5 Lessons Learned from Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort

Hello and welcome to episode number 9 of the brand new video series, 5 Lessons Learned, brought to you by Book Thinkers, where each and every week the team and I will explore the top 5 lessons learned from a book that we've read and loved. This week we're going to talk about Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort. Jordan— and he's pretty famous for being played by Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street— Jordan is a professional salesperson. And he's second to none in the ability to motivate and train successful sales forces throughout the world. He's trained millions of people on his straight-line selling techniques, and throughout this video, we're going to explore a little bit more about why he's been so successful and about what his techniques actually teach people. So without further ado, let's jump into lesson number one. Lesson number one is that. Sales skills are valuable to every single person in this world and not just sales professionals. What do we mean by that? We mean the ability to properly articulate a message, to convey exactly what we're thinking to somebody else, the ability to tell a good story and get other people excited about something, the ability to lead, the ability to motivate or inspire, the ability to recognize a pain point in somebody's life and recommend a solution to it, Those are all valuable skills whether or not you're in a day-to-day sales profession. We don't necessarily mean a sleazy car salesman or somebody that's trying to push something on you that you don't want. That's not the proper way to sell anyway, and we'll learn more about that as we continue this video. But that's lesson number 1: sales skills are valuable to everybody. So we hope that you continue with this video even if you aren't necessarily a day-to-day sales professional. Lesson number 2 is that each and every sale is exactly the same. And what we mean by that is that despite individual needs, your prospects are entering the sales process wanting to know 3 things. Number 1 is that your product, idea, or service is better than sliced bread and that it's going to solve their immediate problem. Number 2 is that their sales representative, aka you, is a trustworthy person and they know exactly what they're talking about. And then number 3 is that the company they're buying from has a good reputation. That it's going to follow up on its promises and that it's going to help that person through the process. So that's it, right? Simple enough. Well, not so simple, because each and every one of those prospects is also coming into the buying process somewhere on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being absolutely certain that this is a good fit and 0 being absolutely uncertain, meaning they don't want anything to do with you. Now, thankfully, most of the time your prospects are not really against you, or else it's not really a sales process. It's more like you're begging for the sale. But if you know that they're somewhere between 5 and 10 on the certainty scale, your job is to move them towards a 10, towards absolute certainty in each one of those 3 categories. And we'll learn a little bit more about how to do that throughout the rest of this video. Lesson number 3 is that not all rapport is good rapport. And this is pretty contradictory to what I've learned as a sales professional. I always thought that talking about the weather or talking about the price of tea in China would help Lower their barriers, make them feel more comfortable, make them release more information, etc., etc. But Jordan states that any rapport-related activities that are not directly related to the sale are a complete waste of time. Toss them all out the window. There are no free words during the sales process. You need to be a surgeon with your words. Surgeons don't make extra cuts during a surgery, and you shouldn't use extra words during your sales process. No extra emails or phone calls or talking to people about the weather. It's a complete waste of time in his opinion. And you know what? I kind of agree. I feel that during the sales process, when you're talking about these things, sometimes it can feel a little bit superficial. So I'm going to implement this. I'm going to try out what Jordan's saying here and try to cut some of the extra rapport-related activities out of my sales process and see how it works. And I would encourage you to do the same. So that's lesson number 3, cut the extra rapport-related activities. Not all rapport is good rapport. Lesson number 4 is something I've done wrong my entire sales career. It's something that I had no idea I was doing wrong until I read this book, and that's that if during the qualification process you're telling your prospect you can solve their pain, you're basically shooting yourself in the foot. And what I mean by that is that you have an opportunity during the qualification process to amplify their pain. When they say, I have a pain point here, ask follow-up questions to learn more about it. Help them to understand that there's even further inefficiency than they currently realize by asking those follow-up questions. And when you amplify their pain, they become in a heightened state of pain. And that's a good thing because then when you demonstrate your product or service, you know more about their pain. You can demonstrate exactly how it's going to solve their pain points and you let them come to the solution or the conclusion that your solution is going to meet all of their needs. And when they own that decision, when it's theirs instead of you just sitting there saying, oh yeah, not a problem, we've seen this 100 times before, we can solve that like it's not an issue, then you're not really letting them own their problem enough. You're not letting them really get it in their gut and understand, okay, I have true inefficiencies and you're going to be able to solve them. And when they make that decision in their head that your product is going to solve instead of you making that decision for them, the sale's done. You have a much higher opportunity to close that sale than you did before. So that's lesson number 4, don't shoot yourself in the foot. Lesson number 5 has to do with neuro-linguistic programming or NLP for short. Neuro-linguistic programming basically allows us to choose our emotional state. We can be proactive instead of reactive. We don't need to live based off of external factors. Human beings can do 2 very unique things, and number one is the ability to focus on whatever we want. I can focus on this book, or I can focus on that book. I can focus on being negative, or I can also focus on being positive. And then number 2 is that human beings have the ability to choose our physiology. I can choose whether or not I want to puff my chest out and broaden my shoulders and maybe put an arm in the air for confidence. And I can also choose to kind of unstraighten my back and kind of put my shoulders forward, put my head down, and that kind of reveals vulnerability and uncertainty. Human beings have the ability to choose how we feel. Now, those states are fleeting. You can't choose to be all-powerful for 24 hours straight. But when you understand that in the moment you can convey whatever you would like to, That's very powerful in sales. If I would like to convey absolute certainty when I walk into a sales process, because my ultimate goal is to move them along the certainty goal to a 10, I can do that. I can understand exactly what makes me feel certain— that's called an anchor— and relive that experience, focus on that experience right before I walk into the sales meeting, and all of a sudden I'm conveying certainty. So neurolinguistic programming is something that's very new to science. People are focusing a lot of time on it, and we're learning more and more about it each and every day. But it's very beneficial for neurolinguistic programming and anchoring, applying those to the sales process. Huge lesson there. And this book expands on that content a lot. So if you like what I had to say there, definitely check out a copy of this book. If you made it this far, thank you so much, and we hope you've enjoyed the top 5 lessons today from Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort. Again, as we mentioned, Jordan is an awesome guy. He is truly a phenomenal sales professional, and he's taught millions of people these lessons and many more. So he also has some additional content. You should definitely go check him out. If you'd like to pick up a copy of this book, we have dropped a link in the comment section below. If there's a book that you'd like to see us review, please also drop a comment in the comment section below and let us know what you think. We're more than happy to read any book under the sun, whether it's a brand new author or whether it's an absolute classic. No book goes unread with Book Thinkers. And then number 3, if you'd like to connect with us a little bit more, please check out bookthinkers.com. Bookthinkers.com is currently a web-based application that allows users to sign up and create a virtual bookshelf, which helps with organization. I mean, it's pretty tough to organize all of these books. Number 2, you can log your book notes. So I can put my top 10 takeaways into BookThinkers, and it will systematically remind me of that information over time, which will help me retain more of that information and implement more of it in my life. You can also earn badges, set goals, participate in group goals, meet a lot of really cool people, and much more. So go out there, read, retain, share, and grow, and we hope to see you soon. Bye. Bye.