The Real Wolf of Wall Street Sales Script

Stratton Oakmont's Sales Script

August 10, 2023

Happy S’mores Day! Don’t you wish you had s’more opportunities in your pipeline 🥁… sorry, I know that was bad. Back to business.

In today’s Follow Up:

  • The real Wolf of Wall Street cold call script 📞 

  • Sales in the news 🗞️

  • Sales weapon of the day 🛠️

  • Chart of the Day & Memes 🖼️ 

Sales Fact of The Day

On average, sellers spend 23.8 hours (or 52%) of their week creating messaging.

Source: Gartner

The Wolf of Wall Street Sales Script

No one’s influenced more millennial sales reps than The Wolf of Wall Street and Jordan Belfort.

He’s the younger generation’s Glengarry Glen Ross, except better looking and criminally charged…

While the movie is wild and hilarious, it’s also based on the true story of Stratton Oakmont and their sales team.

The firm was founded in 1989 as an “over-the-counter” brokerage house and became one of the largest OTC firms in the US during the late 80s and 90s.

If you can look past the $200M they defrauded from 1,500 investors… they were actually a pretty successful sales team.

We’ve already covered the playbook that took SalesForce from $25M to $5B.

Today, we’re going under the hood to dissect the Stratton Oakmont sales scripts.

The holy grail of sales scripts, straight from the Stratton Oakmont playbook:

Pretty standard introduction. (Hard to read without using the Jordan Belfort voice in your head 😂 )

Next, we get straight to the point of why you’re calling.

Like most sales scripts, it features a pattern interrupt. In this case, it’s “I know you’re busy, I’ll get straight to the point”.

A pattern interrupt changes someone’s natural pattern of thought. It’s important in every sales script because it gets the prospect to pay attention and let down their guard.

Ex: “Hey John, I know you don’t know me and weren’t expecting my call”.

Next, it gives us two paths for the two possible responses.

The “yes” response is pretty standard, but the first “no” response is most important. This is the opportunity to educate the prospect in the way you want.

The final line is your classic call to action. For many sales reps, this will be your request to get the prospect on another call.

Although this script asks to send the prospect more information, your goal should always be to get something on the calendar.

In most cases, sending info via email = never hearing from them again.

And at last, we have the secret weapon: “Fair enough?”.

This is one of the most powerful words in selling.

Chris Voss (hostage negotiator) has said “fair” is the “single most powerful word in any negotiation”.

It worked in sales back then and still works in sales today.

Stratton trained their reps to qualify prospects as early as possible.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is spending too much time with an unqualified prospect. Find out your prospect has no chance of buying now, rather than later.

Next, we have the objection handling. Responses to objections are one of the most important features of your script. Without them, sales reps will fail.

The goal is simply to get the prospect to say the word “yes”.

You can also add probing questions like, “I’m assuming you’re already satisfied with their results, am I right?” or “We have clients who used your same brokers, but after they saw our historical returns they change their strategy. Would it make sense to take a look?”

And again, we’ve got the secret weapon…“fair enough?”

Some popular tactics Stratton used before they became trendy on Instagram:

  • Qualifying: “I’m sure you…”

  • Scarcity: “Only a handful of…”

  • Secret weapon: “Fair enough?’

  • Anti-selling: “I’m not trying to sell anything…” and our favorite “Believe me we’re not looking to run your portfolio” (then what are you trying to do…?)

Lastly, we have the section that may be our favorite.

In this case “he” = your prospect.

If your prospect is up, you should be too. And you should be on the phone with them.

This is all about that mindset-grind set. 🙃 

❝

"The Only Thing Standing Between You And Your Goal Is The Bulls**t Story You Keep Telling Yourself As To Why You Can't Achieve It."

Jordan Belfort

Now, we know what you’re all thinking…

Did Stratton Oakmont do very illegal things? Yes.

Should you use this same sale script? Nope.

Do we all kind of wish we worked at Stratton Oakmont for a year and made tons of money….? Probably. 🤷 

Sales Tip of The Day

Are you opening up your cold calls with:

“Hi This is {name}, can I have 15 seconds to tell you why I called”.

Although this line is taught by many sales trainers, it’s becoming overused and immediately lets prospects know it’s a sales call.

Instead, try opening with something like:

“Hi this is {name}, and I work with other {their job title} to help with xyx… and I came across your LinkedIn. Do you have a sec to talk? ”

This opener feels less salesy, and is actually the reason why you called. It’s best to build a relationship with your prospect from an honest place from the start.

Sales in the News

Sales Weapon of The Day

Voice Notes: Create emails, sales pitches, and summaries from your voice notes. Just hit record, start talking, and let AI turn your voice into writing.

Chart of The Day:

ESG Software Sales 👀 

Source: exploding topics

Sales Meme of the Day

And that’s a wrap!

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