Way of the Wolf explains sales trainer Jordan Belfort’s Straight Line method of selling, which is designed to efficiently move a prospect from doubt to certainty about buying. It provides a conceptual framework plus a collection of principles, techniques, and psychology that he says anyone can use to sell anything in any industry.
Belfort is best known as The Wolf of Wall Street—the name of his first memoir and of a Scorcese movie depicting his high-flying life as a broker in penny stocks before pleading guilty in 1999 to securities fraud and money laundering. He served 22 months, then became a motivational speaker and sales trainer. Belfort rethought his ethics and refined his selling method, which he says will shorten sales cycles, dramatically increase closes, and lead to referrals and long-term customer relationships—while bringing the seller success and wealth.
(Shortform note: Based on online reviews, many users believe the method works. Others, however, contend that it relies on pressure tactics, making it useful only in B2C (business-to-consumer) sales as opposed to B2B (business-to-business) sales where customers dislike pressure.)
Straight Line vs. Other Sales Methods
The Straight Line System, as described in Way of the Wolf, is a condensed version of Belfort’s training courses. It differs from popular sales methodologies, such as The Challenger Sale and SPIN Selling, in several ways:
It prioritizes the seller’s interest in closing expeditiously over the customer’s interest in ensuring the best solution. While it does mention meeting customer needs, most of the book focuses on techniques for moving the customer to a sale.
The Straight Line method, originally designed for telesales, takes a one-method-fits-all-sales approach. However, B2B sales may differ from B2C sales in size, complexity, number of stakeholders, and length of the sales cycle. So, sales methods like Challenger and SPIN Selling tailor their approach and solutions to the customer.
Compared to other sales methods, the Straight Line system is simple and straightforward.
Belfort introduces his system by explaining that every prospect (potential customer) falls somewhere on a certainty scale of 1 to 10 when it comes to their feelings about three things: the product you’re selling, you as the salesperson, and your company. Your goal as a seller is to efficiently move the prospect on a straight path toward certainty about all three points and a sale.
Belfort argues that all sales are alike in that the seller’s objective is always to move the prospect from uncertainty to certainty about buying, regardless of product, price, or differences in the prospect’s needs, problems to be solved, values, or objections.
To close a sale under the Straight Line method, you must create level-10 certainty or confidence in the prospect’s mind on all three essentials, which Belfort calls the three tens.
Customer Certainties Overlap
Although Belfort refers to the three certainties in the same order throughout the book (product, seller, company), he doesn’t say whether the seller must address them in that order during every sales conversation.
You’ll likely work toward certainty on all three aspects simultaneously—for instance, your compelling pitch for the product would help create client certainty, not only about the product, but also about you as an expert and about the company as the producer of a great product.
Or, you might vary your emphasis depending on the circumstances and customer. For example, if the customer has already made up her mind to buy a laptop computer, and she’s comparison shopping, you’d focus on establishing certainty that your brand and company offer superior quality and service rather than on the general benefits of owning a laptop.
A seller must create certainty in the prospect’s mind on two levels: logical and emotional.
Building the Straight Line or creating a framework for the sales conversation involves four steps:
Belfort says that the first step—establishing your authority and taking control of the sale—must happen in seconds—or you’ll fail to close. Specifically, he says you must establish three things about yourself in the first four seconds of a Straight Line sales conversation: your competence, expertise, and enthusiasm (typically, through your tone, appearance, and body language). (Shortform note: Taking immediate control may be more important in B2C than in B2B sales, where business customers tend to resist pressure.)
Once you’ve established control of the Straight Line sales conversation, the next steps, which go hand in hand, are building rapport and gathering information for your presentation (without rapport, prospects won’t answer your questions).
To have a two-way conversation, you need to deviate from the Straight Line a little, and let the prospect talk. However, you should use the small deviations from the Straight Line to build rapport and gain information by asking purposeful questions that will help you target your presentation.
For example, if you were selling a car under this system, you’d use your questioning to identify potential hurdles such as bad credit or inability to make a down payment. You’d then know to feature your company’s easy credit plan in your presentation.
(Shortform note: Many sales methods follow some version of these steps—the seven typical sales steps are: prospecting and qualifying, preparation, approach (questioning), presentation, objection handling, closing, and follow-up. Straight Line differs from others in preparation and emphasis. For example, while both Straight Line and customer-focused methods like Challenger ask questions to gather information, Straight line does it on the fly, while customer-focused methods prepare in advance and go deeper in an effort, not just to sell, but to customize a solution.)
Even if you’ve created total certainty in the client’s mind about your product, you, and your company, the client still may not be ready to say “yes.” This is where two more elements of the Straight Line System come in: the action and pain thresholds. Your goal is to lower the action threshold and increase the pain threshold.
Each person has an individual action threshold at which they feel comfortable enough to buy, based on their way of decision-making. For instance, before buying a specific car, a buyer might want to feel they’ve left no stone unturned in researching every viable option. This buyer has a high action threshold. The higher someone’s action threshold, the harder it is to get a “yes”; however, this threshold isn’t firm. you can work to lower it, by increasing their pain threshold.
A customer’s pain threshold is the point at which they’re driven to take action to alleviate a problem or pain. If you’ve asked the right questions during your information gathering, you’ll understand their pain and you can create an urgency to act by emphasizing it. For example, if you’re a building contractor, you might play up the risk that they’ll have an expensive emergency if they don’t replace a failing roof right now. (Shortform note: Sales trainer Michael Nick recommends three steps to determine a client’s pain threshold: Identify the pains and issues, calculate the current cost of the pains, and extrapolate the cost by five years.)
After outlining his system, Belfort discusses tools and techniques to move a sales conversation through the four Straight Line steps (control, rapport, information gathering, presentation). The first tools are tone of voice and body language.
Tone and body language influence the client unconsciously; in contrast, words influence the conscious brain. The two brain functions work together in guiding decision-making. Remember, you need two levels of certainty for a sale: logical and emotional. They correspond with the brain’s conscious and unconscious sides respectively, and a seller must appeal to both to increase certainty.
You devote only 5-10% of your brainpower to conscious or logical thought, while the other 90+% works in your unconscious mind to keep your body systems operating and process environmental information. Your unconscious side records everything, creating a mental map that helps you form quick first impressions. Once you’ve formed an impression, you rationalize it (hence, the sales adage that people buy on emotion and justify with logic).
Belfort’s tips for using tone to connect emotionally include:
1) Sound like you care: Convey that you care by using a tone that’s both upbeat and sympathetic, so that the prospect feels as if you know him and have his best interests at heart.
2) Create a sense of mystery: When you introduce your product, create a sense of mystery and anticipation. Lower your voice to sound as though you’re letting the prospect in on a secret: “I have something amazing for you today...”
3) Create a sense of scarcity: Lowering your voice, tell the prospect in an urgent tone that he needs to act now. You can create a sense of scarcity with:
(Shortform note: Creating an urgency to “act now” due to scarcity is a common closing technique—it appears on numerous “top closing techniques” lists—but in B2B sales, many experts believe such tactics are ineffective.)
4) Seem eminently reasonable: Say something like, “Got a minute?” to start your pitch, or “How’s that sound?” to wrap it up, using inflection at the end of the sentence. These statements convey that you’re reasonable, and the client can work with you.
Appeal to Emotions
Salespeople typically focus on appealing to logic, but many experts echo Belfort’s advice to appeal to both sides of the brain, especially the unconscious: One author and trainer argues in the Harvard Business Review that, to close more sales, salespeople should put greater emphasis on appealing to emotion, given the lopsided role the unconscious mind plays in our decision-making.
One way to do so is to create an emotional connection to the product—for instance, by offering a test drive in a car, appealing to emotions by painting a picture, or using testimonials of happy people enjoying the product. Another way to connect is by telling a “story.” After connecting emotionally, help the customer validate the emotional decision with facts and logic. (For more on how to create an effective story or marketing message, see our guide to Building a StoryBrand.)
Body language works hand in hand with tone in subconsciously increasing a prospect’s certainty. It encompasses:
The first thing people notice about you is your appearance, beginning with dress and grooming; you want to come across as professional and therefore credible.
Belfort recommends that salespeople (both men and women) wear suits, minimize cologne or perfume, and carry a leather briefcase to convey confidence, care, and quality. For men, he advises that any beard or mustache be close-cropped (unless facial hair is part of the culture) so you don’t come across as careless or sloppy; women should avoid distracting hairstyles or too much jewelry.
(Shortform note: Research shows that people who dress well are more confident, feel more powerful, and are more focused. In studies, people who dressed better made fewer mistakes did better at abstract thinking and negotiated better deals than those who dressed casually. Most important from a selling perspective, people perceive those who dress professionally as leaders and seek support from them more often.)
Another key aspect of body language is eye contact. Make eye contact to show interest, but not to the point of seeming aggressive or dominating. Belfort contends you should make eye contact 72% of the time—if it’s less, people won’t trust you. (Shortform note: Some communication experts recommend the 50/70 rule: Maintain eye contact 50% of the time while speaking and 70% while listening.)
Eye contact is an important element of active listening. (Shortform note: Active listening is generally defined as giving your full attention to the speaker—so you can concentrate on, understand, respond, and remember what the speaker says. It also means showing that you’re listening through verbal cues and body language such as eye contact and nodding.)
Belfort, however, focuses on only the second part: creating the appearance of listening. He defines active listening as simply showing that you’re paying attention by using body language and tonality.
The next key aspects of body language are how you use space and movement. First, be aware of others’ personal space and don’t violate it. Also pay attention to your stance and positioning.
Belfort contends that men and women prefer different stances, depending on whether they’re dealing with someone of the same or opposite sex. Two people of the same sex are more comfortable and relaxed when standing or sitting at an angle rather than directly in front of each other. For men in particular, facing each other directly promotes a sense of competition and conflict; the same is somewhat true for women.
In contrast, according to Belfort, a man selling to a woman should stand in front of her and keep his hands visible to her. Similarly, a woman seeking to influence a man should stand facing him.
(Shortform note: Belfort doesn’t address posture—however, in 12 Rules for Life, psychologist Jordan Peterson contends that your posture reflects your self-respect and affects others’ respect for you. If you stand straight with your shoulders back, people will treat you as capable, and you’ll act with greater confidence, both of which would be assets in sales.)
A script is useful for bringing together your appeals to both logical and emotional certainty in a perfect presentation that reduces your chances of sounding unprepared or saying the wrong thing. Befort offers these script-building tips:
1) Don’t overload the script: Don’t try to cram most of your product’s benefits into the early part of the script, or you’ll overwhelm the prospect and make her tune out. Hold some benefits in reserve for when the prospect raises objections.
2) Focus on the product’s benefits rather than its features: Features are generally characteristics or capabilities of a product, while benefits are ways the product will improve the user’s life. Prospects want to know the benefits, although salespeople often focus on the features. (Shortform note: A downside of focusing on features, according to the authors of The Challenger Sale and SPIN Selling, is that it increases the customer’s price sensitivity, encouraging price-based objections.)
How to Come up With Product Benefits
To come up with benefits, some marketing experts recommend that you consider your product’s features and ask “so what?” about each one until you arrive at the true benefit—for example:
This washing machine handles bigger loads (feature). So what?
You’ll get your laundry done faster. So what?
You’ll have more time to de-stress or do things you enjoy (benefit).
Value selling is a similar idea: You sell from the perspective of what your product is worth to the customer. Focusing on value is also key in Challenger sales.
3) Build pauses into your script where you can engage the prospect in conversation—for example, after explaining a benefit, stop and ask, “Do you get what I’m saying?” Regular pauses keep the prospect’s attention and get them used to saying yes.
Additional Script-Writing Tips and Templates
The marketing firm HubSpot offers this script development plan:
Identify the product or service
Determine your target audience
Determine your benefits
Link the benefits to customer pain points
Ask questions about the pain points
Plan a close (a customer commitment you’ll get) for every sales interaction
HubSpot offers details on each step and sample scripts and templates for sales calls, emails, and voicemails. Some companies use sales script generator tools or apps.
When you ask for an order, you’ll get a definitive yes, definitive no, or maybe. The first two are easily addressed: Either process the order or say goodbye.
The third answer is more challenging because it means the prospect has objections to buying. Handle objections through looping, or backtracking to the problem and re-presenting your case each time he raises an objection, then moving forward with the sale again. Here’s how it works:
(Shortform note: Other sales trainers credit Belfort with coming up with the looping idea, although some have developed variations, for example a seven-stage loop. For more on how Belfort’s looping strategy works, check out his free online training in The Basics of Looping.)
Methods Differ for Handling Objections
Sales trainers and methods advocate a variety of ways to handle objections. The conventional wisdom is that objections are a sign of customer interest and therefore should be welcomed. Sales training often focuses heavily on teaching techniques for handling objections in order to close successfully. Brian Tracy’s The Psychology of Selling is typical in this regard—for example, if a prospect says she’s “not interested” in your product, counter with social proof that other people like it.
Belfort, of course, argues that objections stem from a prospect’s uncertainty about the product, the seller, or the company; the seller should handle objections by deflecting the first ones, then increasing the prospect’s certainty through looping.
In contrast, the creators of the SPIN Selling sales method argue that the seller’s behavior often generates objections, which is why inexperienced salespeople get more objections than veterans. For example, focusing on product features typically prompts price objections.
Way of the Wolf explains sales trainer Jordan Belfort’s Straight Line method of selling, which is designed to move a prospect from doubt to certainty about buying. He argues that to close a sale, the seller must create absolute certainty in the prospect’s mind (10 on a 1-10 scale) about three things: the product, salesperson, and company or brand. The book offers techniques for creating these certainties and closing virtually every qualified prospect.
Belfort is a motivational speaker and sales trainer, a former stockbroker, and a felon. He pleaded guilty in 1999 to securities fraud and money laundering in connection with operating a stock scheme that defrauded investors of over $200 million. Belfort served 22 months of a four-year prison term, and he was ordered to repay over $110 million to victims; as of 2018, the government said he still owed $97 million.
He wrote two memoirs, The Wolf of Wall Street, published in 2007, and Catching the Wolf of Wall Street in 2009. Both books have been published in more than 40 countries and are international bestsellers. The first, The Wolf of Wall Street, was turned into a Scorcese movie of the same name in 2013, which depicted Belfort’s wild behavior (he crashed a helicopter and sank a yacht), drug use, and free spending. The memoirs and movie helped Belfort launch his post-prison career as a speaker and sales trainer. Since the publication of Way of the Wolf, Belfort has taught its system in workshops and online. Besides training and motivational speaking, he also does business consulting.
Way of the Wolf, published by Simon and Schuster in 2017, is a condensed version of Belfort’s training courses in the Straight Line System. The book explains the sales methodology Belfort pioneered at his company Stratton Oakmont before getting into legal trouble. In the book, Belfort attributes his downfall to succumbing to greed and temptation because his Straight Line system was so hugely successful at generating wealth. He writes in the prologue that he subsequently eliminated the pressure tactics and refocused his system on ethical persuasion. He also refined and improved his sales method.
The Straight Line system, as Belfort describes it in the book, differs from popular sales methodologies, such as The Challenger Sale and SPIN Selling, in several ways:
The last chapter of this guide compares Straight Line to six popular sales methods in more detail.
Because the book is based on Belfort's life, sales method, and success, it's hard to separate reactions to the book from reactions to the author. Based on online reviews, some people are put off by Belfort’s criminal past, and they feel he’s still profiting from it to sell books and training programs. However, others contend he’s put his past misdeeds behind him and deserves respect for his success.
Regarding the specifics of the Straight Line System, many users write that the method works; they increased their success by using it. Belfort’s website carries an endorsement from speaker and leadership expert John C. Maxwell, author of The 5 Levels of Leadership and The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.
In contrast, others say the method relies too much on pressure tactics to be effective in today’s world, or it’s useful only in B2C (business-to-consumer) sales, but not B2B (business-to-business) sales, which are large and complex, and which involve multiple stakeholders. Further, some contend that the system amounts to common sales advice useful only for people with no experience in sales.
Belfort says the Straight Line method will shorten sales cycles, dramatically increase closes, and lead to referrals and long-term customer relationships—all while bringing the seller success and wealth.
He begins by explaining his conceptual framework for selling—the straight line along which the seller moves the client from doubt to certainty. After the high-level introduction to his system, Belfort spends most of the book filling in details and explaining his techniques—tone, body language, questioning, creating a script, and “looping”—for moving the customer to a sale. This organization is logical because it’s helpful to have an overall picture of the system in order to understand later nuances as well as why and how to use specific sales techniques.
Belfort departs from describing his system in Chapters 5-6 with a digression, which some readers found disconcerting, on establishing the right mindset as a salesperson through visualization techniques.
The final chapters show how the system works in practice, with Belfort’s techniques interwoven into a fictional sales dialogue.
Similar to Belfort’s approach, this guide first gives an overview of his system and sales philosophy, then fills in details and explains his techniques. Understanding the overall system first is necessary to understanding specific ways to apply it.
However, we consolidated, reorganized, and moved some material to improve clarity and coherence and eliminate repetition. We consolidated two chapters on tone with two chapters on body language because they were related. Also, we moved Chapters 5-6 on mindset to the end of the guide because they interrupted the discussion of tone and body language as well as digressed from the explanation of the sales system.
We’ve added commentary to expand on ideas in the book—for example on how people make buying decisions and on specific ways to build rapport with clients. We compare key ideas and practices of the Straight Lines system (such as handling objections) to other sales methodologies, particularly The Challenger Sale and SPIN Selling, and Mike Weinberg’s method of prospecting, described in New Sales. Simplified. Finally, we compare some of Belfort’s techniques with those of other sales trainers and experts.
Jordan Belfort created the Straight Line sales system following the Black Monday stock market crash in 1987, when he took over a small brokerage firm, Stratton Oakmont, in New York.
The idea of efficiently moving customers in a straight line from uncertainty to certainty about buying came to him as he analyzed why he was far more successful at selling than his brokers were. He realized that he succeeded by staying focused on the single objective of closing while his brokers were distracted by customer objections and tangents.
As Belfort describes it, he sketched out and taught the Straight Line system to his 12 inexperienced salespeople by inventing it as he went along. Once they applied the system, they became hugely successful—the firm ultimately grew to around 1,000 brokers doing business worth $1 billion.
Belfort believes that with his system and his extraordinary teaching talent, he can turn anyone into an exceptional closer. He acknowledges that he initially used the system unethically and illegally (he urged his brokers to pressure clients to buy). But after getting out of prison, he says he overhauled it to teach people to sell successfully—and ethically—in a wide range of industries.
He says he eliminated pressure tactics and also refined the system after consulting with experts in content creation, education, neuro-linguistics, and psychology. He calls his refined techniques ethical persuasion.
Five Principles of Ethical Persuasion
Belfort suggests that ethical persuasion is using your powers of persuasion to serve both your interests and the client’s—that is, selling him a product only if you truly believe it will help him. In contrast, unethical persuasion is pursuing personal gain at others’ expense.
Belfort’s definition focuses on the end, or purpose, of the interaction. In addition to the end, ethicists Sherry Baker and David L. Martinson focus on the means of persuasion, and they’ve created a five-point “TARES test” for assessing those means. To be ethical, persuasion requires:
Truthfulness
Authenticity (of the persuader)
Respect
Equity (both parties benefit)
Social Responsibility (there’s a common good)
In unethical persuasion, the end would be the seller’s gain, and the means would be lying. In contrast, ethical persuasion has a moral end or purpose, pursued by ethical means—for example, journalism’s end might be truth and empowerment, pursued by investigative reporting.
Like many sales trainers, Belfort says that everyone needs to know how to sell, whether they make a living in sales or just need to sell themselves to employers, negotiate for a pay increase or the sale of a home, or even to get a date. He says Straight Line persuasion is a key communication skill enabling you to live an empowered and successful life—as long as you use it responsibly.
The rest of Chapter 1, as well as Chapters 2-3, gives an overview of Belfort’s sales philosophy and of the Straight Line system; in later chapters, we’ll explore in detail topics that are only touched on here as part of the big picture.
Belfort introduces his system by explaining that every prospect (potential customer) falls somewhere on a certainty scale of 1 to 10 when it comes to their feelings about three key things: the product you’re selling, you as the salesperson, and your company. He calls these the three tens. Your goal as a seller is to efficiently move the prospect on a straight path toward certainty on all three and a sale.
Belfort contends that all sales are alike in that the seller’s objective is always to move the prospect from uncertainty to certainty about buying, regardless of product, price, or differences in the prospect’s needs, problems to be solved, values, or objections.
Complex Sales Are Different
In the broadest sense, it’s true that sellers have the same objective in all sales: selling something. But complex B2B sales are much different in structure from B2C or one-on-one sales and may require a different approach.
In a B2B sale:
The stakes are much higher—when you’re selling a product or service that’s huge and complex such as an enterprise information system, customers are ultra-sensitive to the cost of a mistake and are therefore highly deliberative and resistant to pressure (you can’t rush them).
You need to convince more than one person to buy—multiple people have a stake in or must sign off on the purchase, so you must take time to understand the dynamics and build wide support within a company. Each person has their own interests and differing levels of certainty.
Just determining who the key decision-maker is and gaining access to that person can be difficult.
Selling methods such as The Challenger Sale and SPIN Selling aim to address these challenges.
Following is a breakdown of the three certainties you must establish in the prospect’s mind to make a Straight Line sale.
How to Be Likable and Trustworthy
Like Belfort, many sales trainers emphasize the need for the seller to be likable and trustworthy. For instance, in News Sales. Simplified., Mike Weinberg says that being likable requires being aware of others’ emotions and of how you come across. For example, to be likeable, you need to be able to understand and adapt to the customer’s communication style (if they’re not chatty, drop the small talk and get to the point).
To build trust, Grant Cardone recommends the following in Sell or Be Sold:
Assume the customer doesn’t trust you, and you’ll need to prove yourself.
Help the customer research the product by providing as much information as possible.
Support what you say with documentation that she can see for herself.
Put promises in writing as part of the customer’s order.
Be honest when you don't know the answer.
Belfort argues that with even a basic understanding of the Straight Line system, you can take control of the sales conversation and move most prospects toward increased certainty until you close the sale. (Shortform note: In contrast to Belfort’s seller-focused method of making a sale as expeditiously as possible, customer-centric methods like the SPIN Selling and the Sandler method spend significant time building a relationship, “discovering” and analyzing customer needs, and pitching a custom solution.)
Customer Certainties Overlap
Although Belfort refers to the three certainties in the same order throughout the book (product, seller, company), he doesn’t say whether the seller must address them in that order during every sales conversation.
It seems likely that you’d often work toward certainty on all three aspects simultaneously—for instance, your compelling pitch for the product would help create client certainty, not only about the product, but also about you as an expert and about the company as the producer of a great product.
Or, you might vary your emphasis depending on the circumstances and customer. For example, if the customer has already made up her mind to buy a laptop computer, and she’s comparison shopping, you’d focus on establishing certainty that your brand and company offer superior quality and service rather than on the general benefits of owning a laptop.
Before explaining the Straight Line path further, Belfort makes one more point about certainty. A seller must create certainty in the prospect’s mind on two levels: logical and emotional.
The seller must create both emotional and logical certainty to close a sale because buyers draw on both—Belfort quotes the sales adage that people buy based on emotion, then rationalize the purchase with logic. (Shortform note: The research around emotion/logic in buying decisions is complicated, and sales experts interpret it in different ways. But many agree with Belfort on the need for a balanced approach. Chapters 4, 7-8 specifically explore how to connect with a customer emotionally.)
If you fall short on one or more of the three certainties, you probably won’t get a straightforward “no”—more likely, Belfort says, the customer will raise a hurdle or objection as a cover for their uncertainty about the product, you, or the company.
You’ll encounter your first objections in the initial third of the sales conversation, the first time you ask for an order. Examples of objections are: “I’ll think about it and get back to you” and “I need time to talk it over with (my boss, colleagues, or spouse).” Objections are an opportunity to go back and address the real issue, then move the customer more firmly toward certainty (a process called looping). Belfort discusses looping in Chapters 2-3 and 12. If you instead hope or believe that the prospect actually will get back to you, you’ve lost the sale, because they won’t.
(Shortform note: In Sell or Be Sold, sales trainer Grant Cardone similarly says that objections are an excuse for a customer’s lack of confidence that the product will truly meet his needs. He recommends preparing responses to common objections. We’ll compare how various sales methods address objections in more detail in Chapter 11.)
On the other hand, if you do get a rare, flat-out “no,” move on. Belfort says that people who simply aren’t interested can’t be convinced to buy, and you shouldn’t waste time on them. Weed out uninterested people early in the process by asking targeted questions (part of information gathering), which we’ll discuss in the next chapter and in Chapters 9-10.
For every decision, your certainty about what to do falls somewhere on a scale of 1-10, with 1 as most uncertain and 10 as totally certain. As you work through information and emotions, your certainty moves up or down on the scale.
Recall a recent decision you made to buy something significant—for example, an appliance, clothing, a car, electronics, or even a pet. What was your certainty level between 1-10 on the product, salesperson, and company or brand?
What factors moved you to a 10 on each of the three scales—for example, did your research on the brand or the salesperson’s pitch make a difference?
What roles did each of the two types of certainty— logical and emotional—play in your decision to buy?
Try going through this exercise again, but this time, analyze a decision you made against buying something. What was the key difference between the two situations?
In these chapters, Belfort gives an overview of how to build a straight line and keep the prospect moving toward a close rather than getting sidetracked. He goes into the steps in more detail and provides tools in later chapters.
Building the Straight Line or creating a framework for the sales conversation involves four steps or basic principles:
Belfort says that the first step—establishing your authority and taking control of the sale—must happen in the first four seconds of the sales conversation—or you’ll fail to close. (Shortform note: Taking immediate control may be more important in B2C than in B2B sales, where business customers tend to resist pressure.)
According to Belfort, you must establish three things about yourself in the first four seconds of a Straight Line sales conversation (typically, through your tone, appearance, and body language):
(Shortform note: Researchers differ on exactly how many seconds you have to make a first impression—estimates range from a fraction of a second to half a minute. Further, Belfort repeats a widely quoted assertion that when someone develops a negative first impression of you, it takes eight positive impressions to overcome it. While there’s little research to support this, it’s true that salespeople who make a poor first impression won’t likely get additional chances, so it’s vital to get it right the first time.)
In later chapters, Belfort provides techniques for establishing your credibility or authority in four seconds using tone and body language and by developing an effective script.
Once you’ve established control of the Straight Line sales conversation, the next steps, which go hand in hand, are building rapport and gathering information for your presentation. (Without rapport, prospects won’t answer your questions.) These must be purposeful activities designed to advance your goal of closing a sale. Unskilled salespeople often get sidetracked instead—they end up following the client off on tangents in an effort to be friendly, or waste time trying to answer dead-end objections.
For example, when Belfort hired his first brokers, they had constant trouble closing, even when they had good (qualified) leads. When he questioned them about the lack of sales, they complained that the clients raised too many objections to buying, which the brokers struggled to counter.
However, to succeed, Belfort’s brokers needed to steer the conversation. Belfort explained that to have a two-way conversation, you need to deviate from the Straight Line a little, and let the prospect talk. However, you should use the small deviations from the Straight Line to build rapport and gain information by asking purposeful questions that will help you target your presentation.
For example, to sell stocks, Belfort recommends discussing these areas with the customer to determine what doubts or limitations hold her back, so you can address them:
Similarly, if you were selling a car under this system, you’d want to identify potential hurdles such as bad credit or inability to make a down payment. With this information, you’d know to feature your company’s easy credit plan in your presentation.
In the process, you should be careful not to undermine rapport by saying the wrong thing, using the wrong tone or body language, or asking a question at the wrong time. Belfort stresses in later chapters that you have to constantly maintain and strengthen rapport—if you lose it at any point and can’t restore it, you’ll lose the sale.
How to Build Rapport
Belfort’s prescription for building rapport, as explained in later chapters, is to use focused questions, tone, and body language to come across as caring, sincere, and interested (but to avoid BS’ing).
However, other sales training emphasizes specific rapport-building steps and questions:
Be yourself, be friendly, show real interest, find common ground, give genuine compliments, be sensitive to the client’s time, and adapt to the business culture (such as by dressing appropriately).
Show sincere interest with comments such as: “I really like your lobby, artwork, how friendly your staff is (or something else you actually liked).” Follow up with open-ended questions about the feature you cited.
In New Sales. Simplified, Weinberg cites building rapport as the first stage in making a face-to-face sales presentation. To build rapport, he recommends starting your meeting with a genuine conversation about news, sports, or something you saw on their LinkedIn profile; then using the answers to assess the client’s personality and conversational style to which you adapt. Finally, share your agenda for the meeting, then tell your sales story.
After establishing rapport and gathering information, Belfort recommends asking for the sale so that you surface the objections early in the process. Remember, objections are generally a cover for uncertainty about the product, you, or your company. Then use looping: Backtrack to determine what the prospect is uncertain about, re-present your product’s benefits, and start moving the client forward again.
(Shortform note: In the Little Red Book of Selling, Jeffrey Gitomer argues that uncertainty/objections stem from perceived risk. The biggest hurdle to a sale is the risk the customer believes he’d take in buying your product. You must eliminate the risk to get the customer to buy. Risks include: Will I get into trouble if the purchase doesn't pan out, and is it worth the money? He says the seller can prepare for this by identifying the customer's potential risks and preparing responses that eliminate them. We’ll discuss the looping process in detail and how other sales methods address objections in Chapter 12.)
How Other Methods Compare
Many sales methods follow some version of Belfort’s four steps—the seven typical sales steps are: prospecting and qualifying, preparation, approach (questioning), presentation, objection handling, closing, and follow-up. But customer-focused methods differ from the Straight Line system in emphasis and goal. For example:
Control: While the Straight Line method asserts control to push the client toward a sale, the Challenger sale method uses control differently. It asserts control in the sense of challenging or pushing the client to think differently about his industry and his needs and solutions.
Asking questions: While both Straight Line and customer-focused methods ask questions to build rapport and gather information, customer-focused methods prepare questions in advance and go deeper in an effort, not just to sell, but to customize a solution.
Presenting: Though he lists presenting as the fourth step, Belfort doesn’t explain how to create a sales presentation—that is, how to compellingly describe your product and its benefits. He appears to assume you’ll know your product and how to pitch it before trying to sell it; instead, his system focuses on using tone and body language—as well as repeating your pitch through looping—to persuade.
In contrast, in New Sales. Simplified., Mike Weinberg advocates crafting a compelling sales story about your offering, which becomes the centerpiece of your sales presentation. A sales story explains the customer issues you solve, the solutions and services you offer, and how they’re different from and better than anyone else’s. (Weinberg provides a story template.) Further, he explains how a presentation follows eight choreographed stages, such as: get buy-in, clear the air, and tell your story.
In total, there are five key essentials to the Straight Line System and sales success. The first three are the certainties: total client confidence in your product, you, and your company. In the process of reaching 10s in these three areas, you’ve made the bulk of your sales pitch or presentation and even repeated it through looping.
But the client still may not be ready to say “yes,” which is where the fourth and fifth elements of the Straight Line System come in: the action and pain thresholds. Your goal is to lower the action threshold and increase the pain threshold. Chapter 12 explains how in detail, but here are the basics.
Each person has an individual action threshold at which they feel comfortable enough to buy, based on their personal way of decision-making. For instance, before buying a specific car, a buyer might want to feel they’ve left no stone unturned in researching every viable option. The higher someone’s action threshold, the harder it is to get a “yes” from them; however, this threshold isn’t firm. You can work to lower it by increasing another threshold.
Every prospect also has a pain threshold, a point at which they’re driven to take action to alleviate a problem or pain. For instance, they finally get fed up with the lawnmower not starting right away, and they buy a new one. If you’ve asked the right questions during your information gathering, you’ll understand their pain and you can create an urgency to act by emphasizing it. For example, if you’re a building contractor, you might remind the prospect of the high risk that they’ll have an expensive emergency if they don’t replace a failing roof right now—or you could tell a story about a customer who waited too long and suffered a disaster.
Ask Implication Questions
Sales trainer Michael Nick recommends three steps to determine a client’s pain threshold: identify the pains and issues, calculate the current cost of the pains, and extrapolate the cost by five years.
Similarly, the SPIN Selling method asks specifically designed implication questions that make the pain more explicit. These questions explore the larger implications, ripple effects, or consequences in order to make a seemingly small problem big enough to require action. For example:
Could the limitations of your equipment be costing you new business?
What effect does that have on quality?
Do your equipment problems increase turnover or make it more difficult to hire operators?
Is this leading to increased costs or liability?
The authors’ research indicates implication questions contribute strongly to success in large sales, and they increase the customer’s perception of the value of your product.
Belfort recommends approaching a sales conversation as though you’re a safecracker spinning through each of five numbers (the five essentials of a Straight Line sale) to find the combination that cracks the code and gets the prospect to buy. The rest of this book provides additional tools and techniques, but you now understand the trajectory for closing any prospect who’s closable.
Befort says that within 90 days of learning the basics of the Straight Line System, his brokers gained confidence and became million-dollar sales producers. The company expanded rapidly as Belfort emphasized the Straight Line System daily. This system can empower any salesperson and, Belfort argues, it’s your most important asset for achieving success and wealth.
(Shortform note: Belfort doesn’t discuss or acknowledge the role that initially pushing his salespeople to pressure customers might have played in his company’s growth and profit. And although he says he subsequently removed pressure tactics from his selling system, he also boasts in the opening of the book that he can sell anything to anyone, including ice to an Eskimo.)
After outlining his system in the opening chapters, Belfort discusses tools and techniques to move a sales conversation through the four Straight Line steps (control, rapport, information gathering, presentation) mentioned at the start of Chapter 2. The first tools are tone of voice and body language.
By some estimates, tone and body language comprise more than 90% of communication while the words you use make up only around 10%. (Shortform note: There’s no scientific evidence supporting the exact percentage breakdown—and many authors and speakers quoting numbers have mischaracterized mid-1960s research by Albert Mehrabian.) In any case, communicating nonverbally via tone and body language is a critical element of selling, affecting the customer whether you’re trying to or not. Belfort advocates using nonverbal communication to create trust and increase certainty.
Both tone and body language influence the client unconsciously; in contrast, words (apart from tone) influence the conscious brain. To understand how this works, you must first understand the brain’s conscious and unconscious functions.
The brain’s conscious and unconscious functions work together in guiding decision-making. Remember from Chapter 1, you need to create two levels of certainty in a sale: logical and emotional. They correspond with the brain’s conscious and unconscious sides respectively.
You devote only 5-10% of your brainpower to conscious or logical thought, while the other 90+% works in your unconscious mind to keep your body systems operating and process environmental information. Your unconscious side records everything to create a mental map to use for comparison and context in making conscious or unconscious judgments and decisions. It helps you form quick first impressions, and it enables you to respond to patterns you’ve encountered before, such as how to drive a car regardless of type. Once you’ve formed an impression, you rationalize it (hence, the sales adage that people buy on emotion and justify with logic).
Belfort argues a seller must appeal to both sides of the customer’s brain, although salespeople typically appeal more to logic by focusing on product facts. (Shortform note: Along that line, one author and sales expert argues in the Harvard Business Review that, to close more sales, salespeople should put greater emphasis on appealing to emotion, given the lopsided role the unconscious mind plays in our decision-making.)
Belfort says that to make both the logical and emotional case for a sale, you must use words to influence the conscious mind, and tonality and body language to influence the unconscious. For instance, in the opening seconds of a sale, you connect with the unconscious (emotional) side to establish authority and take control. At the end, you appeal to both emotion and logic to close the sale by reiterating the key benefits and reminding the prospect of how great using the product will feel.
How We Make Buying Decisions
Harvard Business Professor Gerald Zaltman confirms in How Customers Think that 95% of our decision-making about purchases takes place in the subconscious mind, which analyzes millions of bits of data. The conscious mind, which can process only three or four pieces of information at a time, then develops reasons to validate the unconscious decision. However, experts disagree on what this means for sales.
Author and CEO Michael Harris suggests that logical arguments may work best in simple B2C sales where facts are easy to grasp; however, he says you should use emotional appeals in complex B2B sales because of the conscious mind’s limited processing ability (too much information is overwhelming). Others argue the reverse—that you should appeal to emotion in B2C sales and logic in B2B sales; however, Zaltman says that B2B customers actually decide emotionally but think they’re deciding rationally.
Either way, sellers should start by creating an emotional connection to the product—for instance, by offering a test drive in a car, appealing to emotions by painting a picture, or using testimonials of happy people enjoying the product. Another way to connect is by telling a “story.” After connecting emotionally, help the customer validate the emotional decision with facts and logic. (For more on how to create an effective story or marketing message, see our guide to Building a StoryBrand.)
Belfort recommends changing up both your tone and body language (as teachers or speakers do) to hold a prospect’s attention. To borrow a term from music, modulate your tone by raising or lowering your voice to punctuate a point or draw someone closer. You can move a client toward certainty by using your tone to convey enthusiasm for the product.
Chapter 11 explains how to combine words, tonality, and body language into an effective sales script. But first, in this chapter, Belfort presents a set of selling principles (he calls them tonalities) intended to incorporate the most influential tones in the human repertoire. Again borrowing terminology from music, your tonality is your arrangement of vocal tones and pitches.
Befort claims that applying his tonalities with even minimal competency will generate significant results—most people who use them see at least a 50% increase in sales.
Belfort’s tonalities actually use both tone and questioning techniques. We’ve extracted the main themes and synthesized the concepts into seven principles below. Tonalities don’t guarantee a sale, but by connecting emotionally, they help you move the prospect toward certainty.
(Shortform note: Belfort argues that connecting emotionally via tonality allows the seller to control or redirect the prospect’s thought processes or internal monologue. He doesn’t explain how this works, but as a possible example, if you connect with empathy, it might eliminate the prospect’s suspicions that you’re trying to trick her, which relates to the first tonality below.)
1) Sound like you care: Convey that you care by using a tone that’s both upbeat and sympathetic, so that the prospect feels as if you know him and have his best interests at heart. Adopt this tone at the beginning of the call to create familiarity. Greet the prospect pleasantly—don’t overdo it but sound as though you really want to speak to him and truly care about how he’s doing. Later in the conversation, when the client raises concerns or a problem, return to your caring tone. Emphasize it while asking questions to determine what might keep him from committing to your product or solution. You’ll learn his certainty level as well as his action and pain thresholds so you can move him efficiently toward a sale.
How to Develop Empathy
Like salespeople, those whose jobs require interacting with others—for example, medical professionals, therapists, managers, politicians, and coaches—are more effective if they convey genuine warmth and empathy. While empathy is difficult and risky to fake (most people can detect insincerity), empathy is a fundamental social skill that you need and can develop.
In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman defines empathy as recognizing emotions in others—one of five skills comprising emotional intelligence. To develop empathy, therapists recommend strategies including: being curious about other people, stepping out of your comfort zone to interact with others, getting feedback from family and friends on improving your listening skills, examining your biases, and putting yourself in others’ shoes.
2) Phrase statements as questions: Belfort says this makes you sound agreeable and familiar. It can be as simple as saying your name or company name with an inflection: “I’m Roger Ward? From Adonis Autos? In Detroit?” You’re really asking for a micro-agreement (which leads to further agreement): “You’ve heard of me, right?” People tend to say yes because they don’t want to sound out of the loop or as though they’ve forgotten something.
(Shortform note: Communication experts refer to this inflection style as upspeak, and they note that it can make the speaker, particularly a woman, sound tentative or uncertain in some circumstances.)
3) Create a sense of mystery: When you introduce your product, create a sense of mystery and anticipation. Lower your voice to sound as though you’re letting the prospect in on a secret. Then introduce an appealing new deal—for example, “I have something amazing for you today. I haven’t seen a deal like this since ...”
4) Speak with certainty: While this point might seem to contradict the inflection speaking style advised in point 2, you must sound certain about your product or service in order to sell it. Speak firmly and confidently, to convey your belief in your product or brand: “Besides all these great features, you’re getting a Honda. You can’t do better than that for reliability.”
5) Convey sincerity: Adopt a calm, sincere tone that lets the prospect know she can trust you. You’re on her side: “I want to put you in a vehicle that makes you happy and that has everything you need for your family.”
6) Create a feeling or sense of scarcity: Lowering your voice, tell the prospect in an urgent tone that they need to act now. This gets the prospect thinking about making an immediate decision. You can create a sense of scarcity with:
(Shortform note: Creating an urgency to “act now” due to scarcity is a common closing technique—it appears on numerous “top closing techniques” lists—but in B2B sales, many experts believe such tactics are ineffective.)
7) Seem eminently reasonable: Say something like, “Got a minute?” to start your pitch, or “How’s that sound?” to wrap it up, using inflection at the end of the sentence. These statements convey that you’re not asking for much, you’re reasonable and the client can work with you.
(Shortform note: Mike Weinberg also mentions this idea in his book on prospecting, New Sales. Simplified. As an introductory phrase conveying reasonableness, he likes to say, “Let me steal a minute,” which acknowledges that you’re interrupting without apologizing.)
Lessons From Customer Service
Another way to think about connecting emotionally with tone comes from the world of “inside” sales or customer service. A communication systems provider suggests starting with a big-picture view of tone: Create a consistent tone of voice for your organization based on your brand personality: How do you want to come across as a company—sincere, energized, competent, sophisticated?
To help establish this tone, answer questions such as:
What attitude do we want to convey to customers?
How do we want them to feel when speaking with us?
What specific language or phrases will we use with customers?
Establishing a consistent overall tone is useful for “outside” salespeople as well.
Body language accounts for at least half of the 90% of communication that’s nonverbal, according to Belfort. As noted earlier, it works hand in hand with tone (the other half) in subconsciously increasing a prospect’s certainty.
Effective body language won’t necessarily close the deal, but ineffective body language can ruin the possibility of a deal—because it prevents you from developing rapport or increasing a prospect’s certainty.
This section discusses body language techniques, but first let’s clarify the term. Body language encompasses:
As noted in the discussion of first impressions, people determine in seconds whether you’re someone they want to do business with. Your body language—the way you package and present yourself—is a key influence. Think about someone who instantly “rubbed you the wrong way”—it’s likely that something in the way they looked or moved unconsciously offended you.
The rest of this section discusses ways to make body language work for rather than against you.
The first thing people notice about you is your appearance, beginning with dress and grooming; you want to come across as professional and therefore credible.
Belfort recommends that salespeople (both men and women) wear suits, minimize cologne or perfume, and carry a leather briefcase to convey confidence, care, and quality. For men, he advises that any beard or mustache be close-cropped (unless facial hair is part of the culture) so you don’t come across as careless or sloppy; women should avoid extreme hairstyles or too much jewelry as these are distracting.
Research: Why You Should Dress for Success
Research shows that people who dress well are more confident, feel more powerful, and are more focused. In studies, people who dressed better made fewer mistakes, did better at abstract thinking, and negotiated better deals than those who dressed casually.
Defining professional dress is somewhat subjective and depends on circumstances. People prefer that others’ clothing match their expectations—for example, doctors should wear scrubs, plumbers should wear appropriate uniforms, and business people should wear suits.
Most important from a selling perspective, people perceive those who dress professionally as leaders and seek support from them more often.
Another key aspect of body language is eye contact. Make eye contact to show interest, but not to the point of seeming aggressive or dominating. Belfort contends you should make eye contact 72% of the time—if it’s less, people won’t trust you.
(Shortform note: Some communication experts recommend the 50/70 rule: Maintain eye contact 50% of the time while speaking and 70% while listening. Further, only maintain eye contact for four or five seconds at a time, then look to the side slowly, before making eye contact again—if you do this too fast, you’ll look shifty or nervous.)
The point of eye contact is to project confidence and strong engagement, and to be and show that you’re a good listener. Eye contact is an important element of active listening.
The Two Parts of Active Listening
Active listening is generally defined as:
Giving your full attention to the speaker—so that you concentrate on, understand, respond, and remember what the speaker says
Showing that you’re listening through verbal cues and body language such as eye contact and nodding
Belfort’s sales system focuses primarily on the second part: creating the appearance of listening. He defines active listening as simply showing that you’re paying attention by using body language and tonality.
However, in 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson writes that fully engaging in active listening has many benefits, including learning how another person thinks, helping them think, learning from their experiences, and developing a trusting relationship.
Stance and Positioning
The next key aspects of body language are how you use space and movement. First, be aware of others’ personal space and don’t violate it. Different cultures have different standards for how closely you should approach or stand near someone, so know and respect the preferences of the culture or country you’re operating in. Belfort says Westerners prefer a space buffer of two-and-a-half to three feet, while Asians are comfortable less than a foot from another person.
(Shortform note: Other sources claim that Americans like a 12- to 15-inch buffer, while Asians prefer more than that and Middle Eastern cultures less. A 2017 Washington Post article graphically depicts research also showing that Asians prefer more personal space than Americans do.)
As part of spatial awareness, pay attention to your stance and positioning. Belfort contends that men and women prefer different stances, depending on whether they’re dealing with someone of the same or opposite sex. Two people of the same sex are more comfortable and relaxed when standing or sitting at an angle rather than directly in front of each other. For men in particular, facing each other directly promotes a sense of competition and conflict; the same is somewhat true for women.
In contrast, according to Belfort, a man selling to a woman should stand in front of her and keep his hands visible to her. Similarly, a woman seeking to influence a man should stand facing him.
(Shortform note: Other writers agree that standing at an angle to someone comes across as more comfortable or less confrontational for many people; and also that men prefer an angle to a face-to-face stance unless they’re trying to express dominance.
Belfort doesn’t address posture—however, Jordan Peterson argues in 12 Rules for Life that your posture reflects your self-respect and affects others’ respect for you. If you stand straight with your shoulders back, people will treat you as capable, and you’ll act with greater confidence.)
From a Western standpoint, a handshake is one of the most important gestures in creating an impression. There are different types of handshakes, ranging from too firm to too limp. Those at either end of the spectrum leave a poor impression.
Handshakes that are too hard or last too long come across as attempts to intimidate or dominate. Counterintuitively, Belfort notes that a limp handshake also can be a power play, conveying that the person doesn’t care how they come across.
He says a handshake should be “neutral,” neither too hard nor too soft. You should meet the other person’s hand straight on, not from above or below, and use the same amount of pressure as they do. This approach signals cooperation, indicating you’re a good person to do business with—according to Belfort, people want to do business with others who are like them or with whom they can relate. Shaking hands this way is part of an overall rapport building technique called matching, which is a means of relating to someone on their level. We’ll discuss matching in the next section.
(Shortform note: Some etiquette writers recommend that you limit a handshake to two-to-five seconds. Former President Trump’s handshake technique of gripping the other person’s hand tightly and yanking them toward him was dissected in the media as a power play. Other world leaders reportedly practiced how to counter it.)
Another common gesture is crossing your arms, which Belfort says may indicate that you’re closed to new ideas. Some behavioral experts say it makes you seem anxious, defensive, or insecure. In any case, as the seller, you want to appear as relaxed and open to the client as possible, so it’s usually better to avoid crossed arms.
Belfort recommends a technique called matching for building rapport and influence with body language. It works best as part of active listening, where you’re closely observing the other person. The technique consists of using body language to match the prospect’s body language, for instance her body position, blinking rate, and breathing. If you’re talking on the phone rather than in person, you would match her tonality and rate of speech.
Belfort says matching is different from mirroring, which is doing the exact same thing as the other person—for example, scratching your head—while they’re doing it. Matching is a little more subtle: You copy their gestures casually and slowly with a lag of five to 10 seconds and vary them a little. (Shortform note: Studies of mirroring, also called the chameleon effect, show that it causes others to like and trust you more.)
Matching and mirroring are both two-way interactions. You can move from matching a person’s behavior yourself to pacing and leading them to adopt (match) your position—for example, to get someone to uncross their arms, fold yours similarly, then pace and lead them by slowly adopting an open, relaxed arm position. It works because people unconsciously copy others.
You’ll not only create rapport, but also begin moving their emotional state from negative to positive and from uncertainty to greater certainty.
(Shortform note: Pacing and leading are neuro-linguistic programming techniques advocated by some marketers. We’ll discuss the general concept of neuro-linguistic programming in the final chapter.)
Ways to Use Matching, Pacing, and Leading
Win Bigly author Scott Adams, who writes about persuasion, suggests several matching, pacing, and leading scenarios:
Sales: Pace a potential customer verbally by showing you have similar interests and values; also discuss how they’re like your other clients. Then explain why your product or service makes logical sense for people sharing these interests.
Hiring situations: Build familiarity with a hiring manager by matching their behavior (posture, speaking, and email style). Then verbally paint a picture (future pacing) that helps them visualize you working for them—for example, your contacts can get them better prices—prompting them to think beyond the hiring decision.
Negotiation: Besides matching the other party’s body language, match their argument by agreeing with it: “That’s a very reasonable approach...but I wonder if it covers all the bases—for instance…”
In this exercise, practice using different tones in several hypothetical (but common) sales situations.
Imagine you’re calling a new prospect. Start by saying, “Hi Sophie! I hope you’re doing well today.” What tone(s) are you using and why? What should be your next statement and tone?
Try repeating your practice conversation out loud while recording yourself with your cell phone. Play it back and critique your tone, adjust it, and try again. How did the second try compare to the first?
Here’s another scenario: A prospect tells you he needs more time to make a decision. What’s your response? What tone should you use to respond and why?
Finally, imagine that your prospect likes your product or service, but tells you she can’t afford it right now. What response and tone will you use?
Tone and body language work closely with the next technique—questioning. In the Straight Line System, questions and answers are not idle small talk or tangents. As noted in Chapters 2-3, your questions must be focused and have two purposes: to build rapport and to gather information. Integrating your questions with proper tone and body language makes them more effective.
In using questions to gather information, you have two goals:
As noted in Chapter 1, you can’t sell to someone at a very low level of certainty about your product, you, or your company. This chapter discusses how to quickly weed out non-buyers, and then to develop rapport and ultimately make sales to your remaining prospects.
A marketing professional department helps to lay the groundwork for your sales conversation by:
(Shortform note: For an in-depth discussion of marketing, read our guides to The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing and Building a StoryBrand.)
Although a marketing strategy is a start, the sales staff must refine the prospect list further through focused questioning. Belfort says you’ll be lucky if even 50% of your leads turn out to be qualified buyers. (Shortform note: Getting a sale is even harder. Overall, lead-to-sale conversion rates are modest and vary by industry, with the highest rate in the financial services industry at 10%; B2B sales are more complex than B2C sales, which results in lower conversion rates for B2Bs.)
In Chapter 2, we covered some initial questions that a broker selling investments might ask prospects—for instance, the prospect’s current financial status, their concerns when it comes to investing, and past experiences. Of course, to get honest answers to questions like these, you’ll have had to decisively establish your credibility and rapport in the first few seconds of your conversation.
Further, in this chapter, Belfort offers a set of prospecting principles for sorting out the remaining non-buyers on your prospect list. Before explaining the principles, he describes the two types of non-buyers (whom you must eliminate) and two types of buyers (whom you can close) likely to be in your sales funnel:
1) Casual shoppers (30-40% of leads): These people are “just looking” with no intention of buying. They waste your time by seeming to move through the sales process, but they never agree to a sale. Besides wasting the seller’s time, they undermine her confidence: If she can’t close when everything is on track, she must be a poor salesperson.
How to recognize casual shoppers:
2) Accidentals (-5%): These people have no interest in your product and shouldn’t have been in your funnel to start with. Either someone else pushed them to look at something they’re not interested in, or they mistakenly clicked on your website and were added to a marketing list.
Accidentals are easy to identify compared to casual shoppers, but you should beware of both, and eliminate them as quickly as possible so you can spend your time on two types of likely buyers.
1) Super-motivated buyers (10-20%): In contrast to casual shoppers, super-motivated buyers want to buy now. They have a pain point or problem they’ve made up their mind to solve, they know they want your product, and they want it immediately.
2) Comparison buyers (30-40%): These buyers are interested in your product, but they don’t feel a sense of urgency to buy because they’re not bothered by a pain or problem. As a result, they feel they have the upper hand, and so want to shop around and take their time in deciding on a product.
Stakeholders in a Sale Have Differing Interests
Similarly, in The Psychology of Selling, Brian Tracy identifies six buyer types (reluctant, certain, analytical, relationship, directive, and social), and he recommends writing several versions of your sales presentation so you can switch to a more effective one when you determine what type of buyer you’re dealing with.
Recognizing these buyer types may be useful in B2C sales. However, in complex B2B sales, it may be more helpful to classify buyers by their positions as stakeholders—such as the person controlling the budget, the user, technical buyer, and the implementer. All of these stakeholders have influence on the buying decision in a large company, so a salesperson will have a better chance of building broad support and closing if she understands and appeals to their specific interests and concerns.
The Challenger Sale addresses how sales reps can tailor their message to different stakeholders and thus build support throughout the organization for the eventual sale. To do so, you need to understand such things as each stakeholder’s business priorities, the outcomes they care about, the economic drivers affecting those outcomes, and the results they need to deliver.
Ask information-gathering questions, while maintaining rapport, to eliminate non-buyers and get a handle on how to move the likely buyers along the straight line to certainty and a sale.
Since super-motivated buyers are ready to buy immediately, you won’t have to spend a lot of time on them once you know who they are. Your challenge is to identify and turn comparison buyers into super-motivated buyers by emphasizing their pain, and close them.
Here are several prospecting principles to keep in mind during your information gathering and filtering:
(Shortform note: Alternatively, in New Sales. Simplified., Mike Weinberg defines a three-step prospecting process: targeting (creating a foolproof prospect list), developing effective sales tools, and planning/executing a sale. Compared to Belfort’s process, Weinberg’s is more explicit and requires more research and preparation—for example, he uses a set of parameters for including a name on your prospect list in the first place, and creates a presentation tailored to each prospect. Belfort’s prospecting method is simpler and focuses mostly on sales techniques and a script that works for all sales.)
Sounding unprepared or saying the wrong thing will ruin any chance of a sale; use a script to avoid such mistakes. Belfort argues that a good, well-practiced script can make a rookie salesperson sound like an expert, but that even the most experienced salespeople, himself included, should always use a script. When combined with the right tone and body language, a Straight Line script functions as a template for a perfect sale.
Despite the benefits, salespeople may be reluctant to use a script because they think they’ll sound unauthentic, like a bad telemarketer. However, Belfort notes that scripts, when well-written and delivered, can be memorable and convincing, as everyone knows who has seen a great movie or Netflix drama. Further, when it comes to selling, he says even an average script can greatly increase your closing rate—and you’ll continue to improve with practice.
Belfort offers a set of principles that he claims make Straight Line scripts superior to all others:
1) Don’t overload the script: Don’t try to cram most of your product’s benefits into the early part of the script, or you’ll overwhelm the prospect and make her tune out. Hold some benefits in reserve for when the prospect raises objections.
2) Focus on the product’s benefits rather than its features: Features are generally characteristics or capabilities of a product, while benefits are ways the product will improve the user’s life. Prospects want to know the benefits, although salespeople often focus on the features. (Shortform note: A downside, according to the authors of The Challenger Sale and SPIN Selling, is that emphasizing features increases the customer’s price sensitivity, meaning that it encourages price objections.)
How to Come up With Product Benefits
To come up with benefits, some marketing experts recommend that you consider your product’s features and ask “so what?” about each one until you arrive at the true benefit—for example:
This washing machine handles bigger loads (feature). So what?
You’ll get your laundry done faster. So what?
You’ll have more time to de-stress or do things you enjoy (benefit).
Value selling is a similar idea: You sell from the perspective of what your product is worth to the customer. Focusing on value is also key in Challenger sales.
3) Build pauses into your script where you can engage the prospect in conversation—for example, after explaining a benefit, stop and ask, “Do you see what I’m saying?” Regular pauses keep the prospect’s attention and get them used to saying yes.
4) Make your script conversational: While you want to sound like an expert, also use contractions, conversational phrasing, and varied sentence lengths to create a natural flow and avoid sounding stilted or rehearsed.
5) Don’t exaggerate, omit, or lie: Make every statement 100% accurate and legal. Belfort acknowledges he was wrong to have written misleading scripts in the past. He notes that if you own a business and approve a script that’s unethical or dishonest, you’re giving your sales staff permission to engage in further unethical behavior.
6) Make clear that buying your product is easy: Prospects weigh the effort of buying something (it means change) against the benefits; the benefits must outweigh the effort required, or they won’t buy. That’s why Amazon’s one-click buying process is so successful. Yet many sellers make buying too much of an ordeal with many hoops to jump through. Your script should make clear that when a prospect says yes, she’ll get huge benefits for little effort because you’ll handle all the paperwork for her.
Belfort recommends writing out a series of scripts for different aspects of the Straight Line sales process—for example, the first four seconds and the opening, your prospecting questions and transition to a pitch, scripts for typical objections, looping scripts for the three certainties, and a closing.
Additional Script-Writing Tips and Templates
The marketing firm HubSpot offers this script development plan:
Identify the product or service
Determine your target audience
Determine your benefits
Link the benefits to customer pain points
Ask questions about the pain points
Plan a close (a customer commitment you’ll get) for every sales interaction
HubSpot offers details on each step and sample scripts and templates for sales calls, emails, and voicemails. Some companies use sales script generator tools or apps.
Every word you utter in the sales conversation should further your goals of qualifying the prospect, then increasing his certainty about your product, you, and your company. Belfort advises making the logical case first (to satisfy the prospect’s BS detector, which will be on immediate alert), then making the emotional case by future pacing.
Following are some guides for building scripts to accomplish this:
(Shortform note: Belfort and other sales trainers note that many salespeople fail to close because they never directly ask for the order. They fear rejection or don’t want to pressure the client. Some experts recommend asking at least five times, starting when the prospect has identified a problem, and lastly when you’ve finished a presentation or demonstration. However, Belfort argues that three times is usually enough under the Straight Line system because when you’ve built unassailable certainty, you can ask for the order without applying pressure.)
Once you’ve written a script, practice it until it becomes second nature, continue to refine it, and always use it.
Practice writing and delivering a script.
Think of a product and write a short script for selling it by phone (for example, a pet-sitting or window replacement service). Introduce yourself and your topic and explain why you’re calling.
Next, think of a few qualifying questions such as, “Do you have pets?” or “Do you own your home?” To gather information. frame a few big-picture questions, like “What’s your biggest frustration about X?” or “What would make your life easier?”
Then, transition to the body of the script. Remember that you should begin with the name of your product or service, move on to benefits for the prospect, check in with the prospect, and add one or two more benefits.
Create a sense of urgency by emphasizing scarcity (for instance, your schedule is filling up rapidly and you can only take a few more customers).
Finally, write a close in which you emphasize the benefits of the product or service, how easy it is to buy, ask for the order, and end with a friendly phrase, such as “Does that sound fair?”
When you ask for an order, you’ll get a definitive yes, definitive no, or maybe. The first two are easily addressed: Either process the order or say goodbye.
The third answer is more challenging because the prospect has objections to buying—this is where the looping process introduced in Chapters 2-3 comes into play. In this chapter, Belfort discusses how looping works step-by-step. It’s essentially backtracking to re-present your case each time he raises an objection, then moving forward with the sale again.
Here’s a big-picture view of Belfort’s looping strategy for handling objections:
(Shortform note: Other sales trainers credit Belfort with coming up with the looping idea, although some have developed variations, for example a seven-stage loop. For more on how Belfort’s looping strategy works, check out his free online training in The Basics of Looping.)
An Alternative Approach: Low-Pressure Sales
Subjecting a person to the same sales presentation three or four times, as Belfort’s system does, could come across as high pressure to some prospects, especially in B2B sales, and prompt resistance.
A 1947 Harvard Business Review article that’s still frequently quoted today popularized low-pressure selling as a B2B alternative; this approach underlies customer-centric sales methodologies today. Author Edward C. Bursk defined low-pressure sales as allowing people to make their own decisions rather than pressuring them into specific purchases.
Similarly, To Sell is Human contrasts traditional high-pressure selling with what the author calls a modern (no pressure) method of creating affinity with the buyer through a formula focused on providing a valuable service.
Here’s how Belfort’s looping process might play out in a sales conversation with a marketing director about software to manage her print projects, such as direct mail pieces:
A typical first objection might be that the prospect thinks the price for the software system is too high. Respond by sidestepping: “I understand what you’re saying, but aside from the cost, do you see how well our software would work for you—how much it could boost your efficiency and quality?”
You can determine where the prospect is on the certainty scale at this point by how enthusiastically (or not) she responds. If she’s at less than a 10 on the product, respond “Right, it’s a great deal! One of the biggest benefits is how much time it saves you by automating and tracking the entire printing process.”
Then backtrack to the point where you’d completed the pitch and re-present it, focusing on the strongest benefits and using tone, pacing, and leading to rebuild the emotional case as well. For example: “We talked about how time-consuming and overpriced many print projects are. So let me reiterate that by managing your process from bidding to final proofing, our software saves you 20% on the average project—not to mention, the cost and embarrassment of typos, ordering the wrong quantity, and so on.”
Pause and check in: “Do you follow what I’m saying?”
If you get an enthusiastic response, you’ll next check on her certainty level about you and your company. Shift your tone to mystery/intrigue (“Let me ask you something”) and ask whether she’d have jumped at the opportunity if she’d previously worked successfully with you and your company in the past.
If she agrees (“I probably would”), she’s indicating trust is an issue. Respond in a sympathetic tone with: “I can understand your hesitation to commit immediately, since we haven’t worked together before—so let me tell you more about myself.” Repeat your name, title, and years of experience. Similarly re-introduce your company, describing it as the best, most-respected, and so on.
For example, “I’ve worked for over 25 years in the print industry, first as a vendor and now as a salesman for Print-It Software and Service. I can tell you that Print-It is the most print-savvy software provider in the industry. Our software is specifically designed for managing print projects—in contrast to other companies’ general procurement software, which doesn’t get the job done.”
Ask for the order a second time—offering a slightly smaller purchase or trial if you can, as a way of letting the client test out your products before spending more. For instance, “Let me offer you a discounted 60-day trial so you can see for yourself how much time and expense our software can save you.”
Belfort says that about 20% of prospects with an initial objection will close after one loop. But others will need additional loops addressing uncertainty, or lowering their action threshold and increasing their pain threshold. For example, a client may want to speak to a colleague or receive additional information in the mail.
Acknowledge the new objection, using it as a transition to loop back. For example, you might say, “When clients ask for more time, they often forget about following up. I wouldn’t want you to miss out when I know how much you’ll benefit from the software.” Then loop back and re-present again: “It’s really perfect for you because it eliminates the hassles and glitches of your current system.”
After you make your case again, address the prospect’s action threshold. People mentally run best-case and worst-case scenarios when thinking of buying: If it’s a good purchase, their life will be better; if it doesn’t work, they’ll be out the money and look bad to their bosses and colleagues.
Belfort cites several ways to lower someone’s action threshold to get them to buy:
Belfort says that two-thirds of the prospects who reach this point will buy, but even the few who raise additional objections may be closable if you lower their action threshold by raising their pain threshold.
People in pain are motivated to act. Loop back to the pain or concern the prospect raised during the information gathering questions and call attention to it again—for example, “Denise, I know you said earlier that you’re frustrated with having to deal with print problems on nights and weekends, not to mention explaining them to your boss.” Next, in a sympathetic tone, raise her pain level by agreeing that her worry is valid and asking what she thinks could happen if she doesn’t act now. “Work calls and emails at home are a real hassle. Do you see them declining anytime soon without a change in how you manage projects?”
When she acknowledges she’ll be no better off, respond: “So things aren’t going to get better on their own…the great thing about our software is that it automates so much of the process and tracks every step.” Briefly re-present the key benefits (efficiency and quality) while focusing on appealing to her emotional side (less worry). Use future pacing to help her envision the peace of mind she’ll get from not having to deal with unexpected issues during her off-hours. Then, ask for the order a final time.
Methods Differ for Handling Objections
While Belfort recommends looping to dispel objections, sales training advocates a variety of ways to handle objections. The conventional wisdom is that objections are a sign of customer interest and therefore should be welcomed. Sales training often focuses heavily on teaching techniques for handling objections in order to close successfully. Brian Tracy’s The Psychology of Selling gives typical advice in this regard—for example, if a prospect says she’s “not interested” in your product, counter with social proof or testimonials showing that other people like it.
Belfort, of course, argues that objections stem from a prospect’s uncertainty about the product, the seller, or the company; the seller should address objections by deflecting the first ones, then increasing the prospect’s certainty through looping.
In contrast, the creators of the SPIN Selling sales method argue that the seller’s behavior often generates objections, which is why inexperienced sales people get more objections than veterans.
Further, pushing back on objections makes the customer feel pressured and creates resentment. Therefore, rather than handling objections by preparing rebuttals in advance, the salesperson should prevent them in two ways:
By not doing things that prompt objections. For example, not focusing on features because this prompts price objections.
By using the SPIN sequence of questions to preempt objections. For example, asking “need-payoff” questions focusing on the value of your solution gets the customer to tell you how it will help her, which forestalls objections. Examples of need-payoff questions are: “What about this solution appeals to you?” “How do you think a machine that’s twice as fast would help you?” “What would be the benefits of solving this problem?”
The overall SPIN Selling approach is to use the SPIN sequence to build up the problem, and thus the value of solving it with your solution. When the size of the problem aligns with the cost of the solution, objections are less likely to come up.
As critical as learning the Straight Line System is to increasing your sales success, there’s another necessary element as well: managing your mental state. To sell successfully, a salesperson needs to be in top form mentally, or in a confident, upbeat state of mind during every sales conversation. No one can be “on” all the time, so Belfort recommends two strategies to create a positive mental state at key moments in selling, such as when opening a sales conversation, presenting, or closing. The two strategies are:
When he took over Stratton Oakmont, Belfort knew that his sales staff would do a better job of selling if they acted and felt confident.
He regularly urged them to act “as if” (as if they were rich, supremely confident, and knowledgeable) because when they acted that way, people would treat them that way—and eventually they’d achieve the status because their actions changed their state of mind to one conducive to success.
Then he took the idea a step further and taught his salespeople future pacing, not only as a sales technique (in which you paint a picture for the prospect of a better life with the product), but also as a personal visualization practice. Belfort said that within a few months, he could see a transformation in the way his salespeople dressed, carried themselves, and interacted with prospects.
Visualization Has a Long History
Research generally supports the idea that visualization and other forms of mental rehearsal can lead to better performance or even health. (Taking a contrarian view, this Forbes article argues that visualization is actually “deflating” when the pressure to succeed is strongest.)
Visualization has been advocated as a strategy for business success since the 1937 publication of Napoleon Hill’s positive-thinking classic Think and Grow Rich. Since Hill popularized the idea of turning thoughts into reality through visualization, affirmation, and other techniques, a multitude of self-help authors, coaches, psychologists, and motivational speakers have piggybacked on the idea.
As an example of how visualization works, The Miracle Morning offers a simple daily visualization exercise with three steps:
1) Set the stage: Turn on instrumental music at low volume. Sit up straight, but comfortably. Breathe deeply, close your eyes and clear your mind.
2) Visualize the results you want and see yourself achieving them: Use your senses to see, hear, feel, touch, smell, taste every aspect of your dream. Envision yourself achieving your goals and imagine how good you’ll feel.
3) Visualize the person you need to be and what you need to do: With a clear mental image of what you want, imagine acting in ways that enable you to achieve your vision. Picture yourself looking confident or determined.
Belfort’s second strategy for creating a positive mindset for selling is state management, which he defines as creating an empowered state of mind by temporarily blocking negative emotions so you can tap the energy you need to achieve your goals.
The idea of state management (managing your mental state) comes from neuro-linguistic programming or NLP.
State management is based on the belief that you can:
A tenet of neuro-linguistic programming is that you can create an empowered or peak performance state when you need it by associating such a state with a trigger you can activate.This is similar to the idea of Pavlovian conditioning, where dogs were conditioned to salivate (expecting food) when they heard a bell.
Belfort gives several steps for creating a trigger or “anchor” you can call on when you need to be in top form mentality.
1) Choose the state of mind you want (for example, total certainty that you’ll make a sale). Recall an instance when you felt completely certain, and create a vivid mental picture of how that looked.
2) Choose your desired physical state. Envision and then match the physical state you have when you’re totally certain and confident: for instance, your posture, how you hold your head, facial expression, and so on.
3) Intensify this mental image of certainty by incorporating the five senses. Add color, sound, and so on as if you were creating a mental movie.
4) Set your anchor: When you’re in your peak state, link it to a strong and unusual word, mantra, sound, gesture, or movement that you’ll associate with that state in the future.
NLP Anchoring Steps
Similarly, the International NLP Center outlines five anchoring steps:
Determine how you want to feel—for example, more confident.
Remember a time when you felt very confident.
Choose an anchor that involves touch, such as touching your thumb and forefinger together or making a fist.
Put yourself inside the memory, reliving what you saw, heard, and felt. As you feel the same confidence, activate your anchoring—for example, touch your thumb and forefinger together as the confident feeling increases. Release your thumb and forefinger when the feeling begins to subside.
Touch your thumb and forefinger together the same way again to find out if you can access that confident state. Don’t resist—let it happen. In the future, the INLP Center claims, you’ll feel confident whenever you touch your thumb and forefinger together.
In contrast, Belfort argues that you need an unusually strong trigger—not just a “Yes!” or a finger snap—or it won’t work. (He uses a sharp smell from an inhaler.)
What Critics Say About NLP
Belfort believes that NLP works for him, enabling him to perform consistently with high energy despite a grueling schedule of speaking events.
However, critics contend that despite anecdotal evidence from practitioners, there’s insufficient scientific evidence to back NLP as a therapy or practice. Some key findings regarding NLP as a therapy are:
NLP hasn’t been tested as rigorously as proven therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy.
Research results have been mixed: More studies have concluded that NLP doesn’t work than that it does.
NLP’s effectiveness hasn’t been studied in environments outside of therapy, such as coaching or business, where claims have been made.
Advocates have a commercial incentive to push it.
Supporters say it draws criticism because it challenges the scientific establishment. Further, its efficacy is difficult to prove because each individual applies it differently.
Tony Robbins’s Alternative to NLP
Author and motivational speaker Tony Robbins teaches a technique similar to NLP. He initially taught NLP but dropped it from his programs after an out-of-court settlement with the NLP co-founder over Robbins’s certifying people in use of the system. Robbins replaced it with a system of his own called neuro-associative conditioning or NAC, which is aimed at changing your thinking or neuro-associations in order to change something in your life.
Robbins outline six steps to recondition yourself, explained in his book Awaken the Giant Within:
Decide on your destination, and identify your obstacles.
Create a sense of urgency to change.
Disrupt your pattern.
Create a positive pattern to replace the old, negative one.
Reinforce your new pattern.
Make sure your conditioning is successful.
The Straight Line System is one of numerous sales methodologies. Here’s a brief overview of some of the top methodologies, ending with a commentary on how they compare with Straight Line.
Before outlining the methods, it’s necessary to define two terms. A sales methodology defines the techniques and skills (the how-tos) for moving a prospect through the sales process (the series of steps for closing a deal, such as prospecting, qualifying, presenting, objection handling, and so on).
Your sales methodology must fit your organization’s culture, as well as your product or service and target customer. The six most frequently cited sales methodologies are:
The SPIN Selling sales method uses questions to uncover a prospect’s needs and pain points. Introduced by Neil Rackham in the book SPIN Selling 30 years ago, it challenged the traditional hard-sell technique of jumping immediately into a sales pitch.
Key technique: Based on an analysis of over 35,000 sales calls, the method asks four types of questions with the acronym SPIN about the customer’s Situation, Problems, Implications (of not addressing the problems or pain points), and Need-Payoffs (how solving the problem would improve their situation).
Benefits: This method is best suited for smaller, transactional sales that don’t involve a large number of stakeholders. Its relationship emphasis may be useful for new companies that want to build trust in the market.
Read Shortform’s guide to SPIN Selling here.
This approach counters the conventional wisdom that building a warm relationship is the key to successful selling; instead reps challenge the buyer to think differently. Described in the book The Challenger Sale, by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, it’s based on research data from 90 companies worldwide and thousands of sales reps.
Key technique: The watchwords are teach, tailor, and take control. The sales rep takes control of sales by challenging customers’ thinking with new insights and pushing back instead of giving in to customer demands.
Benefits: This is an effective method for complex B2B sales because, due to the high stakes, customers are open to new insights and options.
Read Shortform’s guide to The Challenger Sale here.
The Sandler Selling System positions the salesperson as a trusted advisor who is as invested as the customer in reaching a mutually beneficial conclusion. This low-pressure, relationship-focused method was developed in 1967 by David Sandler.
Key technique: The sales rep proactively raises and addresses typical objections such as budget. The method focuses more time on qualifying (via an in-depth needs assessment) than on closing, and lets go of the relationship when the seller’s solution isn’t an exact fit for the prospect’s problem. In a sense, the buyer convinces the seller he’s a good fit, rather than the reverse.
Benefits: This method can save time by eliminating poor prospects earlier rather than later. The method also generates collaborative long-term relationships where you can get repeat sales.
Read more about the Sandler Selling System here.
SNAP Selling, introduced by Jill Konrath in 2012, assumes that everyone is busy and flooded with too much information. Its goal is to make the sales process easy and fast by approaching it from the customer’s perspective.
Key technique: SNAP stands for: Keep it Simple, be iNvaluable, Align (with customer needs), and raise Priorities (make your solution a customer priority). Salespeople offer valuable knowledge, connect their product with what’s most important to the prospect, and make it easy for them to buy.
Benefits: This method reaches busy prospects at their level, and speeds up sales. It’s also an efficient way to sell if your company has strong name recognition (and you don’t need to spend time building trust with prospects) because you can jump right into quoting.
This method is presented in the 2012 book, SNAP Selling.
Conceptual Selling (also called the Miller Helman sales methodology after its developers) is based on the idea that instead of buying a product or service, customers buy a concept or a desired outcome.
Key technique: Instead of leading with a pitch, the salesperson uncovers the buyer’s desired outcome through empathy, active listening, and asking questions in five categories: confirmation, new information, attitude, commitment, and issues. She then ties her product or solution to the customer’s end goal.
Benefits: This method is useful for complex sales where many people need to sign off. Stakeholders are more willing to back a solution to a problem than commit to buying a product. Once you get agreement on the broader solution, you can iron out details.
Learn about this method in the 1989 book, Conceptual Selling.
Similar to Conceptual Selling, Solution Selling shifts the focus away from a product, but this time to the benefits of a customized solution. Developed in 1988 and continually updated, it has influenced other sales methodologies.
Key technique: Sales reps identify a prospect’s pain points and offer a customized solution involving a mix of various products and services to meet the prospect’s needs.
Benefits: This method is useful for creative services like graphic design and printing or interior design, where the salesperson can develop a custom package—for instance, a print provider could offer signage, business cards, and design services to fit the customer’s needs.
Learn about this method in the 1994 book, Solution Selling.
The Straight Line System seems to be a hybrid of a sales methodology and a sales process—with the Straight Line (three certainties and two thresholds) being the process and targeted questions, tonality, body language, and scripts being the methodology.
Rather than following the trend of kinder, gentler customer-centric sales methodologies, Belfort’s Straight Line system is something of a throwback to traditional hard-selling (or at least extremely persistent) methods.
To some degree, all sales methods, including Belfort’s, aim to get into the prospect’s mind, and determine which buttons to push to close a deal. In a way, Belfort is just more straightforward about this shared goal and more overt about using psychological techniques to achieve it. However, in the Straight Line System, the seller’s interest continuously drives the sales conversation toward the end goal, despite Belfort’s mentions of mutual benefits.
Benefits: The system’s virtue is that, in contrast to other sales methodologies, it’s simple and straightforward. It likely shortens the sales cycle as claimed. However, it seems best suited to B2C sales, and it may not be effective for some other types of sales.
For general sales tips and advice, see the following Shortform guides:
For a study of what makes messages and campaigns persuasive:
To learn from success classics with sales applications: