People love to laugh. It can even be the thing that brings us out of a bad mood. When used as a sales tool, it can make the difference in closing the sale. If you have come in contact with salespeople before (and who hasn’t), you will find on the whole, they have a great sense of humor.

My father was a salesman during his career. One time, he took my sister to work with him when she had a day off from school. She was barely a teenager at the time. She came home and told our mom that all dad does is tell jokes and write stuff down on paper. This is a family joke that gets told at parties.

The point is, my father knew how to use humor to keep the job lively and fun. His clients appreciated his humor and it did help him get sales. Humor is a great vehicle to break the ice with clients. This can be new clients or existing ones. If an existing client is having a rough day, and a salesperson visits with a good joke, this can help lighten the mood for the client.

While humor is effective, you need to keep it tasteful. Not everyone finds the same things as funny as you do. Unless you are really comfortable with your clients, keep the humor at G-rated levels. Otherwise, you risk offending your clients and losing sales. This defeats the purpose of using humor.

Also, try to keep away from topics such as politics and religion, especially when it comes to humor. You will come across clients and potential clients who have quite different views from you regarding these topics. They have the upper hand and can easily turn you away if your intended conversation turns controversial. Your intentions may have been humorous, but they won’t necessarily see it that way.

Keep in mind, there is a difference when using humor online than when being face-to-face with someone. When writing something online, people cannot see your facial expressions or your body language. While there are IM acronyms and emoticons to help, it is clearly not the same. People are likely to get even more offended, and you leave a footprint when you write humor online. This can come back to haunt you and is something you want to avoid as much as possible. If you must use humor online, be even more sensitive to the type you use.

Hope it helps.

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