Finding Humor for a talk and relating it to your material

How to find humor for a talk?

Funny stories can be found everywhere. You hear them from friends. You hear them on radio and television programs. You can obtain books that are filled with jokes. You can even originate a funny story or two.*

“My best stories have been those I originated,” declared an advertising executive in Milwaukee. “I think back to some amusing incident in which I was the goat. My next step is to see how very stupid I can make me appear. Then I tell it on myself. It always gets a hoot of glee.” A friend reported, “I was required to mention my wife in one particular speech and to tell of how she had helped me. I was afraid it would sound too lovey dovey.’ So I threw in the following: ‘You can see that ours is a happy marriage. But all marriages are happy, for that matter. It’s the living together afterwards that caused all of our fights!’
“It pleased the audience for me to admit that I’d had a few battles with the wife. Why? Because of man’s inhumanity to man.”
When originating a joke, be sure to decide which of the four reasons the audience will have for laughing. Then make sure that your words and tone make the most of it.

How to relate humor to your other material?

The best humor is that related to the rest of your speech. Related stories are more natural and can help illustrate various parts of your talk.

For instance, a speaker was talking on the need for consumer acceptance of his product. He told this related story . . . The sales manager for a dog food concern was holding a sales meeting. He started in an enthusiastic manner by yelling at his men, “Who’s got the best dog food in the world?” The men yelled back in unison, “We have/”
“Who’s got the best advertising and sales promotion program for this dog food?” The same answer was shouted back “We have/”
“And who’s got the best sales force to sell this dog food?” Again it came back “We have/”
Whereupon, the sales manager said, “Let’s face it men. If all this is true, why aren’t we selling more dog food?”
* A good source book is New Treasury of Stories for Every Speaking and Writing Occasion, by Jacob M. Brande. (Englewood-Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959).

A little fellow in the back row said, “I know why. It’s simple- the darned dogs don’t like it!”
Did he illustrate his point regarding the need for customer acceptance? You bet he did!

To relate humor to a speech, first prepare the speech. Don’t build a talk around some jokes. Develop the speech, and then work in the humor. Consider the point of your talk. What funny stories do you know on the same subject? How can they be adapted so that they will illustrate your point? A joke needn’t be told in exactly the same way that you heard it or read it. Change it to meet the needs of your speech.

Then go to the next part of your speech, the reasons for your point. Can a story or two be tied in there? And how about your examples? Certainly some of the examples will offer an opportunity for related humor. Sometimes a joke can serve as the example itself. For instance, a speaker was talking on how to give good customer service. One of his examples was that the customer should not be overloaded with any one item. He told this story, which served as the example almost by itself:

“A grocer had gone broke. The receivers were taking an inventory. They found the store filled to the brim with bread. There was bread in the front and bread in the back. They found white bread, whole wheat bread, French bread, rye bread, potato bread, cracked wheat bread, Roman meal bread, and other kinds of bread!
“They remarked to the grocer, ‘You surely sold a lot of bread, didn’t you?’
” ‘Oh, no, he replied. ‘But that fellow who calls on me from the bakery surely sells a lot of it!’ “

Keywords: Sales, Marketing, Business, Sales Training

Tags: sales meeting

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