Many of you have had the pleasure of joking with my Office Manager, Angela, who also happens to be my wife. Once one of BMW Canada’s top sales people, Angela always maintained, “Until I can get a prospect to laugh, I know I have not broken the ice”.
           Nothing is better than the creative and appropriate use of humor to reduce stress and build solid customer rapport.
          According to Peter Warnok, a Professor at the University of Florida, “Humor is no longer considered a frivolous pursuit, as research in the behavioral, social and medical sciences has revealed a significant relationship between stress reduction, productivity and a healthy immune system”.
          Warnok asserts that “Humor can loosen fixed positions in the mind”…..sounds like the definition of “selling”, doesn’t it?
          I have always maintained a file of cartoons and jokes organized by the objectives or points they make. For example, I’ve got a file of jokes about advertising, one about salespeople and one on the economy. Each makes a point that I can draw from when approaching a difficult or stressful situation.
          John Wanamaker’s quip, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half” still makes a popular point today, more than 80 years after his death.
           Building your own humor arsenal can help you to get prospects to see things your way. But use humor judiciously.
        Professor Warnok has actually developed a “Degrees of Risk” model for the use of humor with “Laughing at self” at the low-risk end of the scale. Being only five foot six, I’ll often tell “short jokes” or being Canadian I’ll often make fun of my use of the word “eh?” when working with my American client’s. 
            My friend Steve McGavran of TOMA Research often uses low-risk humor to ease the tension during a cold call when he’s challenged  with, “What are you selling today?”, to which he replies, “Not much, and my boss isn’t very happy with me either.”
            At the higher end of Warnok’s risk scale are thing like “Practical jokes” and “spontaneous humor”. In other words, the humor should be at your expense, not the clients, and it should be well thought-out and planned, not spontaneous.
            So here are a few tips for effectively using humor to loosen the reins of your prospect’s minds;
1. Build a file of cartoons and jokes by topic
2. Make yourself, NOT the client, the object of your humor.
3. Prepare and plan the productive use of humor.
4. Play safe…never use sex, politics, race or religion to get a laugh.
Like Angela says, “Until you’ve made ‘em laugh, you probably haven’t broken the ice”.