Like him or hate him, Jordan Belfort is the greatest sales coach on the planet. Straight Line Persuasion is the summary of all of Jordan’s experiences as a sales broker. It’s a course designed to teach you mainly how to sell in higher volume sales cycles. Think sales cycles with 1-2 calls. While his advice is helpful for longer sales cycles, particularly the tonality portion, I find the Sandler training series to be better suited to enterprise complex sales.

If you need a boost in your sales performance and want to dedicate yourself to the mastery of sales, I recommend Jordan Belfort’s course.

Yea, But He Did Drugs

I absolutely hear you on this front. I thought the same thing when I first learned of him. Why would I want to model somebody who made horrible personal decisions? For a time, I was on the Grant Cardone train thinking Jordan was a inauthentic and just peddling stock broker bull.

When I took the time to study Jordan, I realized he’s one of the most authentic and charismatic personalities in the sales space. He’s apologized for his mistakes and is sober. I can tell you this goes a long way in proving you’ve actually changed, and it’s not lip service.

Quick Summary of Straight Line Persuasion

The course is broken down into multiple modules.

1. The 3 Tenets of Straight Line Persuasion
2. The Art of Prospecting: 5 Keys to Sales Mastery
3. Mastering Tonality: How to Capture attention in 4 seconds flat.
4. Being A Visionary: The True Secret To Success
5. The inner game of sales: Aligning the forces that create lasting results
6. The straight line system: The Master Formula For Controlling The Sale
7. The Art of Qualifying: Ask the right questions
8. The Presentation: The Power Of The Three 10’s
9. The Power of Language: Cutting To The Close
10. Becoming A Person Of Influence: How To Create Customers For Life

Below I’m going to provide you with some key thoughts from the program I’ve found to be helpful. Summaries help, but if you’re in sales you need to take his course. It’s worth every penny.

Key Ideas From Module 1:

SLP isn’t just about sales. It’s about making yourself more productive within any communication track. If you want to have better conversations, use the SLP system to drive to a predetermined end, while simultaneously building rapport and gathering information.

There are 3 attributes to Success:

1. You must have a desire to be wealthy.
2. You must be able to take advantage of every opportunity when it comes knocking.
3. A commitment to work your butt off when the opportunity presents itself.

So many sales methods try to quantify the time spent at different sections of the sales calls. Here’s the truth: from the FIRST word you say, you’re closing.

That’s why you must operate from a goal-oriented framework for your sales process.  You’re in the sales position for one reason, to close the sale.

3 Key Tenets Of SLP:

1. You Must develop instant rapport at both a conscious and unconscious level
2. You must learn to gather intelligence effectively
3. Always control the sale by keeping it on the straight line.

4 Levels Of Learning:

1. Unconscious Incompetence
   1. You suck and don’t know what you don’t know. You’re blissfully ignorant and have no subject knowledge. You’re most likely overconfident.
2. Conscious Incompetence
   1. You suck but now you know that you’re not very good. Your confidence will drop when you find others who are very good at what you want to do.
3. Conscious Competence
   1. You’re pretty good at this skill! You put your learning into practice and get confidence in the tasks. You still have to concentrate when doing the tasks.
4. Unconscious Competence
   1. You’re very good at this skill, you’re a natural. Your new skills become habits and you do them automatically. This is where you want to be with sales.

Most Importantly: FIND YOUR WHY

You’re going to look stupid learning a new skill. Sometimes you must look foolish for the sake of progress. Having a strong why will help you overcome these fears.  

Key Ideas From Module 2:

Not everyone is a buyer. Be okay with this.

• 20% are ready to purchase and are actively in market.
• 30% are in power. They’re shopping and know they’ll need the product.
• 30% are tire kickers. They’re apathetic to your product or service.
• 20% will not buy no matter how hard you try.

You must keep your powder dry. Don’t present to people who do not really want your product, do not really need your product, or cannot afford your product.

Find your prospects action threshold, which is the set point for them to take action on anything.

If you want to reach your goals, you must work backwards.

You Must Establish 3 Key Things In 4 Seconds:  

1. You’re enthusiastic as hell
2. You’re sharp as a tack
3. You’re an authority figure and a force to be reckoned with

You are the person who can help them get what they want.

Key Ideas From Module 3:

Most important module in my opinion. All about tonality.

I can’t do you justice with a summary here unless you actually listen to the differences in tone on your calls.

Key Ideas From Module 4:

A vision is more important than goals for three reasons:

1. Goals are temporary: you set it, achieve it, and move onto the next one.
2. Goals are individual: people don’t buy into goals, but visions.
3. Goals are not our destinations: they’re the steppingstones to your vision.

3 Must Haves Before Closing:

1. Client must love your product.
2. Client must love and trust you.
3. Client must love and trust your company.

Key Ideas From Module 5:

5 Ways To Overcome Obstacles:

1. Eliminate old patterns.
2. Master your emotional states
3. Understand how the brain works
4. Mastering your fear
5. Set lofty goals

3 ways to manage fear:

1. Pretend fear doesn’t exist.
2. Act in spite of fear.
3. Understand and accept it.

Key Ideas From Module 6:

The straight line is you at the start of the sale and it’s a line to the promised land (your prospect buying). Above the straight line is a line where you loop to build rapport. Below the line is gathering intelligence with qualifying questions.

You need to ask questions with the right tonality to get a good response and stay within rapport on the straight line.

People do buy on logic. Don’t believe otherwise. They’ll need it to make sense both logically and emotionally.

The best way to deflect an objection is to answer it before it comes up.

3 Ways To Overcome Buying wounds:

1. Create an airtight logical case for why it makes sense to buy now.
2. Create an airtight emotional case for why it makes sense to buy now.
3. Crack through the clients limiting beliefs.

As you approach the close the prospect must be at a 10 for all three parts of the sale. They need to love your product, you, and your company.

Key Ideas From Module 7:

You need to ask questions to understand the prospects “why”.

Ask questions that start big picture and then get more specific.

Ask invasive questions and learn to listen 2 times more than you talk.

Your first “no” is when the sale starts. Looping is where you get the start of building deep rapport.

Key Ideas From Module 8:

Perfecting your sales pitch means your script:

1. Is never finished.
2. Should go no longer than 1 page.
3. Doesn’t ramble on about benefits or features.
4. Paints a picture.
5. Links your product to a trustworthy figure.

You make 3 loops to capture the three 10’s.

Key Ideas From Module 9:

 Don’t say the following words:

1. Virtually
2. Only
3. Because
4. Cash Outlay/Investment
5. I would be glad to

Key Ideas From Module 10:

Never accept a client saying: “I need to think about it.”

Always deflect, never evade. 90% of stalls are smoke screens. There’s a reason the client isn’t buying, but he won’t tell you.

Every human being can succeed if they only do three things:

1. Harness the basic motivating principles of pain and pleasure.
2. Learn to move through fear toward where they want to go.

Stop focusing on what is wrong with their lives and focus on where they want to go.