Sell It With Humor (America's Cutting Edge Sales Tool)

By Burt Teplitzky

This 250 page plus one of a kind sales book is the brain child of Burt Teplitzky, the former managing partner of the World Famous IMPROV Comedy Club's Corporate Training Division and former licensee of the IMPROV's Florida Comedy Traffic Schools.

He was even written up in the Wall Street Journal. Sell It With Humor teaches CEO's, executives, sales professionals, speakers and presenters on how to use relevant and appropriate humor to give a more entertaining presentation and how to close more sales using humor.

You'll even learn how to sue humor to put off bill collectors! Over 150 "humor gems" designed to make your listener(s) laugh, drive home important points and close more sales are included. This method applies to those who speak before groups as well as those who present one on one. Also, the top 10 buying objections of all time are covered where Burt shows you how to use content and humor to overcome these pesky objections and close more sales without torturing the poor customer.

By the way, did you know that if you ask for the sale at least 5 times you have up to an 80% chance of closing it? Well, to do this you had better use humor. Most books on sales say to use humor but they never tell you how to do it. This book is the only on of it's kind that tells you exactly what to say and how to say it. Laugh and learn. The book is also a laugh out loud read.

You'll also learn my Punch/Point/Benefit method of mixing content and information so that your message will come across loud and clear, and will be memorable. More importantly, this method of presenting helps you close more sales while deadening the pain of while the customer(s) buys form you. In fact, they will be smiling. Imagine that!

Enjoy while you laugh and learn. Burt is available for keynote speaking and corporate training.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Burt Teplitzky
• Release date: Jun 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9780982723142

Burt Teplitzky

Burt is an author of two books, stand up comedian, keynote speaker, sales trainer and former managing partner of the World Famous IMPROV Comedy Club's Corporate Training Division as well as former Florida licensee for the IMPROV Comedy Traffic Schools. He is divorced and lives in Los Angeles area. Okay girls, not all at once...

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

"We were worried that Burt wouldn’t be able to make it tonight. But, fortunately, due to a hole in the prosecution’s case…"

Initially, I was going to call this book How To Be Successful Even If You Look Like Me, then I realized that would be cruel to all of those who do look like me (you saw the picture)! I’m a true hum-or-itarian (right), so instead, I called it Sell It With Humor™.

If you’ve read the inside jacket cover, you probably know that I am an author, keynote speaker, creator of the World Famous IMPROV Comedy Club’s Corporate Humor training Division, and was the top licensee for Florida’s IMPROV Comedy Traffic Schools. No, we didn’t teach people to drive funny. More on that later.

Use Humor To Make Something Positive Happen.

This is more than a book on selling with humor. It’s a business book: a book on using humor as a motivational tool, using humor in business, and using humor to lighten up your life. You will even learn how to start your own humor business!

However, my main goal in this book is to make money for you by convincing you to use humor as your selling and closing tool in giving one-on-one and group sales presentations or seminars. When you make these money-making presentations, I want you to be charming and funny about it so that you will make more sales. Your audience will benefit. It’s not all about you, you know.

Think about it. The most common reason that people go to comedy clubs is because people have a need to laugh. We all do from time to time, right? If you think about your favorite teachers, managers, comedians, lecturers or salespeople, they are the people that made you laugh the most. In fact, you probably remember some of the jokes from years ago that you heard from your teachers but do not remember the class material. That’s why I created this book and system. By associating the humor to the material you want to get across, listeners will remember the joke (if it’s funny) and they will also remember the point by remembering the punch line.

This book is for sales professionals, CEOs, executives, teachers, training managers, public speakers and people with jobs. It’s also for anyone who makes presentations and wants to use humor to make something positive happen. Whether it’s closing a sale, telling your shareholders they all need to find new jobs (always fun) or getting a point across, this book will help. Later, you’ll even learn how to put off bill collectors and how to be late or absent for work. Try finding that information in a sales book. (See, I’m here for you.)

Why is humor so important? Glad you asked, Burt! Yes, I do question myself often. Humor can improve your career, income, relationships and you might even get your own sitcom! Really. The use of humor will help your listener(s) remember important information.

Research shows that after listening to a seminar speaker or a training session, within 48 hours only 70% of the material is remembered, and after one week only 20% of the material is remembered!

So, it makes sense that if people are only going to remember 20% of a presentation, we want them to remember the 20% that matters most. By learning and using the techniques in this book, people will be able to remember the important points in your presentation.

This matters to you if you are giving a sales presentation, training someone or even having an important conversation. By attaching humor to all of the important messages and humorizing your valued content (the meat of your presentation) with humor gems (formerly known as jokes rewritten to make you money-that’s why I refer to them as gems) more valuable than a joke, your listener(s) will better remember your point and act on what they’ve heard. The best thing is that you are in control and you will choose what people will remember. Powerful stuff!

Ready to take over the world? (Someone once tried that. If I remember correctly, it didn’t go so well.) The idea is relatively simple. By having your listener(s) remember the punch line, they are more likely to retain the information and therefore use it when they need it. The system I developed through years of trial and error (having comedy shows and money thrown at me) is referred to as the Punch/Point/Benefit™ system, and you’ll learn how to use it and see examples in the following chapters.

In this book you will learn to use humor to your selling advantage regardless of whether you are presenting to individuals or to groups. But also in this book, if you are only presenting one-on-one, you will be encouraged to change to group selling instead. Presenting to groups is more fun, and you will sell and earn more.

This is a special sales book teaching you to use humor as a selling tool. In order for the process to work for you, I will cover some of the more basic elements of the selling process such as rapport building, organizing the presentation, and closing the sale. If you want to learn more about the selling process, there are numerous books you can refer to. These books will go into much more detail about the selling process than I do. But, are they funny?

After reading this book you will definitely be a more humorous presenter, and a more successful salesperson. If not, you will at least be more popular at parties---and not just at Tupperware parties.

By the way, you will find that I repeat concepts often. I do this for retention purposes. Because I repeat important concepts often, some people feel I have ADD. Not true. Actually, I suffer from DDA, get it?

My friends, my fellow funny comrades, let’s proceed and make ‘em smile while they buy. Remember, friends don’t let friends bore people while presenting. I won’t let this happen to you. Are you with me?

Affectionately (but only as a friend),

Burt Teplitzky

Your CEO of Comedy™

CHAPTER 1

PRESENTING WITH HUMOR (THE BASICS)

(Why should I read this book?)

"A classic is something everyone wants to have but no one wants to read."

-- Mark Twain

I had to read this book, I wrote it. But you? Here is something you should know. This is a humor book, not a joke book. The material you will read will make people laugh in almost any group setting, except in a comedy club. When you read the humor gems in the book (more on this soon), you will find them entertaining for most groups--but not necessarily all side splitting gems.

When humor is used in a presentation, it’s like seasoning on bland food.

They’re not meant to be. All of the material here is humorous; some of it is even very funny. Remember though, that after you read this book, you will be able to entertain while presenting and make more sales.

Another thing you’ll learn in this book is how to change from presenting one-on-one to giving large group presentations if you want to. Giving group presentations is a great way to achieve more sales but maybe you just want to improve your one-on-one presentation skills and have no interest in giving group sales presentations. That’s fine; this book will also be great for you. You might even be looking for a product to sell or a topic to present on. Whatever your interest in selling and presenting is, this book will work for you. It will show you how to construct a new presentation or to improve the one you have. You have to be the one to apply the techniques. Sure, I’ll come out to teach you, but you have to buy me lunch and dinner.

This book was written for you because I do not want to sit through any more boring presentations or speeches! There, I said it. I was also a boring speaker (I know because I watched myself on video) until I learned how to integrate relevant, appropriate humor and interactive games and exercises.

As you know I was the licensee for the IMPROV Comedy Traffic Schools in Florida and I consulted in Florida and California. Go ahead and blame the bad drivers that graduated from our school on us – we’re used to it. Actually, students taking our classes repeated much less frequently than those attending competitive schools because they were paying attention. There were many dry and boring traffic statistics that were required to be delivered to the class (you haven’t lived until you’ve been heckled by traffic school students). We hired instructors that had some speaking experience (in most cases, actual comedians) and trained them on how to use certain interactive games, activities, and humor designed to reinforce important points. You could do the same thing without this book but you would have to wade through a lot of comedy books and you’d have to be sure your jokes wouldn’t offend anyone.

The reason we all need to use humor is because humor increases the retention of information we hear. Humor reinforces what people already think or feel. In some cases, humor can even change the listener’s point of view by exposing the ridiculousness of the message, assuming a message exists. It allows listeners to more easily accept you or your presentation, and humor makes you more likeable.

People do business with people they like and trust. Humor helps foster that bond. Victor Borge, the late comedian said, Humor is the shortest distance between two people. This is the advantage you will have over most of your competitors. When humor is used in a presentation, it’s like seasoning on bland food. It changes a dull meal into a masterpiece (it worked for my mother’s meatloaf). The late Rodney Dangerfield (he was the one who received no respect) said, My mother was a bad cook. I don’t think meatloaf should glow in the dark. Why does it seem like most of the great comedians are late?

It’s the same thing with how you present yourself and the way you speak. You don’t have to be a natural comedian to use and have success with the Sell It With Humor™ system. In fact, the less of a funny person you are, the better the system can work for you. You will see why and how that is so in the following chapters. Yes, I am shamelessly baiting you.

Actually, there are very few people who understand the use of humor in the business environment as well as I do. I say this in a pathetic way. Would you give up many of your Saturday nights to watch hundreds of comedians on DVDs, read dozens of comedian and humorists’ biographies? I’ve even read books on the psychology of why people laugh. Pathetic, right? Well, not if you can learn to increase your sales from my comedy nerdiness. I’ve also sold a lot and used humor to close many of these sales that otherwise would not have closed.

Not that it is anything to be proud of, but I absolutely got through most of my life with the use of humor when I needed it. There are clearly funnier people than me, but can they use relevant and appropriate humor to make sales, get dates (or get rid of dates), get out of dangerous situations, and fend off persistent bill collectors? (You will learn some of these techniques later in this book as your reward for sticking with me.)

In addition to improving your chances for financial security in life, humor can also be important for your safety. I’m not sure if I’m proud of this, but I have never been in a physical fight, unless you count losing a pillow fight against my daughter when she was four. It was awful, there was bleeding and feathers everywhere and that was just me.

It was awful, there was bleeding and feathers everywhere and that was just me.

We’ve all seen movies and television shows where the funny nerd makes the bully laugh so he won’t get beat up. I’m here to tell you that it works! Woody Allen tells a story in his stand-up comedy routine about how he was walking home from school with his tuba. A bully came up to him and said, Hey Red! Woody didn’t like this and decided to stand up for himself. He then goes on to say that he ended up in a local hospital that summer where a team of surgeons labored to remove a tuba. Funny, yes!

Here is a story where my friend, Gene Hamm, believes humor saved his life. Gene is also the animator for my daughter’s short films Adventures of the Talking Clothes and Adventures of the Talking Pets. I’ll let Gene tell the story:

I had lived in Hollywood for 10 years and never had any problems walking to the newsstand on Cahuenga. After I moved away, I came back to work on a job. I had a rotten day at work. Nothing was going right, so I decided to go see my old newsstand to feel better. I had to park the car on Ivar, a side street where a strip club was. Not a good neighborhood. I was walking to my car and coming the other way were extremely tough-looking guys. The guy in the middle was as wide as a house, so I had my eye on him. But, it was actually the skinny guy on the end who shoved me into a cyclone fence.

As I bounced off the fence, the world seemed to go into super-slow motion. I could see they were waiting to see me come back swearing or swinging, which would have been a big mistake. Instead I stopped and said with a big sigh, Thank you. That was the end of a perfect day! There was a long moment of dead silence and then all three of them broke out laughing. They saw me as human and empathized. They walked on down the street. The big guy in the middle slapped the skinny guy and said, What did you do that for?

Thanks, Gene. See, humor really can save lives!

Humor can save you in the business world, too! I remember a joke that killed (was very funny) at the real estate office. When I was selling or presenting to a real estate investor, company, or tradeshow, I might have used variations of this story to make a point and get a laugh:

"There are still buyers that have to buy. There always will be, you just have to find them and get rid of the looky-loo time wasters. I know the real estate market is slow right now. I recently had all of my listings on my office wall. Other agents were standing around laughing at my listings. So I did the only thing I could do, I charged a cover and a two drink minimum."

The market is bad. It’s so bad that I saw a real estate agent standing on the corner with a sign that read, Will sell your house for food.

See what I did? I added information and had fun with the real estate market at the same time. How can you relate a personal experience or a story to help tie the knot between you and the listener? If you can do it, you are that much closer to the sale!

Another joke here for you real estate lovers to enjoy:

The market is bad. It’s so bad that I saw a real estate agent standing on the corner with a sign that read, Will sell your house for food. Funny, right? It killed at real estate meetings.

Can you adapt this to something in your occupation? Anyway, humor attracts the listener’s attention, especially in dry situations. So after learning the Punch/Point/Benefit™ technique (leave them with a punch line, the point or message, and the benefit of taking your recommended action), you will be able to kill at funerals (no pun intended), weddings (not your own though – I tried it), Tupperware parties, and even at training meetings (I knew you were thinking training meetings).

Humor that is appropriate for a given situation seems like an inside joke that only certain people will understand. It seems as though you developed the jokes especially for them, which they appreciate and will laugh at. Humor like this can be designed in advance like a weapon and will strike in the right situation.

You will also learn to modify humor gems (again, jokes we have reconstructed for our selling or reinforcement needs) for various types of companies and products. You will learn more about humor gems soon.

I consulted and trained a group of salespeople that worked for a step motor organization: you know, the little motors inside electric tooth brushes, small toy cars, and facial massagers. There was a motor, the Series Seven, that performed horribly in the market place. I knew about this issue in advance (this is where it pays to research your prospect’s company). So when a joke didn’t go over too well, I said, That went over about as well as a Series Seven model. They died (laughed).

My father worked at a factory and was replaced by a machine that did everything his father did--only better.

I killed (made them laugh) and was made the new sales manager for the national step motor company for $10,000,000 per month (not really, but the rest of the story is true). The management must have liked the joke also because they actually paid me the second half of the fee (but only after I held the entire company hostage – with an electric step motor screwdriver. Unfortunately, it had a Series Seven motor in it).

Woody Allen says that his father worked at a factory and was replaced by a machine that did everything his father did--only better. The funny thing, he said, Was that my mother went out and bought one. This might qualify as a when in doubt, leave-it-out joke. We will discuss this later. It’s funny though, isn’t it?

By reading this book, you will have access to tools which make it possible for you to enhance your current presentation or create a new one. You will also learn how to wrap humor around important points you want to get across, be more entertaining and have more fun speaking. Hopefully, you will also get paid for doing all of this. Also, if you’re not naturally funny-don’t sweat it. They’ll never see you coming and you’ll score bigger than you ever imagined. What else can I say? Oh yeah, remember to apply what you learn.

CHAPTER 2

PUNCH/POINT/BENEFIT™ FORMULA

(We’re not talking baby formula here.)

"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."

-- Peter Ustinov

Let’s start off with the Punch/Point/Benefit™ method (PPB). The PPB is included as part of the overall humorization process. A humorized joke becomes a humor gem and includes the punch, the point, and the benefit to the listener(s). This is a system I developed and copyrighted which allows a speaker or salesperson to get a laugh, make a point, and share the benefit – all in one story. I refer to this process as the PPB (not to be confused with PB & J). When you tell a story, you will provide something of value your listeners can take home with them, such as a point to your presentation or a benefit that he or she can apply to their life. In a perfect world, they will receive both.

A joke only becomes a humor gem after it has been modified for our selling needs.

You should present for a total of 3 to 6 minutes on each topic point. A topic point may also be viewed or referred to as a specific message you would like to get across to your listener(s) in a total of 3 to 6 minutes. These 3 to 6 minutes include both your important content, usually 1 to 4 minutes in length, and your humor gem, usually 2 minutes or less. The punch, point, and the benefit are already built into the humor gem and do not take additional time. You will see many examples in this book.

So, a 60 minute presentation will have 10 topic points (including 10 laughs) if the presentation is broken into 6-minute segments. If your 60 minute presentation is broken into 3 minute segments, you will include 20 topic points (and will receive 20 laughs.) Generally, presenters new to using humor will start with 10 laughs per hour presentation and will increase to 20 laughs, or more, as they become more experienced. See, that was painless.

This is the only short, technical section in this book. Please follow along and pay close attention as I explain. By the way, you are now experiencing the serious side to being funny, can you handle it? I know you can. Let’s review. First we have….

Content (1 to 4 minutes in length)

Content is the meat of the information your audience wants to hear and you want them to remember. Most likely, this is information that educates your listeners about your product, service, or the environment where it might be applied. You should have enough information about your topic to present from 1 to 4 minutes. In the chapter of this book titled Show Me the Humor Gems, I recommend certain content. However, feel free to modify any or all of the text for your own needs.

Humor Gem (Up to 2 minutes in length)

This is a pre-proven joke that we will be re-working to convert into a humor gem. The humor gem is the joke or funny story that has been modified to include the set up, funny story, punch line, point, and benefit. A joke only becomes a humor gem after it has been modified for our selling needs. By the way, never try to ad-lib intentionally, only use proven humor.

Don’t worry, they will laugh, or else.

Again, I refer to this process as humorization. The humor gem is usually broken up as follows:

First, we have the content: 1 to 4 minutes in length.

Then, we have the humor.

After the content, we have the humor gem.

Set up (about 10 seconds at the beginning of the 2-minute humor gem): It sets up the funny story part of the humor gem. This is also known as the segue or the transition to the funny story or joke. For example, you might say, Speaking of oceanography, my wife and I recently dined at a fancy Beverly Hills sushi restaurant… That should take about 10 seconds. Please understand that there are no perfect segues or transitions, these only allow you to move more smoothly from the content to the humor gem and sound realistic about it. After the set up, dive directly into the…

Funny story (joke): Up to the next 90 seconds of the funny story portion of the humor