‘Sell me this pen:’ The real answer to The Wolf of Wall Street’s challenge
Anyone who’s seen Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street
knows the scene. In the last few moments of the film, Leonardo
DiCaprio, portraying Jordan Belfort – the 1990s penny stock broker, who
went to prison on charges of fraud and stock market manipulation for
orchestrating a massive pump and dump scheme at his New York firm
Stratton Oakmont – asks a room full of salesmen at a seminar to sell him a pen.
Mr. DiCaprio hands a pen to one salesman, who begins describing it:
“It’s an amazing pen...” Not satisfied, Mr. DiCaprio takes the pen from
the salesman, hands it to another and repeats the challenge. Again, the
salesman describes the pen’s finer features and Mr. DiCaprio moves on.
So what is the correct response? Earlier in the film, Mr.
Belfort is portrayed giving the same challenge to friends (clip contains profanity)
he has hired to work at the startup firm. Sitting in a diner, one man
takes the pen and tells Mr. Dicaprio, as Mr. Belfort, to write his name
down. Having just handed over his pen, Mr. DiCaprio, replies that he
doesn’t have a pen. Exactly, the man replies, “Supply and demand.”
But
that’s actually not the correct response, says the real-life Mr.
Belfort in an interview. The actual answer to “Sell me this pen,”
doesn’t show up in the film. Mr. Belfort, who is now riding the movie’s
popularity and is active on the speaking and seminar circuit as he tries
to pay down the $110-million (U.S.) fine he received from the U.S.
government after being indicted in 1998 for securities fraud, explains
the correct response to “Sell me this pen:”
“It’s
sort of a trick question. Because when you say to a salesman, ‘Sell me
this pen,’ you might find some will say to you, ‘This is a great pen,
this pen writes upside down. It defies gravity, this pen is the cheapest
pen on earth, this pen will never run out.’ They’ll say all the reasons
the pen is good, they’ll start telling you the features, and the better
ones will give you the benefits too. But that’s not what the real
answer is.
“The real answer
is, before I’m even going to sell a pen to anybody, I need to know about
the person, I want to know what their needs are, what kind of pens do
they use, do they use a pen? How often do they use a pen? Do they like
to use a pen formally, to sign things, or use it in their everyday life?
The first idea is that when you say ‘Sell me this pen,’ I want to hear
[the salesman] ask me a question. ‘So tell me, how long have you been in
the market for a pen?’ I want them to turn it around on me and start
asking me questions to identify my needs, what I’m looking for. And if
you do that, people don’t know what to do. Next thing, he is answering,
and now I’m controlling the conversation, finding out exactly what he
needs.
“Once I have that, I
say, ‘You know, Bill, based on what you’ve just said to me, the pen I
have here is the perfect fit. Let me tell you what it’s about…’ Then you
can tell them about what you have, because you’re filling a need. Most
average or newbie salespeople think that they’re supposed to sell you
the pen, when a really seasoned salesperson will actually turn it into a
qualifying session to find out what you need. That’s the truth of it.
It’s like trying to sell someone a house and you don’t know if they’re
in the market for a house, what kind of house they want, how many kids –
so how can you sell someone a house? That’s the point.”
