FACEBOOK SOLD ME A PEN!
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In the all-time classic movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” the main character Jordan Belfort talks about “selling a pen” as a way to teach about sales. Jordan wants his employees to create a sense of urgency for the customer to want to buy whatever product his employees are selling. This is the first scene talking about selling a pen that still to this day is one of my favorite scenes from the entire movie.
Obviously, supply and demand create this urgency. In the clip you saw Brad, the "superior” salesman of the group, create urgency by simply outlining the fact that nobody had a pen to write their name down on a napkin, thus the customer would be more willing and eager to buy the pen.
If you are unaware, The Wolf of Wallstreet is based on a true story about a real-life of Jordan Belfort. After the movie, Belfort was catapulted to fame, and while on the Piers Morgan show he was asked to “sell him a pen”. Not surprisingly, Piers Morgan was being his quintessential self (pestering/combative) and bringing up Belfort’s criminal and controversial past. However, Piers tries to patronize Belfort and asks him to “sell him a pen” and Belfort simply owned him. The lesson about selling a pen was that it’s not about the pen. It’s about the customer. Don’t waste your time selling something to someone who’s not in the market for what you are selling. Also, one of the greatest classic sales tips is to ask the customer questions. In reality, you are simply collecting data to better construct your sales pitch for someone who is in the market for what you are selling.
Here is the clip when Jordan was on the Piers Morgan show.
Ok got it, how does this involve Facebook?
Well if you aren’t aware, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Shopify, and thousands of companies are constantly doing what Jordan Belfort is doing when selling a pen. They are collecting millions of data points constantly about your interests, hobbies, gender, age, political affiliation, email, etc. This data is then collected and re-sold over and over and over and over…. you get the point. Companies buy these data points to better “sell you a pen”. Every time you search for something on google that data is collected. Every time you talk about dog food in your house your Amazon Alexa is listening and the next ad you will get on Instagram will be a dog toy. It’s almost scary.
Anyways, on my latest podcast with the hilarious group of comedy sports bloggers Devine Sports Gospel they threw me the age-old “sell me this pen” question out of the blue. Luckily my hail mary question “what color pens do you guy has” worked in my favor. Enjoy…
Have a great rest of the week,
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