Sales Lessons You Want to Steal From “The Wolf of Wall Street”

Written By salezshark

Published on March 3, 2016

Walking out of the theatre after watching The Wolf of the Wall Street, I knew that this was not just a brilliant movie filled with high- voltage performances but a profound visual depiction of some best-in-class sales techniques, to take inspiration from.

It convincingly urged me to deep- dive into each scene that introduced sales techniques. The movie made me eager to implement what I was reminded of; the art of selling. Today, to be ahead of market competition, I progressively encourage each member in my sales team to embrace sales techniques such as a Sales CRM and more alongside, I urge them to watch this movie to understand and identify accurate routes to selling.

In case, you haven’t seen the movie yet, let’s take a quick look at a few sales lessons that can be borrowed from Wolf of the Wall Street for business leaders and sales personals.

For Business Leaders

Motivate

Sales representatives are often a company’s highest-paid employees with heightened incentives. However, a great salary is not always their motivation in an organization.

  • Salespersons are subjected to various pressures such as market change, targets and more. Under such harsh circumstances, it is imperative to regularly listen and spend time with employees. Understand their issues and solve them.
  • A great business leader is someone who timely acknowledges and appreciates the workforce. Your recognition strongly builds motivation and encouragement amidst employees, enabling them to perform with more confidence and zeal.

To double their confidence, you must go ahead and empower them with technologies such as Sales Automation and Sales CRM software.

Train

Training is a valuable investment that helps your team attain the required skill- set and knowledge.

  • In the movie, a character was able to successfully transform uneducated and unqualified people into selling machines by sharing effective sales strategies with them. Taking reference from this, you must equip your employees with sessions where you share your expertise, strategies and learnings with them. This gives them a roadmap and prepares them to efficiently hit the business arena.

For Sales Personals

Create the Need

In a different scene, the sales team is taught their first lesson by pulling out a pen and saying, “sell me this pen.”

After a few attempts, a person takes the pen and asks another to write his name on a napkin. That person had nothing to write with and had to ask for a pen. Therefore, intelligently he created the need and made the sale.

Currently, it is important to establish a need. Fuel buyer’s desire to change between what they have and what they can potentially have, to tap more sales.

Build a Rapport

The need to build a rapport with customers has been beautifully portrayed in the movie. In one of the scenes, a character builds rapport with each customer to gain his or her trust. This gives him a chance to strike more conversations until he finally makes a sale.

  • It is imperative to form a rapport before expecting anyone to listen to you. Once a prospect starts listening to you, your chances to present a pitch definitely increases.
  • Moreover, it helps you to build long- term relationships with them. At present, many sales professionals examine customer behavior on several technology-based tools such as Customer Management Software and Sales Automation CRM. Understanding customer traits well in- advance helps you initiate the right conversation to build a rapport.

The Wolf of Wall Street has reinforced the bottom line of sales. It is one brilliant source to take inspiration from. The techniques introduced, coupled with advanced technology will aid you to become a sales Ninja.