Sell Me This Pen

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Contrary to popular belief Jordan Belfort didn’t invent the phrase, ‘sell me this pen’. However he is credited with popularizing it.

When I used to interview sales people, a few years before the movie The Wolf of Wall Street was released, I would often ask potential investment brokers to, ‘sell me this pen’ and various other deviations in between, usually based on what was on the table in front of me at the time. Sell me this phone or sell me this ashtray were two common ones.

We will come to the best possible answer to this challenge shortly however before we do let’s rewind to the movie that popularized the phrase.

In case you forgot the exchange here it is again. It’s a classic!

DiCaprio pulls out a pen and goes around the room, thrusts it in their faces, one by one, with the instruction to ‘Sell me this pen.’

As each one takes the pen from him, they fumble through an attempted sales pitch: ‘This is the best pen ever made…’This may be the last pen you ever have to buy…’

After each response, DiCaprio shakes his head and takes the pen back. Finally one member of his team…