How To Use Humour In Your Pitch

Humour is one of the most powerful ways to not only sell your service or product, but raise your profile within your networking group. It is also a potential social minefield – get it wrong and you risk offending any number of your audience. People don’t easily forget inappropriate comments.



So, just how do you get it right? What ways can you ensure that your humour supports - rather than sabotages - your network marketing?

The important thing to understand is that there are 2 types of humour – shared and exclusionist.



Shared humour is where every member of your audience can share in your point of view when you make a funny comment or joke. A good example of this was just after volcanic ash brought the airlines of Europe to a halt in the spring of 2010. At the end of a networking meeting I attended, there was a round robin for announcements and testimonials etc. One gentleman piped up: ‘Thompson are doing a great deal at the moment. I’ve just come back from Spain where I got 2 week’s holiday for the price of one!’



This works because we were all preoccupied with the volcanic ash at that time, and the joke pokes gentle fun at a big company. As SMEs, we could all have a bit of a laugh at their expense – no harm done. In any case everyone knew that the only culprit for this situation was an unpronounceable volcano in Iceland.



Compare this to an exclusionist joke, which might be a printer who stands up and as part of their presentation makes a joke about how he can’t stand customers that are late with their payments. This might seem innocent enough – and is something that many business owners will empathise with.



However, just think about the message he is sending out: his customers are annoying. He may well have customers who are good friends with members of the audience, or - even worse - be part of the audience itself. If any of them are having cash flow problems they may assume he is making a backstabbing comment towards them.



Am I taking this too far? Possibly – but the point is that you cannot ever assume that a comment like this won’t backfire on you. If you’re not sure, then don’t use it.