When I was the Principal and CEO of a private school, I started new parent meetings with one of my favorite jokes. It goes like this:
Why do Grandparents and Grandchildren get along so well?
Answer: Common Enemy.
Of course, I encouraged people to guess at the answer for a couple of minutes before I gave the answer.
The response to the answer I provided was universal. There were a few laughs, a ton of smiles and a lot of nodding heads.
This joke works so well because it’s safe and offends no one. Second, there is a ring of truth to the joke.
The use of humor got the parents to relax a little, forget the stresses of the day, and prepared them for the rest of the meeting.
Using humor is a powerful tool.
When a prospect comes to you, they are nervous and often even intimidated. Rather than jumping right in with your sales pitch, you will be more effective starting out with a little humor.
When I was giving my sales presentations for Personal Training to CEOs, at a rate of 2X what the average trainer charged, I got a lot of questions about my pricing structure.
My first step in dealing with this price objection was to respond with a smile on my face, “I’m much less expensive that your attorney.” The response from my CEO prospect was always an instant smile and a “yes” nodding of their head.
This use of humor worked very well with the CEOs, but would have not worked at all with a different population. It was specific to that group, and it made me relate-able to them. I knew my market very well and it made a huge difference in my unusually high 50-60% closing ratio.
How well do you know your ideal customers? How can you use humor to be more relate-able to your ideal customers?
Using appropriate humor that your prospect relates to will improve your closing ratio for your prospects and grow your client base fast.
And you will have a lot more fun with your sales presentations.
Need more ideas? We’re here to help.
