Jordan was now 26 his sales technique
was fearsome he decided to go into
business for himself with a friend and
colleague Danny porush
together they set up a company called
Stratton Oakmont the name was
deliberately chosen to give them an air
of respectability that was already the
start of the fraud the two associates
moved into a former garage on Long
Island similar to the investor center
Stratton Oakmont sold stocks in small
companies with low stock prices but this
time Jordan had a brilliant idea they
would approach big players businessman
able to invest hundreds of thousands of
dollars
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to do that he took on about a dozen
friends that he knew from his childhood
in Bayside guys who were not very bright
and knew nothing about the world of
Finance cycles it started like any small
slightly half-baked company things were
a bit haphazard the start was lackluster
so Jordan worked more on his sales
technique after a few months he gave his
employees a sort of handbook of hard
selling named the straight-line
persuasion system it anticipated the
responses of potential clients he gave
them a sheet of prepared dialogue which
his employees just had to learn by heart
in order to be even more persuasive
their sauce we tracked down Jordan
Belfort's lawyer and he well remembers
the patter the fledgling traders learned
by heart
potential investors this stock is going
to double in price it's going to triple
in price we have inside information
we're very close to management we know
things that others don't know this is a
great opportunity I've got 5,000 shares
left it's going very quickly and then if
they had pushback from individuals who
said well I need to talk to my wife the
broker would say what do you mean you
have to talk to your wife don't you make
the decisions in the house what are you
afraid this is an opportunity your wife
will love you for this the success was
remarkable after only one year Stratton
Oakmont moved to much larger brand new
premises
this is 1979 Marcus Avenue
it was behind these windows that Jordan
Belfort's legend was written after just
a few years he had over a thousand
people working here and he made several
million dollars with his particularly
effective methods
the choice of this location away from
Wall Street was not by chance according
to Joel Cohen the prosecutor who
investigated Stratton Oakmont over a
long period
I suspect they opened it in Long Island
in this warehouse building because it
was inexpensive and because they were
able to recruit large numbers of
relatively uneducated but very eager and
hungry young brokers in Long Island who
thought this was the greatest job in the
world they didn't have a chance in
Manhattan to recruit the same kinds of
people among the young wolves attracted
by the easy money was Roman and sorry
who has agreed to give us his exclusive
inside story on this unusual company he
says I made more less fewer than you're
gonna make never in your life my
question was how do I do
give me this car the next day Roman went
to Long Island he was amazed by what he
saw in the Stratton Oakmont parking lot
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I don't remember any cars there were
like sheep inside the atmosphere was
supercharged even at 6:30 in the morning
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imagine a roomful of you know 1500
people you walk into every just a lot of
noise so it was where do I look
Roman wasn't that unusual Jordan Belfort
recruited his employees straight out of
school when they were 18 or 20 that way
he could train them in his unusual sales
techniques some were college graduates
many were high school graduates
there they are required still today in
the United States to pass a license was
called a series 7 Broker Dealer license
it's it's a not a very difficult exam
many of them had failed it several times
and in fact we came to discover when we
began to try to UM to arrest or or use
as cooperating witnesses some of the
brokers that many of them had hired
people to take the test for them in
their name every morning Jordan Belfort
stood on a platform and gave an
impassioned speech to his Strato nians
as he liked to call them
these moments of jubilation were crucial
to the management of the company the 28
year old boss promised the young traders
lavish lifestyles hungry for money and
adrenaline
they literally gulped down his words
universities Paducah mystic he had an
extraordinary ability to fire up his
teams with these big speeches he was an
excellent orator he was a guru it is who
he was their cult leader he even
admitted he was like a cult leader to
them he would get up there he would tell
them how they were gonna make a lot of
money they were gonna own it they were
gonna be like him and they were gonna
party really hard and they did
to keep up with the hellish pace the
traders gave in to the temptation of
alcohol and drugs that made them elated
and hypersensitive cocaine and Mandrax a
drug that gets you high