VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 17, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Financial Press, (www.financialpress.com) the leader in delivering breaking global business and economic news is pleased to announce that Jordan Belfort, the Real Wolf of Wall Street, will kick off his four-city cross-Canada sales training tour in Vancouver, May 1st 2014, 1pm to 4pm at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Center.
Financial Press is pleased to offer a significant discount opportunity (save up to $100) to our readers for any of the four shows across Canada.
For General Admission tickets, use promo code FP20. For VIP tickets, the promo code is FP-VIP. Tickets may be purchased on line at www.wolfofwallstreet.ca.
More details about Jordan Belfort's Straight Line Sales System follow FP's exclusive interview with "The Wolf of Wall Street."
Financial Press' Exclusive Interview with Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street on April 15th 2014.
In an exclusive and wide ranging interview with Jordan Belfort, Mark Chadwick, President of Financial Press in Vancouver and Bob Beaty, Managing Editor asked the Wolf of Wall Street about his life then and now, mistakes in the movie, what makes a good salesman and how The Straight Line Sales System got its name.
FP: Welcome Jordan. Thanks for taking the time. Let's dig right in. Have you ever been to Vancouver or Canada? As a result of your experience, do you have any sense of the differences in the sales process here versus the US?
JB: I was in Canada once when I was younger, but I've never been to Vancouver. As far as a difference in sales process, it doesn't matter. Sales are sales and influence is influence. I've taught sales all over the world and fundamental rules of sales apply. That is that certain things have to line up in a person's mind before they say yes. There are cultural differences of course with tonality etc., and the sales cycle may be longer or shorter, but there is no difference in sales people no matter where they are from.
FP: Your experiences could be categorized as the ultimate business 'teachable moment.' What changes have resulted both personally and professionally?
JB: There's so much to learn from what I did. The ability to take a risk, start from nothing and build something from scratch that is so dynamic and makes so much money for the people at the company. The secret was to take 20-something aged kids who hadn't been brought up with any empowerment. They had been conditioned for mediocrity. By constantly teaching them through daily interaction and the Straight Line System I was able to completely rewrite their beliefs about what they thought they were capable of, including the skills to bring that empowerment to reality. I taught them the right skill set as opposed to most sales training, which is heavily motivational. Motivation without skills training becomes self-delusional.
The teachable moment is that through the skill set training combined with motivation about ethics, beliefs and raising their standards was the basis then and the basis now for what I am doing now. You need to succeed in not only business, but also life.
My issue was the desire for instant gratification, which caused me to lose my ethics. Couple that with rationalizing behaviour shown to me by others that poisoned the whole thing. As a result, a successful company that should have been in business today got destroyed.
Success in the absence of ethics and integrity isn't success at all and you are building your foundation on sand.
FP: What are the characteristics you would look for if you were hiring sales people today?
JB: I would hire inexperienced sales people. One of the things I do really well is train sales people. I can take an average person with desire and turn them into a world-class salesman very quickly. I would rather mold people who become loyal, which in turn allows you to build a quality organization for the long term. There are two fundamental rules when you're a salesman or entrepreneur. Number one: Don't sell people things that aren't going to help them. Don't make a sale to make a sale. Address their pain in all of its definitions. Second, don't sell them more than what they need just because you'll make more money. That's not grounded in integrity or the way to build a longtime relationship.
The other factor to successful sales people is the culture created by management. Taking massive amounts of drugs and having midget-pitching competitions are probably not the best way to build a corporate cultural and be on the right side of humanity as a whole.
I would do the whole thing differently. I would institute charitable pursuits, work with foundations. I would ground the culture with integrity and give value.
FP: When you were running your firm, did you ever meet a better salesman than yourself?
JB: I've never met a better salesman than me. I met some really good ones along the way and I think the top ones I've met said "I always thought I was the best salesman in the world until I met you."
FP: Considering what you have been through are you able to achieve any sort of work/life balance?
JB: It's not so much that my work/life balance was out of whack; my life was out of whack. When I was not at work, I was completely insane. I look back and I have to laugh at that aspect of my life because I was only really hurting myself. I would go out every night, do massive quantities of drugs, and did my best dating after I got married. It was not a sustainable lifestyle.
My life today is so incredibly different. Now I'm a homebody whose biggest pleasure is playing tennis every morning. When you're not doing drugs, it paves the way for a more sustainable healthy lifestyle.
FP: If you had directed the movie, what would you have done differently?
JB: There were some things on the business side that were pretty inaccurate. There were some lessons that could have been learned that weren't and I try to correct those when I speak around the world. First was when I am sitting in the restaurant, new to Wall Street and the Matthew McConaughey character offers me booze and blow. I decline and the very next scene I am in a strip club drinking and doing blow. That descent actually took 2-3 years. I would have rather seen that process take longer than 3 minutes. The reality is people lose their ethics and integrity incrementally. The next is when I walked into the penny stock firm for the first time. The manager, when my character asked him if this was legal, he responded 'sort of'. If that had happened I would have run out the door. In reality, I was told 'of course it's legal." People employ their own moral barometer in those situations. Just because someone says something is legal and there are licenses on the wall doesn't mean it is all true.
The other is the 'sell them NYSE stock and then sell them dog-feces' speech. I never said anything like that. If you're looking to motivate people to sell stock, you're not going to tell them they are selling dog feces. No one wants to sell dog feces. The thought that I ever said that is ridiculous. That was Marty's call (Martin Scorsese) but it did cause me some problems as it completely and wildly inaccurate. And I didn't give anyone the finger while I was on the phone. That won't motivate a sales force.
And I never punched my wife in the stomach. Never ever happened.
FP: Where will Jordan Belfort be in five years?
JB: It's very hard to say where I will be personally. The last several months have resulted in some personal and relationship turmoil, so hard to say. And my days of running around are certainly over.
On a business level, there's no doubt that the movie has created an opportunity for me to spread a really great message around the world; particularly to empower people in numbers I could have never done before. The end of the movie was actually changed to show my new life. My message is no different than previously, just better known as a result of the movie.
I also work with entrepreneurs. My message isn't just about sales, although every person needs to learn how to sell on some level: parents, politicians, lawyers to a jury etc. Entrepreneurs need to sell their vision and communicate to empower their people.
FP: What do you want people to take away from the Straight Line System and why the name?
JB: The name came from the fact that I when I was trying to train salesmen how to close large deals with wealthy clients. They couldn't do it. And even though I was already considered one of the top sales trainers, I tried everything. So the enigma was having a group of 12 not so bright sales people trying to sell to the 1%. I was faced with a seemingly impossible task; to convince people who weren't worldly to talk to wealthy investors and successful business people. Finally one day, out of sheer frustration, I looked at them and said, "Don't you get it? Every sale's the same, it's a straight line. I drew a long thin straight line on the board and then over the next couple of months, the system exploded out of me. Within days of refining this almost automatic writing type of developing the system, the trainees all became world-class closers. It was bizarre. If I had used that process earlier and differently, my story would have ended very differently.
FP: Thanks Jordan, we look forward to seeing you in Vancouver on May 1st as you kick off your dates here, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal.
Details and tickets are available at www.wolfofwallstreet.ca. And readers can use our discount codes for any date or city; FP20 for regular tickets and FP-VIP for VIP tickets.
Details of Jordan Belfort's The Straight Line System
Jordan is committed to showing sales professional and entrepreneurs how they can ethically replicate his strategies for massive success without having to endure his punishing failures.
"Information is power both in business and life," states Belfort. "My Straight Line System will ensure that sales professionals of all industries will learn my in-depth program, which I have no doubt will put them at the top of their game and increase income several fold."
It goes without saying, if you are a sales professional, you cannot miss this one-time event.
The Straight Line Persuasion System will ethically show attendees how to increase sales, design a powerful vision for their business, how to use the most powerful business system devised and learn strategies and psychology to thrive in today's economy, including:
- The FOUR core elements of the inner game of sales. (These four elements are absolutely essential to your success. If you lack even one of them, you will end up actually sabotaging your own success!)
- How to get into instant rapport with your prospects and how to use that rapport to gather massive intelligence. (Your prospects will be predisposed to trusting you, so they'll tell you what their highest values are and where their pain lies.)
- The ten-step formula for building a never-ending stream of customer referrals and creating customers for life. (You'll make your life a thousand times easier with this proven, paint-by-numbers formula)
- The four key elements to creating ethical presentations that actually close the deal. (To be blunt, most sales presentations are totally misguided and actually stop you from closing the deal.)
Jordan has many more worthy strategies to take your sales volume and entrepreneurial ideas to the next level and well beyond; such as how to raise money through Venture Capital and Angel Investors so you can start using Other People's Money to fund your ideas and grow your business.
Join Jordan Belfort and Financial Press (www.financialpress.com) on May 1st in Vancouver or across Canada.
For General admission tickets, use promo code FP20. For VIP tickets, the promo code is FP-VIP. Tickets may be purchased on line at www.wolfofwallstreet.ca.
Financial Press is pleased to offer a significant discount opportunity (save up to $100) to our readers for any of the four shows across Canada.