Like a lot of people who end up on Wall Street, Blaine Lourd just sort of stumbled in. He'd grown up happy in New Iberia, Louisiana. His father had made a pile of money in the oil patch, and Blaine assumed that he too would one day eat four-hour lunches at the Petroleum Club, hunt ducks on the weekends, and get rich. His older brother, Bryan, had left Louisiana to make what seemed like a quixotic bid to become a Hollywood agent, but Bryan was gay, even if he pretended not to be. (He's now a partner at Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency.) Blaine was distinctly not gay and felt right at home in Louisiana—right up to the moment when, during his third year at Louisiana State University, the price of oil collapsed and took the family business with it. That was when he realized he had no idea what he would do with his life. His chief distinction at L.S.U. was his ascent to the post of social chairman at the Theta Xi fraternity, and while that was nothing to sneeze at, he didn’t see how it qualified him to do anything else. His father, after informing him that there was no longer a family business for him to inherit, suggested that his ability to get people to like him might go far on Wall Street. That's what first got Blaine thinking. "I didn’t know what Wall Street was," he says. "I didn’t even know where Wall Street was." (View slideshow of Blaine Lourd.)

Really, he just wanted to be a success. How that happened, he didn't much care. So in 1987, at the peak of the bull market, he landed a job with investment firm E.F. Hutton in Los Angeles. A few weeks into Blaine's training program, E.F. Hutton collapsed following a check-kiting scandal and was sold to Shearson Lehman. Blaine’s training at Lehman consisted of a monthlong class, which focused mainly on overcoming customers' objections, and a close reading of the bible on how to peddle stocks to people you've never met: Successful Telephone Selling in the '80s, co-written by a Lehman managing director named Martin Shafiroff.

A well-planned presentation creates a sense of urgency. If the prospect fails to act now, he will risk a loss of some sort.

Speak with confidence and authority.

The most important part of the presentation is the close.
Blaine set a goal for himself: Reach 100 people a day by telephone. Half the time, people hung up on him, but about one in every 300 calls led to a sale. He arrived at his office at 6 every morning to make sure he got the best lead cards. Even at that hour, the place was loud and frantic. Traders' hoots and hollers screamed the firm’s need to move a specific block of stock; the TV on the wall blared potentially market-moving news. He was paid on commission and driven by fear of failure. "There were a lot better salesmen than me," he says. "I just worked harder. I made more calls. And if you make more calls, you will get the sales. And it doesn’t matter what you say." Most of the time, he just read from the same script as the other brokers: "Are you familiar with Warren Buffett? We have information from our sources on the Street that his next position is going to be in a company much like Cadbury Schweppes. [Pause] I know you’re busy, but I'd like to call you once or twice in the next six months when we have a substantial idea that will make you three to 10 times your money."

When Blaine would call back 10 days later, it almost didn't matter what he said, as long as he demanded an order and then fell completely silent. "Mr. Johnson, this is Blaine Lourd from Lehman Brothers. We see Abbott Labs going to 60, and I think you need to buy 10,000 shares of Abbott Labs today."

Half the time, in the ensuing silence, Mr. Johnson would hang up. But the other half, Mr. Johnson would explain, usually pathetically, why he couldn’t right then and there buy 10,000 shares of Abbott Labs. And once Blaine had a specific objection, he had an obstacle he could overcome.