Why You Should Use Humor in Business

Photo courtesy of Grace Wong

Do you know why laughter is powerful? It makes people feel great. After all, who wouldn’t want to walk around with a huge smile on their face?

Earlier this week, I wrote an article detailing how professional comedians make people laugh. In it, I go over three sure-fire joke templates of the pros (Chris Rock, Rodney Dangerfield, etc…). Gyutae Park from Winning the Web was kind enough to publish it on his blog and it has started a decent discussion. However, I wanted to elaborate on the importance of humor in business and blogging.

Humor Makes People Listen

The main challenge in business and blogging is getting people to pay attention to you. They need to take time out of their day and give it to you for a few seconds. To make matters worse, you are competing with everything else that demands people’s attention (advertisements, living, work, etc.).

But do you really know what you’re up against? Not only are you in competition with other people and business, but you are also fighting the human body. People are bombarded with so much noise that they learn how to tune everything out. So, if you want to get noticed, you need to make sure you’re not tuned out.

Humor solves this problem. Bad jokes, good jokes, any jokes. As long as you stray from the norm, people will listen to you because you’re doing something different.

When I was reading Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, they talked about a flight attendant who remixed the traditional safety procedure. Instead of going through the very informative safety session, she made it into a stand-up comedy session. She made jokes about disco balls, bright lights, exits, and safety belts. You can bet each passenger listened to her and understood what she was saying.

Just remember people need to listen to you before they buy anything from you. So, you need to make people listen.

Humor is Personal

How many times have you been told that the key to creating a successful business is by being personally involved with your customers? A million times I’m sure.

Humor is a great way to get personal with your customers. Even if your jokes are bad or offensive, it will promote some kind of response. It will create a conversation. It will make people remember you. It will show people that you’re willing to put yourself out there and see what happens. Just take a look at how Gary Vaynerchuk sells. He just puts himself out there and he built a loyal following.

A few months ago a co-worker mentioned to me, “How come people seemingly tell you everything?” I didn’t really know the answer to this question until a few weeks ago. People trust me because I am always putting myself out there with bad jokes, good jokes, boring jokes, and offensive jokes. They feel like they can tell me anything because I tell them anything. I put myself out there and talk about what I think and as a result, they talk about what they think.

By now you can imagine how great this is for business. When people trust you, they are more willing to become die-hard customers. They will be more willing to become part of that 20% that gets you that 80%.

The Humor Bottom Line

I’m not telling you to go overboard with humor. Too much of it can be detrimental to your reputation, but a controlled amount can be the difference between success and failure.

The master playwright Herbert Gardner once said, “once you get people laughing, you can tell them anything” and he could not be more right. This specifically applies to you and me because once you get people laughing, you can also sell them anything.

So what do you think? Do you think humor is a great way to add some “spice” to your business? Do you think it will help you become more successful?

Tagged as: Chris Rock, Gary Vaynerchuk, Herbert Gardner, Made to Stick