Title The Way of the Wolf

Author Jordan Belfort

Year Published 2018

Kind of Book Sales

How strongly I recommend it 8/10 

My Impressions

This book has a very salesy tone to it— With Belfort trying to sell you on how good his system is on every page—however, if you can get past that, there is a bunch of great stuff in here. He talks about the fundamentals of script writing, tonality, and body language. I wish it were a bit more organized and had less chatter, but having to hunt through the ruble for the gems was a small price to pay for this man's wealth of knowledge on the subject.

Date Read Nov 2021

Practical Takeaways

  • When a prospect is sitting on the fence, imagine that they have a big sign on their chest that says, "PLEASE INFLUENCE ME NOW! I CAN’T MAKE UP MY MIND, SO PLEASE HELP ME!"

  • Paint the prospect a picture of the future in which they are using, enjoying, and benefiting from your product. Help them imagine themselves.

  • You must make an emotional case AND logical case for the prospect to buy

  • do not make a full-blown sales presentation to someone who is not interested in buying what we’re selling. Instead, we want to weed these people out as quickly as possible, during the intelligence-gathering phase.

  • Focus on turning maybes into yeses. Don't try to turn nos into yeses

  • From the first word you say, make sure everything you say or do is geared to keep your prospect on a straight line to the close (don't get sidetracked)

  • Don't spend a bunch of time bullshitting off topic with your prospect (they see through it and resent it)

  • Gather intelligence about your prospect

1)Find out their core needs and secondary needs

2)Find out their core beliefs which could influence the sale

3)Find out about past experiences with a similar product

4)Find out their values and what's important to them

5)Find out their financial standards ie. How much money they must have to feel good about themselves

6)Find out where their pain lies? Ie. What keeps them up at night?

7)Find out where they stand financially

  • Speak with conviction and certainty

  • Take immediate control of the sale

  • Build report while gathering intelligence

  • Make the questions you ask during intelligence gathering more and more invasive as you move along

  • 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!”

  • everything you say should be specifically designed to increase your prospect’s level of certainty for at least one

of the three elements

  • don't go for the close until you've built an eager want and gained trust

  • take the time to uncover precisely what your prospect’s pain is and where it comes from. Once I have that

information, I can then position my product as a remedy for their pain, and then verbally paint a picture for them

of the future—showing how much better they are going to feel as a result of using my product, which has taken

away all their pain and has them feeling pleasure again.

  • Make sure you come off as sharp as a tack

  • Mase sure you come off as an expert in your field

  • Make sure you come off as enthusiastic as hell

  • become an “expert in your field,” so that you do, indeed, know what you’re talking about.

  • learn everything there is to know about your industry and the products you’re selling, so you truly do become an

expert.

  • genuinely believe in that value before I sell a product or service (you will then have authentic enthusiasm for it)

  • demonstrating extensive knowledge and understanding of the market, industry, product, prospect, and

competitors.

  • Get to the point quickly

  • Don't waste the prospect’s time

  • Have a solution to their problem

  • Be an asset to them over the long-term

  • Use bottled enthusiasm, which sits just below the surface and literally bubbles over as you speak. It’s about

enunciating your words with absolute clarity and stressing your consonants so that your words have intensity to

them. It’s like you’re talking with your fists clenched, and there’s an active volcano inside you ready to erupt at

any second—but of course it doesn’t, because you’re an expert who’s in total control.

  • never stay in any one tonality for too long (the prospect will become bored)

  • trigger a key emotional state within yourself as you’re about to enter the sales encounter, and then maintain that

state to the very end.

  • Get into An empowered state before making an important life decision business meeting sales

  • Lead the prospect through an imagination exercise where you are having them imagine their future selves happier having engaged with your product or service. (eg. Picture yourself a year from now….)

  • Trigger your mental state to one of absolute certainty before a sales encounter

  • How to Trigger you mental state

Step #1: Choose a state

Step #2: Choose your focus

Think of a moment where you felt that state. Create a vivid picture of it in your mind's eye.

Step #3: Choose your physiology

Take on the physiology of the state you are trying to anchor (eg. Confident = shoulders down and back)

Step #4: Intensify your state

  • Carry around a distinct scent and only take a sniff of it when you are feeling the vivid emotion you want to anchor (like certainty) After awhile, sniff the scent whenever you are not feeling that emotion, but would like to

  • never use a sales strategy to manipulate my prospects into acting against their own self-interest.

  • never address their prospect in an overly formal manner; instead, the salesperson should address the prospect in

the way they would respectfully address a friend.

  • say "how are you?" like you really care and really want to know

  • be upbeat enough to get your point across, but not so over the top that you sound ridiculous.

  • Use rapport building tonality. phrase declarative statements like questions //opposite of game when you

use repport breaking and phrase questions as declarative statements

  • Create a feeling of mystery, scarcity, and secrecy by lowering your voice to just above a whisper and then hanging on the R in the word “reason” for an extra fraction of a second.

  • try to create at least some degree of urgency right before you ask for the order

  • don’t just start pitching your prospect an idea, without first saying something along the lines of “If you have

sixty seconds, I’d like to share an idea with you. You got a minute?”

  • If in response to you asking for the order, your prospect says, “It sounds good. Let me think about it.”

Your reply would be: “I hear what you’re saying, but let me ask you a question. Does the idea make sense to

you? Do you like the idea?”  using a hypothetical money aside tone

  • Close

“If you give me one shot, Bill, believe me, you’re going to be very, very impressed. Sound fair enough?”

Use Certainty tone for the first line

Use Sincerity tone for the second line

Use Reasonable man tone for the last line

  • dress is in a style that’s congruent with your profession.

  • If you’re a man selling to another man, stand at a slight angle to another man, as opposed to directly in front of him.

  • If you’re a man trying to influence a woman: stand directly in front of her and keep

your hands above waist level, where she can see them.

  • (grooming) Anything more than a closely cropped beard or mustache, and you should shave it.

  • (handshake) return the same pressure the other person gives you, but don't get into a squeeze off

  • (handshake for a tight squeezer) let them out-squeeze you a bit, while you maintain good, solid eye contact, so they know they haven’t intimidated you.

  • when your prospect starts talking about something that’s very important to them, look straight into

their eyes, with your own eyes narrowed a bit, and with your mouth crooked to the side. Then you add an

occasional nod, along with a few ahas! and yups! and I got its!

  • Match then lead ie. match the other person's (energy, tonality, body language, vocabulary) and then lead them.

enter their world where they are, and then you pace them, you pace them . . . and then you lead them in the

direction you want them to go.

  • Use audible cues like "aha" "mmm" and "yup" to let them know you're on the same page (especially when on the phone)

  • don’t sell things to people who don’t need them.

  • sift through the prospects as quickly and efficiently as possible, separating out the ones who are interested

from the ones who aren't. //same w/ partners

  • Always ask the prospect for permission to ask questions.

  • “John, just a couple of quick questions, so I don’t waste your time.”

  • Go from less invasive questions to more invasive questions.

  • Nod your head while your prospect is speaking.

  • Lean forward when you ask an emotionally charged question, and then continuing to lean forward while your

prospect answers

  • (order of questions for prospect) What part of town do you live in? 2 How long have you been living there? 3 What do you like most about your

neighborhood? 4 Are you married or single? 5 Do you have any children? 6 What kind of work do you do? 7

Are you self-employed or do you work for someone else?

  • Lean back when you ask a question that’s grounded in logic, and continue to lean back and nod your head in

understanding and scratch your chin thoughtfully while your prospect answers.

  • When you’re qualifying a prospect, all you should be doing is asking questions and making mental notes based

on their responses. You do not want to try to resolve their pain at this point. In fact, if anything, you want to

amplify that pain.

  • If you don't think your product/service is right for your prospect and you happen to know of another company that can help them, then you should direct them there.( you'll get good karma they may do business with you at a later date)

  • “Well, _(prosect's name)___, based on everything you just said to me, this program is definitely a perfect fit for you. Let me tell

you why . . .”

  • After your prospect goes way off topic, say, ‘Wow, that’s totally cool. It sounds really interesting. I can see why you feel that

way. Now as far as your goal for learning how to trade currencies goes . . .’

  • take the ten best sales presentations that you’ve ever made for a particular product and go through each one of them line

by line, with an eye on choose the best passages from each and then combine them into one, ultra-perfect

presentation that will become your template for all sales encounters going forward.

  • practice reading from a script until you get to the point where it doesn't sound like you're reading from a script

  • anticipate everything that might possibly come up in a sale and have the best possible response to it prepared

in advance.

  • Don't make your script front-loaded (Leave some perks unsaid so you can say them after the prospect makes an objection.)

  • focus on the benefits, not the features. //sim for resume list your accomplishments, not your job description

  • briefly mention a feature, and then expand on the benefit, showing the prospect why it matters to them

personally.

  • Make sure your script has pause points where the prospect will interact with you and affirm that you’re still on the same page. Eg. ask the prospect a simple yes-or-no question, such as: “You follow me so far?” or “Make sense?”

or “Are you with me?”

  • write your script in the spoken word, not grammatically correct English.

  • Speak to the prospect in a casual manner, using layman’s terms, not in formal English or using overly

technical lingo.

  • Sound educated, like an expert. But don’t try to talk above your prospect by using too many

technical buzz phrases;

  • When writing a new script, always go through at least four or five drafts before I locking in a final version.

  • restate the benefits again, albeit more quickly and succinctly after an objection (the prospect has a short attention span and cons heavily outweigh pros)

  • build airtight logical cases first and THEN airtight emotional cases second.

  • (In your opening pattern), Introduce yourself, your company, and explaining the reason for your

call, while using tonality and body language to establish yourself as an expert

  • Be enthusiastic right from the start.

  • Always speak in the familiar. For example, you wouldn’t say, “Hi, is Mr. Jones there?” You would say, “Hi, is

John there?”

  • Introduce yourself and your company in the first couple of sentences, and then restate the name of your company

a second time within the first couple of sentences.

  • Use power words, like “dramatically,” “explosive,” “fastest growing,” “most well respected.” Power words go a

very long way to capturing someone’s attention and establishing yourself as an expert.

  • To get at the prospect's pain point ask, "What is your biggest headache with your business?"

  • (After the prospect tells you their pain point) The proper tonality here should convey sincerity, concern, and a desire to help resolve John’s pain; and when he

starts talking about it, you want to amplify that pain by asking the following questions: “How long has this been

going on?” “Do you see this getting better or worse?” “How do you see yourself in two years?” “How has it

affected your health or your family?” In essence, you want to make sure that you make your prospect talk about

their pain. These types of questions will have a powerful impact on opening the prospect’s mind to receiving

information, which they will now measure against their pain.

  • get prospect to talk about their pain //dating coach would ask you to talk about parts of your love life

you're unhappy with

  • "Of all the factors that we have just spoken about, what is the most important to you?"

  • You could also say, “Is there anything that I have missed? Is there any way that I can tailor this solution for

you?” //sim to an end of an interview "Is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't?"

  • “so.” “Just a couple of quick questions so I don’t waste your time.” This gives a reason why you need to ask the

prospect questions, and that reason is so you don’t waste their time. You always want to ask for permission to

qualify.

  • The last part of your open is always a transition. “Based on everything you said to me, this is a perfect fit for

you.” This should be an anchor for you; you should know it by heart.

  • As you’re transitioning into your close, you should try to create some type of urgency—meaning, why the

customer needs to buy now. If you’re in an industry where there’s not a lot of inherent urgency, then try to at

least use tonal scarcity to imply urgency. But don’t create false urgency; that’s not okay.

  • Moving from the main body to the close, we start with a transitional pattern that explains how simple it is to get

the buying process started. (This is your energy in, benefits out equation.)

  • directly ask for the order, with no beating around the bush.

  • typical language pattern for a close: “Give me one shot, and believe me, if I’m even half-right, the only problem

you’ll have is that I didn’t call you six months ago and get you started then. Sound fair enough?”

  • read your script out loud, and keep practicing and practicing until you get to a level of unconscious competence

where you literally know your script by heart.

  • always use a script, whether you’re selling in person or on the phone.

  • If the yes is enthusiastic continue to back half of your sales presentation again. If the yes is not

enthusiastic start from the beginning again

  • make sure they know your name eg. Forest Gump

  • Tell your prospect what the best case and worst case scenario is for buying your product (they are likely already doing this in their head, so you can embellish it a little bit)

  • Shut up and wait for the response after making an offer //same with pickup. After asking for number, date

 

Big Ideas

 

The prospect must be sold on the 3 things

1)Love the Product

2)Trust in You

3)Trust in your company

 

  • Every sale has the same principles at play

  • If someone doesn't trust you, they will not buy from you

  • People make emotional decisions to buy and then justify those emotional decisions with logic

  • The more information you give the logical mind, the more information it wants to know (ie. It is like an animal that gets more hungry the more you feed it)

  • It's the job of the salesperson to turn maybes into yeses, not nos into yeses

  • People's real objections are rarely what they say they are.

  • People's real objections are because either they don't trust you, like you, or like your product

  • People use fake objections to avoid awkward confrontation

  • There are only 14 objections

  • Half of the objections that exist are a variation on "It is not a good time" and "I need to talk to …first"

  • The prospect typically tries to control the conversation and take the sales person off track

  • If you act as if something is already the case, it will BECOME the case

  • The ability to close is the most important factor in achieving wealth and success

  • Most of the times you will have to ask for the sale at least twice

  • A prospect's pain creates urgency

 

  • THE FIVE CORE ELEMENTS OF THE STRAIGHT LINE SYSTEM

  • 1 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.

  • 4 Lower the action threshold.

  • 5 Raise the pain threshold.

 

  • Prospects make a judgement about you within a quarter second of meeting you in person

  • Prospects make a judgement about you within a 4 seconds of meeting you in over the phone

  • We are hardwired to judge books by their covers

  • We can only stay in the state that we anchor ourselves to be in for 5mins to an hour. After that we will return to whatever state we were in before we anchored ourselves

  • Words move people logically

  • Tone of voice moves people emotionally

  • Bullshitting about stuff not related to the sale subcommunicates that you are not an expect in your field

  • Because

  • Expert salesmen don't bullshit about stuff unrelated to the sale with the prospect

 

Surprising Facts

  • A 2013 Harvard study found that prospects on average took 5 seconds to judge a salesperson.

  • After making a negative first impression it takes 8 subsequent good impressions to undo it

  • People tend to stand a bit closer in Asia

  • if you don’t make eye contact at least 72 percent of the time, people won’t trust you.

  • what Amazon has found is that if their customers are forced to click even one more time, to go to a different landing page, they will lose a major percentage of their buyers; and if a customer has to click a third time, their conversion rate drops through the floor.

 

Unknown Terms

sitting on the fence: When a prospect is about a 5 on their certainty to buy. They could go one way or the other. It is said that they are ____

Future painting: 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.

Low or High Action Threshold: people who are very easy to sell to as having a low action threshold; and we refer to people who are very difficult to sell to as having a high action threshold.

Future Pacing: The act of running an imaginary movie through your mind where you get to

see yourself in the future having already achieved a certain outcome. Or leading someone through this exercise in imagination like a prospect.

Linchpin: a locking pin inserted crosswise (as through the end of an axle or shaft) 2) Something that secures something or locks it into place. This term is commonly used in business circles to describe a finalizing quality

Olfactory anchoring: Using a smell which is associated with a certain psychological state to trigger that state of mind when you are not feeling it.

Verbal scarcity: a state of scarcity created strictly by the use of words. (eg. This deal won't last long)

Tonal scarcity: when a state of scarcity if created though tone of voice of the person speaking (eg. you lower your voice to just above a whisper)

informational scarcity: When a sense of scarcity is created by either explicitly or implicitly stating that the information that is being given is not known by everyone (eg. I don't tell all my clients this but…")

Types of vocal tones

Absolute certainty: a firm definitive vocal tone which conveys that you believe what you are saying

Utter sincerity: This is a calm, smooth, confident, low-pressure vocal tone that implies that what you’re currently

saying to the prospect is coming directly from your heart, and that you’re being absolutely sincere with them at

the highest possible level.

The reasonable man: This vocal tone should convey, “I’m reasonable, you’re

reasonable, and this is a very reasonable request!”

hypothetical, money-aside tone: This vocal tone conveys “Hypothetically speaking, putting money aside, does the idea make sense to you? Do you like the idea?” In essence, you’ve made the whole thing an academic exercise, which totally disarms them—allowing

Implied Obviousness: This vocal tone conveys that what you're saying is obvious or common sense.

I feel your pain: This vocal tone conveys that you can feel the other person's pain and that you truly empathize with them