Belfort - Way of the wolf: straight line selling: master the art of persuasion, influence, and success

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It is tempting to dedicate this book to the person who has changed my life for the better and never stopped believing in me: my partner, Anne. But she has requested that I dedicate this book to the people all over the world who have come to my seminars, watched my videos, studied the Straight Line, written me for advice, and, most importantly, the ones who have written or gone out of their way to say thank you. I have to acknowledge the fact that my life is mostly known for my crazy past. That is just one small part of it, and not the part that I am proud of or that I want to be remembered for. The people who have written to say that I give them the hope of second chances, that because I came back from massive failure they believe they too can overcome whatever situation they have found themselves into these people I dedicate this book. To the countless people who have written to tell me how the Straight Line System has changed their lives, their level of success, and their businesses in exponential waysto you I dedicate this book. The creation of the Straight Line System changed my life forever. The skill sets it embodies have allowed me to recreate my life in ways even I never thought possible. I hope that this book will allow many more people to have access to the gift that keeps on giving. The Straight Line System truly is for everyone. My greatest close to date is that of my love, Anne. I hope that this book enables everyone who reads it to make their personal dreams come true too.

WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT ME is true.

Im one of those natural born salesmen who can sell ice to an Eskimo, oil to an Arab, pork to a rabbi, or anything else you can think of.

But who really cares about that, right?

I mean, unless you want to hire me to sell one of your products, my ability to close is basically irrelevant to you.

Whatever the case, thats my gift: the ability to sell anything to anyone, in massive quantities; and whether this gift comes from God or from nature, I really cant say, although what I am able to saywith absolute certainty, in factis that I am not the only person who was born with it.

There are a handful of others who are sort of like me.

The reason they are only sort of like me has to do with another precious gift I possess, a gift thats infinitely more rare and infinitely more valuable, and that offers a massive benefit to everyone. Including you.

What is this amazing gift?

Quite simply, its the ability to take people from all walks of life regardless of age, race, creed, color, socioeconomic background, educational status, and level of natural sales ability, and turn that person into a world-class closer almost instantly.

Its a bold statement, I know, but let me put it to you this way: if I were a superhero, then training salespeople would be my superpower, and theres not a soul on the planet who does it better than me.

Now, that sounded totally awful, right?

I can only imagine what youre thinking right now.

What a cocky bastard this guy is! So conceited! So damn full of himself! Lets throw the bastard to the wolves!

Oh, wait! He already is a wolf, isnt he?

Actually, Im an erstwhile wolf. But, either way, I think its time to formally introduce myself.

Im the Wolf of Wall Street . Remember me? The one who Leonardo DiCaprio played on the silver screen, the one who took thousands of young kids, who could barely walk and chew gum at the same time, and turned them into world-class closers using a seemingly magical sales training system called the Straight Line? The one who tortured all those panic-stricken New Zealanders at the end of the movie because they couldnt sell me a pen the right way? You remember.

On the heels of Black Monday, I took control of an irrelevant little brokerage firm named Stratton Oakmont and moved it out to Long Island to seek my fortune, and it was there, in the spring of 1988, that I cracked the code for human influence and developed that seemingly magical system for training salespeople.

Its name was the Straight Line Systemor the Straight Line, for shorta system that proved to be so powerful and effective, and so easy to learn, that within days of inventing it, it brought massive wealth and success to anyone I taught it to. In consequence, thousands of young men and women began pouring into Strattons boardroom, looking to hop on the Straight Line gravy train and stake their claim in the American Dream.

For the most part, they were a decidedly average lot at bestbasically the sad, forgotten spawn of Americas working-class families. They were kids who had never been told by their parents that they were capable of greatness; any greatness that they naturally had in them had been literally conditioned out of them since the day they were born. By the time they made it into my boardroom, they were trying merely to survive, not to thrive.

But in a postStraight Line world, none of that mattered anymore. Things like education and intellect and natural sales ability were mere trivialities that could be easily overcome. All you had to do was show up at my door, promise to work your ass off, and I would teach you the Straight Line System and make you rich.

But, alas, there was also a dark side to all this precocious success. You see, the system turned out to be almost too effective. It created freshly minted millionaires at such a ferocious clip that they ended up skipping over the typical life struggles that most young men and women go through that serve to build their characters. The result was success without respect, wealth without restraint, and power without responsibilityand , just like that , things began to spiral out of control.

And so it was that, in the same way that a seemingly innocuous tropical storm uses the warm waters of the Atlantic to grow and build and strengthen and mutate until it reaches a point of such critical mass that it destroys everything in its path, the Straight Line System followed an eerily similar trajectorydestroying everything in its path as well, including me.

Indeed, by the time it was over I had lost everything: my money, my pride, my dignity, my self-respect, my childrenfor a timeand my freedom.

But the worst part of all was that I knew I had no one to blame but myself. I had taken a God-given gift and misused it, and I had taken an amazing discovery and bastardized it.

The Straight Line System had the ability to change peoples lives in a dramatic wayleveling the playing field for anyone whod been held back from achieving greatness due to an inability to effectively communicate their thoughts and ideas in a way that connected with other people and moved them to take action.