Nick is our veteran sales executive, and he’s been working with us for four years now. Nick is 26 he is kind, loves baseball, has a fairly good knowledge of stocks, cooks burgers in free time, and is infamous for cracking jokes where is no space for any, without making the scene awkward.
You must be knowing Nick and his impromptu humor if you have happened to talk to our support team.
But Nick wasn’t like this when he joined LeadsRain in 2014, straight from university this was his first job, and he brought a lot of him along with himself, like his knack of saying jokes (that is what he thought qualified him to do stand-up, at that time)
A junior sales rep he was confident and did not shy away from using humor among customers all in good will, but the results didn’t turn out the way he expected, instead of getting the customers to clap with uncontrollable guffaw and closing deals at a lightening speed he got hung up on, he got pin-drop silence, in a nutshell–disengagement.
So what was happening here?
Nick simply did not know how to balance his humor as to not come off as a buffoon when he ought to appear wise, analyzing his conversations and with a couple of days of dedicated brainstorming we figured out what was going on, it was simple Nick’s humorous trait had to be just fine-tuned.
Here is what we learned all at your disposal.
It is not the jokes that make you funny
Do not build your humor armory with jokes that have been bestowed to you by your ancestors or you have googled up funny one-liners and not at all the inside jokes you use vernacularly.
Context, Time and Situational spontaneity are three major characteristics you need to master for an applicable sense of humor.
You can’t simply drop a Ringless Voicemail, impersonate a famous person and deliver messages about the insurance that you’re selling. You could try this out
Hey Jim, I’m Sal, and I’m from XYZ insurance company and we besides insuring the heck out of everything we also insure you that talking about insurance will not be boring. If you’re interested, call us on XXX XXXX 1234.
Don’t hit below the belt
This may seem an obvious point but I have seen otherwise happening too frequently, and most of the times it happens involuntarily without any realization. Do not make jokes (even if they sound non-demeaning to you) about a person’s relationships, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, physicality. Make efforts to be politically correct. Be more creative, watch Impractical Jokers.
No sarcasm
It doesn’t matter if it is a Text Message, Voice Broadcast or a Ringless Voicemail, even the slightest of sarcasm is noticeable by people, and what makes their sarcastic radar so strong you ask? I don’t know, it could be the Chandler epidemic if anything.
On a serious note, you get sarcastic when your blood is ogling, but your social set up keeps your tongue all tied up, but what do you do when you can’t help it? You use sarcasm. I have mentioned earlier in my blogs that the best way to cater a prospect to the entire journey of sales funnel is by being tactfully truthful.
Say what is needed but make sure to mind your tone, tact, and diction. Also at the end of the day, there is always “ill connect you with my supervisor.”
Know where to use deprecating humor
Well, do you know what makes the best comedians and what constitutes the best jokes, the folks who can joke on themselves, self-deprecating jokes! Kevin Hart and Louis CK are some fine examples, and no I am not asking you to switch professions, the only point is to use humor on yourself more often, and as often as you can, that is what having a sense of humor means.
But there is a warning/condition that comes along. Only do this when your customer considers you an expert in your said field, otherwise, you’ll just appear as a buffoon. This is also a psychologically backed fact.
Do not use humor here
And please last but not the least do not use any humor whilst explaining your companies key competencies, technical points, pricing and any other sincerely asked questions by the customer or prospect.
And now you’re all set to use humor wisely and efficiently in sales throughout any medium: outbound calling, voice broadcast, bulk text messaging or dropping a Ringless Voicemail to their phones without ringing.
