Stand Up For Your Success
Cutting
Edge Personal Development Information
Delivered
In Stand-Up Comedy Format
By Burt Teplitzky
From the Creator of the World-Famous IMPROV Comedy Club’s Corporate Humor Training Division, the licensee of Florida’s Famous IMPROV Comedy Traffic Schools, and the book,
Sell It With Humor
Published by Burt Teplitzky at Smashwords
Copyright (C) 2009 Burt Teplitzky
All rights reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
Published in the United States by Burtwithau
Publishing
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-publication data
Teplitzky, Burt
Stand Up For Your Success/Burt Teplitzky. First Ed.
Burtwithau Publishing website address:
www.BurtwithauPublishing.com
Los Angeles
FIRST EDITION
Book Design by Burt Teplitzky
DEDICATIONS
For my daughter, Talia,
Again, you are my inspiration for this book. I can only hope that the knowledge in this book will help you to live a happier life, long after I’m gone (well, and while I’m here, too.) Also, this is my second book, so I’m catching up to you.
For my nieces and nephew, Hannah, Emma and Jacob,
I hope that you all find something to learn from in this book and if you do, please pass along the information—and the laughs.
For my family, Dad, Mom, Iris and Caryl.
I know that we don’t always appreciate information unless it seems to come to us in an amazing way. And, because this information is coming from me, it may not have the same impact had you discovered it in a bottle floating in the ocean. But I think you will be surprised at what you find here. I’m sure there is a gift for each of you in this book.
To all of you, please remember to laugh every day. Start with the funny and important messages in this book. Let’s start laughing, learning… and living!
Contents
Stand Up For Your Success Show
1. How To Communicate Without Using A Bullhorn
2. How To Be A Sparkling Conversationalist Even If You Have Nothing To Say
3. How To Be Assertive Without Carrying A Gun
4. How To Speak In Public Without Wetting Your Shorts
5. Get The Stress Monkey Off Your Back And Into Its Cage
6. Secrets Of Success From The Little Engine That Could
7. Increase Your Self-Confidence—Superman Is My Role Model
8. How To Humorize Your Presentation
Special Reports (Listed From Weeks 1 - 52)
This book is designed to help you learn how to become a better and more successful person--as well as make you laugh while you read it. I’ll even show you how to add humor and laughter to your own presentations and to life. How can I describe this book?
Imagine if much of the important life-changing information you need to improve your life were delivered from top motivational leaders and writers, and hearing it in stand-up comedy format, so you are laughing while you are learning. It might go something like this:
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending the Comedy District (a comedy club I was part owner of). Please keep your talking to a minimum and your laughter to a maximum. We have a great comedy show for you tonight. Our first comedian is a billionaire, one of the largest real estate developers in the world and a famous television personality, ladies and gentlemen, please give a big hand to Donald Trump!
Also, our second comedian is a famous motivational speaker. He can walk on fire and can help everyone improve their life, please welcome, Tony Robbins. And, for your headliner; he was the managing partner of the World-Famous IMPROV Corporate Humor Training Division, the top licensee of the IMPROV Comedy traffic Schools and is the author of the wildly popular book, Sell It With Humor, let’s give it up for Burt Teplitzky.” (The crowd goes wild and women throw themselves at him. Okay, I went too far.)
Well, I doubt this line-up will ever actually occur, but it’s not unlike what occurred at the World-Famous IMPROV Comedy Club one Saturday in Hollywood, California. This was a day that top motivational and humorous speakers spent months in advance preparing important content and practicing their humor for and then presenting their topics at the Hollywood IMPROV before a standing-room crowd of over 300 people.
The topic: Stand Up for Your Success. Of course, a double entendre meaning that life-changing information will be delivered in a stand-up comedy format. The timeless information contained here is and will continue to be life-changing. In this book, we define funny as anything that gets a laugh, as long as it’s clean, relevant and reinforces a point or a message the presenter is making. We define success as achieving whatever it is in your life that will make you happy. On this day, top funny motivational speakers gathered and delivered life-changing information to help people from all walks of life succeed, and we delivered it in a stand-up comedy format. To my knowledge, this had never been done before.
The day consisted of eight, 20-minute segments on various topics such as how to speak in public, how to increase your self-confidence, how to reach your goals, and more. These were originally taped to sell as an infomercial product. Instead, we decided to sell these segments after scheduled seminars and as a potential television series. Later, I had the presentations transcribed and made them available as this book for you to read, learn and enjoy. Oh, and laugh over, too.
Some of what you will read here are the eight segments of personal development, the original infomercial program discussing the importance of the use of humor in the learning process and 52 weekly special reports designed to entertain and to motivate you into your desired action. Some of these special reports were taken from important points I made in my book, Sell It With Humor, and many are bonus reports never before available.
Of course these reports are sprinkled with humor (some are sprinkled more heavily than others) to make the reading quick, fun, impactful, and easy-to-absorb. My only regret is that you couldn’t be at the Hollywood IMPROV that day to watch the audience reaction as they laughed and learned. The taping lasted over eight hours and I don’t remember even a single person walking out.
My previous book, Sell it With Humor, was aimed at helping sales professionals sell more, executives and CEOs deliver important information, as well as trainers, speakers and teachers all use humor to get their important messages across.
There are three sections in this book. Section I teaches you the importance of humor and how you can incorporate it into your work, presentation and life. Section II consists of the eight personal development segments where you will receive life-changing information. Some of the information in this section you may have heard before in books and seminars, or may have read and forgotten it. Section III contains the 52 weekly special reports.
This book is for anyone who wants to be inspired, motivated, reminded of the seeds for success in life, and who wants to laugh while reading and learning. You will definitely finish this book with some lofty goals and some great “humor gems” (formerly known as jokes) under your belt that you can use to improve your success.
Here we go!
Again, my previous book, Sell It With Humor, caters more to those wanting to become more effective in their presentations and selling techniques. Actually, we all present something but we don’t always present with the intention of solely making money. That makes Sell It With Humor really a business book. Those reading it are primarily sales professionals, executives, CEOs, professional speakers, trainees, managers, and teachers wanting to increase sales, close more deals, or just get important messages across to influence others. (Who doesn’t, right?)
In tense selling situations, humor helps reduce buying objections by facing them head on and assists in making the buying objection seem more unrealistic than it might actually be. In that book, I also encourage presenters to migrate from giving one-on-one presentations to performing (that’s what it is) group-selling presentations. That way, you give the same presentation to many people at one time and make more sales. If you are in sales, you will see many samples of these tools for overcoming objections in the presentation topic “Humor as a Cutting Edge Tool.” Although many of these concepts may be applied in the working world, they can also be applied in your home and personal life.
This book is more general in nature. The topics are tailored to the mainstream public. Reading this book is like combining many of the popular self-improvement and personal development and training books, extracting all of the major messages, injecting them with humor, and reading it. The audio book contains the actual “live” presentations taped at the Hollywood IMPROV.
The topics and messages in this book may serve as your “mental vitamins” and will save you numerous hours of reading self-improvement books to get important information since I have attempted to consolidate the essential points for you. All of this is in this book. We have carefully researched top content, reviewed it with experienced business consultants (mostly, each other) and are sharing this information with you. Then, the presenters use humorous stories they were given, or recalled from their own personal lives to drive home important points.
To make the feel even more like that of a comedy show, we also researched relevant, appropriate humor designed to make a point and presented the information at a real comedy club. Our goal was to create a laugh every three to six minutes. This is not a small feat as some of this material can be pretty dry. Powerful, isn’t it?
However, creating humor to reinforce messages was really not the hard part. I was a licensee for the IMPROV’s Comedy Traffic schools. If you’re not familiar with these schools then you are either a good driver or have never been caught. Which is it? In some states, when a driver receives a ticket for a moving violation, that violator must attend a traffic school or his or her insurance rates may increase.
Our schools taught these classes and used humor to make the subject matter more bearable and painless. It works! The point is that if we can add humor to dry material such as driving regulation and statistics, we had no problem “humorizing” most dry topics. There is some traffic school humor in Sell It With Humor. In this book, the topics are broad and help all of us to improve in many aspects of our lives. I will describe the topics in the book very soon. So, who is this book for? You and me and everyone.
What Are The Topics And How
And
Why Were They Selected?
When I was originally searching for topics to record and use for the infomercial and the products, I was looking for the useful topics that most people would like to learn or brush up on. In some cases, this would be information many people would hear or read about for the very first time. Some of the research for topic selection included identifying top-selling seminars, books and magazines--and using those topics. For example, our topic on how to speak in public was created because the general public’s worst fear is speaking in public, even above dying.
Can you believe that? People would rather die than speak in public. Crazy, right? Other topics I selected from talking to many people and asking them what they thought would be the most beneficial to him or her. We didn’t include topics on how to get rich quickly or how to meet the person of your dreams (although, I think these would have been popular, too.)
For this project, I gathered professional speakers who were already actual experts in the field they were discussing. As a requirement, they had to have a sense of humor. So, why didn’t I use actual comedians? Well, I was afraid someone might ask them important questions. Do you really want to change your life based on information you received from a real comedian? Exactly! We know comics don’t have a real life.
Actually, everyone I chose was able, with a little coaching, to present their material and reach a laugh or two every three to six minutes, as required by my Punch/Point/Benefit™ formula (more on this later).
Before I tell you the topics, please let me share an embarrassing story. When I was selecting presenters for the infomercial, I had many speakers submit their tapes to me for review and approval. Then, I ran them by the co-owners of the IMPROV at that time, Budd Friedman and Mark Lonow. Because we were representing the World-Famous IMPROV Comedy Club’s new Humor Division, we couldn’t have anyone using dirty material, and we couldn’t use anyone who only got laughs by making facial gestures.
From hundreds of submission I received, I selected only a handful of presenters. From what I remember, Marc Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, authors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series, submitted their tapes. I rejected them. As I said in Sell It With Humor, I’m an idiot. You think there’s a day that goes by where I don’t kick myself? You’re right.
In addition to the information in Section I on humor and the 52 special reports in Section III, here are the topics that were transcribed almost word for word from the live presentations. They are recorded in Section II. Here are the topics:
- How to speak in public without fainting
- How to communicate more effectively without using a bullhorn
- How to be a sparkling conversationalist even if you have nothing to say
- Secrets of success from the little engine that could
- How to increase your self-confidence: Superman is my role model
- On your mark, get ready, goal!
- How to be more assertive without using a gun
- How to “humorize” your presentation
Don’t you think that you can learn something from any or all of these topics? So, now you have it. The top eight topics people want to learn about. All packaged with important points, information and reinforcement humor (so you can laugh and remember what you’ve read or heard) and delivered to you in monologue form as if you were actually watching a stand-up comedy routine. Try to beat that lethal combination.
These Topics Will Help You In Many Ways
These topics will help you improve your life in many different ways. First of all, in many cases, when we hear or learn something new, we forget almost 80% of the information within seven days. Amazing, isn’t it? Well, if we can’t remember it, we can’t apply it. That means that if you learned 10 important life-changing concepts by reading a book, or by attending a seminar, you might remember only two concepts after a week. Why can’t we remember?
One of the reasons is that we can listen to a presenter for an hour and there is a lot of information. How does your brain know what to remember? We can’t program that part. Logic dictates that if you don’t remember to perform a function, then there can be no results. Common sense, right? What if the 20% you retain after a week is the useless part of the information? Then nothing you remember is usable. Then the information is not too helpful, is it? There must be a method of presenting that has the goal of having the listener(s) remember and utilize what they’ve learned.
The presentations in the book are different, they are designed to do just that. Actually, in this book, you should remember 80% and forget only 20%. How do we do it? What technique or method helps us to retain or remember what we’ve heard or read, so we can apply it? Glad you asked.
First, we select a topic that most people want to know more about. This is the first step because if we select a useless topic or even if you remember everything, it doesn’t serve you well. Then, we research important topic points or messages to include under the topic. Usually, we select 10 major points in a one-hour presentation, in this case, the reading material. The reason we select 10 is because we want to get a laugh at least every six minutes. The laugh helps the listener remember the material as you will see. So, in a 60- minute presentation, given that there are 10 points, with at least one laugh every six minutes, this helps us reinforce 10 points with humor in a one-hour presentation. Then, under each topic point or message, we include one to four minutes of information that the audience needs to hear.
After we write content, we write or select a “humor gem” to attach to the content, or message. A humor gem is a joke that has been modified to fit into a presentation to get a laugh and to reinforce a point and to share a benefit with the listener if he or she were to act on that point or message.
Can I get any duller in a humor explanation? The original joke must reinforce the point to be considered a humor gem. Then we update the joke to have the incident occur recently, to us and make it relevant to the listener. This way the audience is more interested in listening to you and they are more connected. This is when a joke becomes a gem: when it becomes a learning tool. Sell It With Humor goes into deep methodology behind constructing these humor gems from jokes. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Right.
There will be numerous examples of using this method in Section II. So, the humor gem gets the laugh and the punch line (the laugh line) is remembered. By remembering the punch line, the humor gem is remembered. When the humor gem is remembered, the content and message is recalled. We all remember a good joke or a funny story, don’t we? Actually, we remember jokes that aren’t funny as well, but we remember them; that’s the key.
So how does it work? The message is “anchored” by the laugh or humor gem. If you are confused, don’t worry. There will be many examples throughout this book. Don’t worry about how the cook prepares the meal, just enjoy it.
The Benefits For Those Learning
The Principles In This Book
The late Og Mandino is relatively unknown now, but his motivational books hold the record for the most number of books sold in this category. His books were short and easy to read. Somewhere in his books, the lead character would come across some a list of successful rules that would be life-changing. His stories were always interesting. Perhaps they would be in a bottle found hundreds of years later, or even handed down through generations. To this date, The Richest Man in Babylon is the highest-selling sales and motivational book ever. His stories probably will never be made into a Hollywood movie, but he did succeed in making learning success principles more palatable.
I believe this is what we have done as well. Through the humor connected to various success principles, you will clearly see the point the presenters are making and the benefit the listener(s) will have should they apply those ideas. There is no having to search for hidden meanings. The only requirement is that you sit back, read (or listen) and laugh and learn. Oh, and enjoy the process. The presenters present their messages clearly in easy-to-understand stories. Some of these stories are their own personal “signature” stories, meaning they really happened to him or her, and they always receive an excellent reaction.
How do we ensure constant laughing and learning? We strictly enforce the use and integration of the Punch/Point/Benefit™ system so there will be no missing of any points and their related benefits. This means that every story has a punchline, a point to the story, and a benefit for the listener when the reader applies the point. Does the material really motivate people into real action, you ask? Absolutely. There are numerous examples. Here are a few taken from a cross section of people having read some of the special reports in Section III.
In one of the newsletters, I took my own advice. In the IMPROV Comedy Traffic School’s call center, we were receiving almost 20,000 calls per month. Within 10 seconds, almost 50% of the callers were hanging up. The rest would wait until the “Law and Order” series expires -which will most likely be a long time, so we weren’t worried about those.
What did we do? We created a funny, informative “on-hold” message that encouraged people to stay on the phone or they would miss the funny scenario coming up. Would this material ever be on a sitcom? Most likely not. However, it worked just fine for on-hold scenarios. Are there Emmy awards for the funniest outgoing telephone messages? I guess not. The same holds true for the humor throughout this book. This humor is not meant to be used at a comedy club. It would hardly get a laugh from people paying $10 or more and buying two drinks expecting belly laughs after a tough day. That’s not what we are sharing. We painlessly wrap relevant, appropriate, clever (most of the time, anyway) humor around points we want you to remember.
You will laugh, chuckle, or at least smile. Okay, there might be the occasional groan, I’ll accept that. Hey, they can’t all be winners--but most are, as you will see. More importantly, the humor anchors the information in your mind so you won’t forget it. This is so you can apply what you’ve learned when you need it.
Now, let’s take William. While we were preparing for the infomercial taping, we needed volunteers and we needed a lot of them. William became so excited about what he saw, he made a vow to start his own comedy company and dedicate his life to bringing out the funny in people and to bring fun and laughter to the community where he lives. So today, William is one of the top comedy bookers and promoters in his region.
Let’s talk about Al. Recently divorced, Al didn’t know how to have a conversation with a new person. He had forgotten. So, Al listened to “How to Be a Sparkling Conversationalist, Even If You Have Nothing To Say,” in Section II. Al told me he applied some of these principles in a conversation with a woman he had met and couldn’t stop her from talking. This was a new experience for Al. He also told me he wasn’t able to get a word in. Did it work? Sure. Well, sort of. He is on his second divorce now--but that’s a different problem. Hey, we’re not marriage counselors here, you know?
Let’s take Marc. Marc is a salesperson. He said he was getting very tired of giving the same presentation day after day. He told me that pretty soon even his customers could tell he was losing his enthusiasm. Thereafter, his sales were dropping. Marc said he read the section on smiling. There we talk about getting your smile ready by warming up your smile. Actually stretch your mouth over and over to prepare for smiling for the day.
He said he tried warming up his smile in his car and people stared. Well, at least he had the lane to himself. After a while, by smiling, Marc began to feel better and enjoy meeting people more. His customers thought he was having fun and his sales improved. Marc feels this hour is a great investment, hopefully you will, too.
Well, I could go on and on about the successes occurring as a result of reading this material but I think you’ll enjoy reading all of the humor and successes that go along with the success principles and humor throughout this book.
By The Way, Who Is Burt
And
Why Should We Listen To Him?
I have to include a brief section describing me and my professional experience, so you know who you’re reading about. I cleverly included this section after a few more important topics so you wouldn’t get bored and leave. I am probably the biggest “wanna be” comedian ever. Initially, I was a three-time Dale Carnegie Graduate Assistant. Dale Carnegie wrote the best-selling book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
I always used humor in my presentations for students. Once, a commercial airline pilot told me I should dedicate my life to using humor because it really helped the class to learn and enjoy the course content more. Later, we learned that a certain pilot was flying without a license and was then institutionalized, too bad.
It wasn’t until I was 30 that I realized I wanted to be a stand- up comedian. By then, most people that age were out of the business. Anyway, I took a stand-up comedy class at the UCLA Extension School. The class was taught by co-owner of the IMPROV (at that time), Mark Lonow. When Mark heard me tell my jokes he told me never to quit my day job. However, he did tell me my material is great for industry (I was a top salesperson for an estate division of a successful Beverly Hills-based real estate firm at the time.)
It didn’t matter, I was hooked on comedy, and I wanted to be partners with the owners of the world famous IMPROV Comedy Clubs. That was my mission in life. So, I would make money in comedy but behind the scenes, with them. To learn about comedy, I read almost 30 books on comedy writing and performing techniques, I took many classes on performing and writing, and I performed on a regular basis.
Here’s how it worked with the IMPROV. First, I started out renting the theater at the IMPROV in Santa Monica, California. I booked comedians and told them to do real estate material and jokes for the real estate industry. Then, I asked escrow, title, and even termite companies to pitch in to pay for the room and invite their realtor clients to the show, and I asked the realtors to buy tickets. I shared these proceeds with the IMPROV. These “industrial” shows were a success. I saw how amazingly easy it was to get a laugh from realtors just by including real estate terms such as “tear down,” “depreciation,” in need of “TLC,” and many other terms and phrases relating to people we were dating or married to.
From there, I became the managing partner of the IMPROV’s new Corporate Humor Training Division. We would train business professionals and individuals to use humor in their presentations. We would do this by offering live training and we would also sell the information on an infomercial using the IMPROV’s name. This is where we made the material more general for mainstream audiences. This way everyone could laugh while learning basic success principles. Again, we later decided to use the material as back of the room sales materials and products.
I ran the division until I was visiting Florida and received a moving violation in Orlando. Yes, speeding. Ouch! Well, I had received tickets in California before and had always attended comedy traffic schools. These were schools using comedians to deliver state-required information. The class was much more fun that way.
Well, Florida didn’t have comedy traffic schools. I pitched the idea to the IMPROV. The numbers and profit potential were staggering. Then, I pitched the idea to the Florida Department of Highway and Safety. At first they weren’t too excited. So, we had to hire a consultant with connections to get us through the bureaucratic system. I opted for the comedy traffic schools using the IMPROV name in Florida. How did it go? I’m staring at our first month ever in Florida. It’s on a calendar my employees had framed for me. In August, 1995, our first month of operation, we held eight classes with a total of 397 students. Around 2001, we were offering almost 150 classes per month with a total of around 4200 students per month. Okay, we charged $42.50 per student. I’ll wait while you do the math. (Still waiting). Okay, done?
So, I didn’t continue the traffic schools because the classes mostly migrated to online classes instead. However, many states still offer live traffic school classes and other types of classes as well. Some of these other classes that could be delivered with humor are “bad check” writing classes (not a how to), anger management, parenting, etc. In Sell It With Humor, there is an entire section devoted to starting your own Funny Business, Inc. I know, it’s a shameless plug.
Why Is Humor Important In The
Teaching
And
In The Learning Process?
People need incentives to do almost anything. Sometimes the reward is money, but many times it isn’t. Comedians don’t really work for money, they work for laughs. That’s why there are so many broke comedians, and most of them are single because of that. This makes me wonder if women really value a sense of humor above all else?
In fact, when I was in Las Vegas, there was sign for a raffle in a casino that said “free laughs.” They were giving away tickets for a comedy club. I think this shows the need people have to laugh. I guess laughing is more important than free gaming or rooms in Las Vegas.
When someone is presenting, there is a reason for it. At the end of the presentation, there is something the presenter wants you to do, right? The problem is that after 20 minutes people want to leave, especially if the speaker is boring. If a presenter is boring, it doesn’t matter what he or she is saying, we don’t really care do we? Perhaps if you are watching Jerry Seinfeld you can watch for an hour--that’s because you are being rewarded with laughter.
There is a concept I refer to as laughs per minute (LPM) which I briefly touched on before. It seems that when comedians work the clubs they are typically receiving about three LPM. When they reach five LPM, it appears their success goes to a level where they achieve financial independence. Comedians don’t talk in terms of LPM because it doesn’t sound creative, but presenters should.
Your reward for listening is the laugh. You are waiting for the laugh, right? You don’t want to miss it so you are listening carefully. While you are listening, you can’t keep from hearing the content and you are learning. That’s how it works with humor and learning. Also, when you laugh, your body releases endorphins that go to the brain.
It’s like a kind of “mental caffeine” and it keeps you alert and in “ready-to-learn” position. I suppose you could just have a Starbucks coffee and have the same results, but it’s less fun. So, when you are presenting you want to provide laughs, at least one laugh every three to six minutes. Comedians would go broke with this low LPM, but presenters would be hailed as geniuses. What I’m saying is that the world’s worst comedian could be the world’s most entertaining speaker—and the highest paid.
Humor Motivates People
Several years ago, I ran into one of the most influential stand-up comedians of all time, Mort Sahl. He is a satirical comedian and performed a lot of comedy on the JFK shooting. The problem was he became too obsessed in talking about the alleged “cover up” by our government. He became a preacher on the subject and stopped being a comedian of mainstream topics. That’s okay, if that’s what he wants, it’s just not necessarily what the public wants.
This is also true of Dick Gregory, the Smothers brothers and almost of Bill Cosby. Back to Mort, I believe he still carries the Warren report (transcripts of the actual JFK investigation) on stage with him. Anyway, he was truly one of the greats in his time. I bumped into him at Starbucks in Beverly Hills and we had coffee. We talked about the IMPROV infomercial and the subject matter.
I told him how we used relevant, appropriate humor and attached it to important content for laughing and learning. He said what we were doing is considered “motivational” comedy because it causes an action on the part of the listener. In other words, by using humor, you are attracting attention and people are listening. Then, they hear what you have to say. If it makes sense, they may act on it. The presentation, on its own, motivates people into action.
He went on to say that motivational comedians are the smartest comedians of all. Well, you will be reading work from these motivational humorists, in some cases, comedians. Even though these presenters are complete experts in their field, they also have amazingly flexible personalities. They absorbed and took to the related humor like the proverbial fish to water, like a horse to drinking water, like a batter rounding home…you get the point.
In fact, when we were presenting, you would not even know which one has performed stand-up comedy before. They all were magnetic, inspirational, motivational and humorous. Also, standing on that iconic IMPROV stage didn’t hurt either. It feels like just standing on that stage allows the energy of all the greats who have performed on it over the past 40 years would ensure success. So, their powerful messages that they sincerely believe in stand on their own. Combine that with humor, and you would have been hanging on every word.
After the laugh, the Punch/Point/Benefit method of delivery requires that we simply state the point to the story and then we simply state the benefit. The point and benefit are stated in only a few words. For example, I might say, “The point is, be more productive.” Then I might say, “The benefit is that that you will achieve more success.” It seems trite to say it like this, but this is the information that sticks, especially after a laugh. This is how we insert the points and the benefits and drive the messages home. You will read this often as all of the presenters use the same system. You might want to consider incorporating this into your talks as well. Again, Sell It With Humor goes into deep construction of this method.
Anyway, this is how humor works to motivate people into action. We researched what people wanted to learn about, wrote about it and then made it entertaining. That day, people actually believed they were watching comedy. Intelligent, life-altering content, combined with powerful relatable humor makes taking action appear to be a no-brainer. If you are a teacher, trainer, salesperson, or anyone who presents anything (and who doesn’t), you should use humor more. It makes a big difference for those listening. In addition to learning something, your listener(s) may even act on it.
“Humorize” Your Presentations
Well, you’ve heard the buzz words such as LPM (laughs per minute), gem (humor gem), PPB (punch/point/benefit)™ and now you’re about to learn about a new one mentioned earlier, “humorize.” I sincerely doubt this word has ever been used before when describing a method of humor construction.
When I talk about “humorizing,” I’m really talking about a seemingly simple process of taking an existing joke (funny or humorous, of course) and modifying or “humorizing” it so you can use it in your presentation. Also, this technique may be shared easily with a large audience or a single listener.
Now, we’re not talking about stealing other speaker’s or comedian’s original humorous or comedy material, and repeating it to make money. We’re discussing using regular jokes from speaking resource books, public domain jokes books (and internet sites), and humorous material from other sources such as newspapers and magazines. In some cases, you can even hire a comedy or humor writer to write for you. For example, I have great humor and comedy writers available for special events and occasions. On occasion, if you decide to use someone else’s joke, it’s okay, you simply must tell the audience who originally created the joke and you will still get the laugh, right?
I first established a formula for anchoring humor to a point when I would demonstrate two-minute presentations for students in the Dale Carnegie training courses. First, I would describe the information I wanted to convey (or content), then I would launch into a story, which was really a joke that I modified into a humor gem.
Most of the time, I got a laugh, partly because the audience didn’t see the punch line coming and, of course, they weren’t expecting it. Mostly, though, the laugh came from a funny punch line and a decent delivery of that line. We discuss this at length in Sell It With Humor. Because I carefully researched the humor gem to ensure it relayed the message, I received audience credit in the form of a laugh. If the joke was not related to the content, I would be wasting their time. You can’t get a laugh just for the sake of getting a laugh when presenting. The humor gem must represent the point you are making. Not a simple task.
Now, when humorizing, there are a few more steps. First, find a joke that represents the message or point you are trying to convey (as discussed). For example, if you find a joke about a cheese store that doesn’t have cheese (an old Monty Python sketch), in the humorizing world, that joke is not about a cheese store. It’s about inventory shortage, see?
So, you have to analyze the joke for the hidden meaning, not too fun. Once you determine the hidden meaning to the joke, and you can clearly anchor it to your message or point, now you have a “humor gem.” I call it a gem because now, it has real value. The stories you will read in Section II are full of humorized stories and humor gems.
Once you’ve spotted a joke you like, you must be sure that the joke is appropriate for the audience (that they will relate to it), that the joke is non-offensive (for everyone), that it’s clean, and finally, that it contains both a point and a benefit for the listener(s). The examples in the book are extremely clear. There are well over 100 humor gems throughout Section II. In Sell It With Humor, there are also over 100 humor gems ready for you to use when presenting.
To “trick” (hey, magicians do it all the time, right?) the audience into thinking the joke is real, you can say that the incident occurred recently, it happened to you or someone you know, and might even imply they should know about it.
For example, you can even say you heard it in the news recently. People will always claim they’ve heard about it, even if it never occurred, strange, no? This process causes the audience to pay more attention. Also, never announce in advance you are going to tell a joke, just ease into the story.
If they don’t laugh, you can use a “saver.” That means you are commenting on the failure to get a laugh. For example, you might say, “Well, if you hated that one, here’s another one you won’t like.” In this case, the “saver” gets the laugh. Actually, it doesn’t matter where you get the laugh; you still get the credit from the audience for getting it. Finally, if you are wondering whether a joke is appropriate or relevant for your listener(s), it’s not. Leave it out. Please remember this rule, “When in doubt, leave it out.”
Be Happier And More Successful With Humor
We’ve often heard that laughter is the best medicine. Whoever coined that phrase is most likely the same person that said, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Both are difficult to prove, but both are filled to capacity with common sense.