Getting people laughing is much easier than it looks. However, there ARE some mistakes people often make that cause humor to die an untimely death. Here they are and what you can do about them: 1. Not Knowing Your Audience: Different people laugh at different things depending on their humor style, gender, culture, language skills, age, etc. You need to understand the things your listener will enjoy. For example, I heard a woman at a conference tell a very funny story about dealing with menopause. Her audience was mostly men under forty. There was only mild laughter because they just didnt relate. Do some research about your clients, co-workers or friends notice what kinds of things make them laugh. 2. Not Connecting It To Your Topic: One advantage you have over a professional comedian is that people are not expecting to laugh. However, if you tell a joke or story unrelated to your topic and it bombs..then people will be annoyed with you for wasting their time. If, on the other hand, the humor illustrates a point and it bombs, then just move on to the next point. No harm done. 3. Using Humor That Doesnt Suit Your Style: At the same time, dont try a style of humor that is too foreign to you. It will show. I was speaking at a college in Brooklyn, New York. My audience was ethnically mixed 18-year-olds. I wore a ball cap backwards and tried to sing and dance a rap song. My song was met with puzzled silence. I found out later from three guys wearing oversize pants that they didnt know it was supposed to be a rap song. They thought I just had a nervous twitch and a speech impediment. 4. Not Crafting Humor Effectively: Understand the mechanics of humor (see What Makes People Laugh). For example, if you are telling a true story about yourself, make sure you throw in a punchline or two even if it means bending reality slightly. Dont feel the need to bore people with endless details of how it really happened. Cut to the chase. That may mean exaggerating, embellishing, collapsing several events together, eliminating details, and adding characters or events. Clients say to me, But thats not how it really happened. Your audience doesnt know and frankly doesnt care as long as you are making a good point and not slandering anyone. You job is to help your audience understand the value in your message. That is why most movies say based on a true story, otherwise it would be challenging for screenwriters to be effective. 5. Not Waiting For The Laugh: Sometimes people need time to get it. If you have the courage to waitchances are more people will laugh. The tendency is to move on too quickly to the next thing. John Archibald Wheeler once said, Time is what prevents everything from happening at once. 6. Not Selling Your Humor: Along with waiting for the laugh comes your enthusiasm. Put your humor out like it is the greatest gift you could offer people, and then wait with glee for them to get it. Mirth is infectious. Just the fact that you are so amused will make people laugh. 7. Not Using Saving Lines: Okay, your humor bombs. You researched your audience. You chose a style of humor that works for you. You waited for the laugh. You sold the joke with all your heart. But still no one laughs. That is a great time to pull out a saver line. This is a one-liner that acknowledges that your humor didnt fly. Johnny Carson was so good at saver lines, his comedy writers purposely wrote bad jokes so Johnny could comment on them. For example, Some of these I just do for me or This is the kind of crowd that would watch Bambi through a sniper scope or Have you people been practicing this together, the folding the arms and rolling the eyes thing, because you just did it all in unison! 8. Not Using Fresh Material: Be very careful telling old jokes. You audience may have heard them before. The worst mistake you could make would be to tell someone elses humorous anecdote as if it were your own. Not only is that unethical, but you may lose credibility. Your own material will always be better because you are more connected to it. Use the assignments in this book to create your own. Get a humor writing group to get feedback. 9. Not Adopting A Funloving Perspective On Life: The most FUN-damental part of being humorous on the platform is the willingness to see the world from unusual viewpoints. Light-hearted people have a penchant for surprise or the unexpected. They can feel thrilled by chaos. Within a person who is anal retentive, fixed on being perfect, or narrow mindedlaughter cannot fully thrive. The more you are in a fun loving in life you will notice that you ease up on the platform, become less judgmental towards yourself, and thus more attractive to audience members. For example, when mishaps occur (which always do) you are more able to go with the flow, and even better... make a joke out of it. 10. Not Recording Your Ideas As They Come Up: Ideas are like cloud formations. They swirl into an image and a moment later are gone. The chance that you will remember the idea an hour later when you are at home with pen and paper, is unlikely. Keep a pad of paper with you constantly, or a mini-recorder. When you are being funny for a living, you cant afford to let the great ideas drift away. |
