{"id":8309,"date":"2021-05-07T19:06:10","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T19:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/?p=8309"},"modified":"2021-05-07T19:06:43","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T19:06:43","slug":"benefits-and-dangers-of-humor-in-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/benefits-and-dangers-of-humor-in-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Benefits and Dangers of Humor in Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sales can sometimes be a very stressful and serious subject in business. No company wants to buy a product it cannot take seriously, and no salesperson wants their product to be dismissed as a joke. Yet in sales, establishing a personal relationship with the client is essential, and sometimes a little humor can go a long way in relaxing the client and easing tension. In an <a href=\"http:\/\/changingminds.org\/techniques\/humor\/humor_in_selling.htm\">article<\/a> based on a book by Gray, Parkinson, and Dunbar, several tips for introducing humor into sales are presented.<\/p>\n<p>First is a technique they call \u201cthrowing in the frog.\u201d At an expensive art auction in 1981, the auctioneer casually added \u201cand I\u2019ll throw in a pet frog.\u201d This humorous tag line resulted in some laughs and relaxation from the bidders, which actually led to higher sales.<\/p>\n<p>Next, self-awareness of the product can be humorous when applied well. For airlines, using the phrase \u201cMay Contain Nuts\u201d is a self-aware reference to the in-flight snacks served on many commercial airplanes. Such jokes can put the client at ease and increase their trust in the salesperson.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, there is some danger in incorporating humor into a sales. At Disney World, there is a saying: \u201cdon\u2019t knock the mouse.\u201d In other words, no matter how enthusiastic you may be about your product or the sales pitch, do not speak badly about the product itself. By doing so, the client will get the sense that even the salesperson isn\u2019t confident in his product and will be much less likely to trust the sale.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, while humor can be a good way to diffuse tension and relax the sales conversation, it can also be dangerous if it decreases the reliability or trustworthiness of the product or salesperson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sales can sometimes be a very stressful and serious subject in business. No company wants to buy a product it cannot take seriously, and no salesperson wants their product to be dismissed as a joke. Yet in sales, establishing a personal relationship with the client is essential, and sometimes a little humor can go a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":454,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8311,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8309\/revisions\/8311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gccwebsites.com\/startupsales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}