Straight Line Persuasuion
Jordan Belfort travels the globe speaking to people all walks of life about one topic: persuasion. Throughout his seminars, he teaches all kinds of people, mostly ones involved in sales, how to master the art of persuasion. According to Belfort’s strategy, understanding how to manipulate your audience or customers will double your sales and therefore make you a much more successful salesman. He pegs on the importance of controlling the situation, and if it is executed correctly, then there is a much better chance on closing the deal. Belfort goes into more detail on how you can go about persuading your customers, but the ultimate underlying theme is that if you can correctly use these techniques, you will be an outstanding salesman.
The name of his seminar is “Straight Line: Persuasion”. My artifact is a video posted by Robert Ionescu; it is titled “Straight Line Persuasion Jordan Belfort Teaches How to Earn Millions”. The video consists of Belfort delivering his speech to a crowd of salespeople. The clip is not the entire seminar, instead it is bits and pieces of his main strategy.
According to Belfort’s strategy, understanding how to manipulate your audience or customers will double your sales and therefore make you a much more successful salesman. He pegs on the importance of controlling the situation, and if it is executed correctly, then there is a much better chance on closing the deal. Belfort goes into more detail on how you can go about persuading your customers, but the ultimate underlying theme is that if you can correctly use these techniques, you will be an outstanding salesman.
How He Captiavtes His Audience
In Belfort’s seminar, Straight Line Persuasion, he makes the crowd willing to act. In Jay Heinrichs’ book, “Thank You For Arguing”, it says, “It requires a different more personal level of emotion, one of desire.” This relates to Belfort’s seminar because when he talked to his audience, they were driven to succeed. His audience wanted to follow every piece of advice given to them and act on it right then and there.
When Belfort says, “What you have to do, as a salesperson, every time you go into an encounter, you have to understand what your outcome is. And your outcome is this-- to close. You are not there for your health, you are not there for the other person’s health. You are there to close”. Belfort gives his listeners the will to act because he promises them a better outcome to future sales and to even double revenue. He is giving them the will to act just like a late night infomercial would. One of these infomercials would make claims that their product will make lives easier, and that they should “pick up the phone now”! Making your audience feel as if they should follow your ways right that moment, then you are using the tool “willingness to act”. This can be really effective, because the audience will jump onto your side before even thinking about things.
Belfort also keeps his audience at ease by comforting them. In “Thank You For Arguing”, Heinrichs states, “Keep your audience in an easy, docile, instinct state, and your persuasion goes down more easily.” Belfort does exactly this by constantly reminding them that this system works 100%. He also has an easy but yet sure tone that assures the listeners his system will make them successful. It makes them want to hang on to every word he says.
During the seminar, Belfort provides comfort to his audience. He does this by always letting them know that they will become successful.He demonstrates that by saying, “It allows any person to master the art of persuasion”. The way Belfort keeps his audience at ease, is comparable to a mother calming her baby. The mother always lets their child know that everything will be okay. Just like Belfort when he lets his listeners know that they will reach their goals in life. The audience is assured by Belfort throughout the whole seminar because he comforts them. He lets them know that they will become a much better salesman if they follow his instructions. He captivates his audience by using this tool.
Jordan Belfort makes a personal sacrifice so the audience can succeed. According to Heinrichs, he says, “Claim that the choice will help your audience more than it will help you; even better, maintain that you’ll actually suffer from the decision.” Belfort’s only reason to be up in front talking to them is to know they will walk out of that seminar on the right path to succeed. |
In his seminar, he has no other reason to be there other than to teach. He makes it seem like his only gain from being there is to see his audience succeed. He shows personal sacrifice when he says, “I’ve taught this skill to over twelve to thirteen thousand people over the years”. In the seminar, Belfort lets his listeners know that he is there to to make them better salespeople. He is making that own personal sacrifice so he can see them become better. This tool is used very effectively, because it makes the audience more inclined to listen.
My Take on Things
Now on to my outlook of things. Let me start off by saying that I believe that Mr. Jordan Belfort is a genius when it comes to sales and public speaking. He has a way with words to captivate just about anyone who is willing to listen. Belfort’s attempt to get his audience to listen to him in this seminar was near perfect. The listeners held on to every single word he put out. The main reason for this is not only the way he talks, but what he says when he talks.
During his seminar, he does not make it obvious, but he uses rhetorical language which allows him to draw his listeners attention. Not only was his attempt successful, it has been for his entire life. At this point, rhetorical skills are just second nature to him. Another example to his ability to “hype up a crowd”, are his sales meetings he used to hold at his company Stratton Oakmont. He would leave these meetings with the entire company eating out of the palm of his hand. Think I am over-exaggerating? Read, watch, or listen just about anything from Jordan Belfort and you will understand what I mean.