born, Nadine Caridi, a model. They had two children. They separated after she claimed that he abused her and had issues with drugs. As of 2015, he is engaged to his long-time girlfriend, Anne Kopek.

Topics

Communication Skills Marketing & Sales

Way of the Wolf Book Summary Preview

Jordan Belfort was a successful stockbroker who made millions of dollars. Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed him in the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese. He was charged by the FBI with securities fraud and money laundering and served almost 2 years in jail. He is the inventor of the Straight Line System. In his book, Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling, he discusses his step-by-step sales and persuasion system that helped him become extremely wealthy.

According to Belfort, The Straight Line System will cut sales cycles, build referrals, generate more closings, help form more permanent closes, and teaches non salespeople to persuade. While he was running his company, Stratton Oakmont, in the 1990s Belfort taught this system to his employees and it allowed for amateur salespeople to become good at selling and make millions. In the straight-line system, the salesperson moves prospects along at a regular pace to the close, as long as the product works for them.

Every sale consists of the same three core elements. First, prospects must trust your product or service. If they do not, you need to move them there. Second, they need to trust the salesperson. Building rapport is important here. Third, the prospect needs to trust the company that he is buying from. For each element, the salesperson needs to move the prospect from absolute uncertainty to absolute certainty.

The Straight Line system requires you to lower your prospect's action threshold and increase their pain threshold. To increase the pain threshold, you can have your prospect think about what will happen if they don't fix the problem. There are four ways to increase the action threshold.

Offer a money-back guarantee

Offer a cooling or rescission period

Use key phrases to ease their worries. For example, "I will hold your hand every step of the way."

Say something like, “Bill, let me ask you an honest question; what’s the worst that can possibly happen here? I mean, let’s say I’m wrong and the stock actually goes down a few points, and you lose two thousand bucks.

If you feel like the prospect is feeling pressured, you can say something like "Jim, please don’t misconstrue my enthusiasm for pressure; it’s just that I know that this truly is a perfect fit for you."

Remember that when selling or persuading others, people form an impression about you in a short time. You have four seconds to make a positive connection with your prospect. You want to show them that you are sharp as a tack, very enthusiastic, and a knowledgeable expert. You want to show that you can fulfill their needs and desires and that you offer a unique perspective.

Your body language and tone are very important. You want to sound caring, sincere, and empathetic. Make sure to smile and have a posture that matches that of your prospect.

Use looping to handle your prospect's doubts. When they voice their objections, delay, and loop back to a previous point in your presentation. This way you are reinforcing why they should take the deal. For...