Nothing builds rapport faster than humor, so whether you’re doing a presentation in person, or online, opening it with some smart likable humor lets people feel good about you and your message right from the start. This is smart since everyone in your audience is thinking the same thing at the beginning of your talk.
“Make it easy for me to feel good about this.”
By opening your talk with a few moments of humor you let them know you read their mind.
Here is the most classic presentation advice there is:
- Tell them what you’re going to tell them.
- Tell them.
- Then tell them what you told them.
Yes this is very smart advice, however it doesn’t increase your likability or make your presentation stand out as exceptionally enjoyable.
Going back to “Make it easy for me to feel good about this” the Three Smile Rule is more likely to get your audience there:
Make them smile at the beginning*
Make them smile in the middle**
Make them smile at the end***
(aka. *Be Heard. **Be Liked ***Be Memorable)
Yes, you can. All you have to do is share the high-quality humorous works of those who have made it their life mission to make people smile and feel good. Yes, I’m talking about cartoonists, funny quote creators, and funny graphic creators.
The good news is now there is a place you can find the finest humor works curated for presenters and business professionals all in one place. It’s called HumorPoint and it’s the world’s first professional Humor Toolbox. HumorPoint is a suite of business humor tools that lets you bring smiles and laughs with a level of ease and confidence most people have never known before.
TIP #1
The Perfect Cartoon
In the classic 1967 movie, The Graduate, the young character played by Dustin Hoffman was given some prescient advice by an adult about what industry he thought the young man should pursue a career in.“I just want to say one word to you son…Plastics.” Replace the word Plastics with Cartoons and you’re well on your way to a great presentation.
“As it turns out some of our most brilliant thinkers
are not business leaders, political leaders, or scientists.
No, some of our most brilliant thinkers are cartoonists.”
Robert Bostick, HumorPoint Founder
To whet your appetite for how exceptional cartoons can make people feel good here are eight exceptional feel-good cartoons. Assuming you’re on a computer when you arrive at The Perfect Cartoon scroll down the page until you see the cartoon thumbnails. Then roll your mouse over the thumbnails to enlarge them. If you see a cartoon you love click on the thumbnail to be taken to the cartoon site. If you’re getting there on your phone just zoom in.
Do you think opening your next presentation or Zoom meeting with one or two of these cartoons would make it easy for people to feel good about you and what you have to say next? If they’re smiling, the answer is yes.
The Perfect Cartoon was built to make it easier than ever before for you to find the perfect cartoon to make your audience smile. It was created by Robert Bostick, the founder of HumorPoint (the site’s chief cartoon curator), and Adam Cheyer, the founding creator of the Apple Siri – the personal assistant on every iPhone in the world. You will never have a problem finding the perfect feel-good cartoon to open or close a presentation again. And if by some chance those first eight cartoons didn’t do it for you here are eight more crowd pleasing cartoons!
TIP #2
The Perfect Quote
For many people who go to a business conference the one take-away from it is a great quote they heard one of the presenters share. So it makes sense to do the same for your next presentation, in person or online. If your quote is funny and makes a great point, it might be what someone remembers most.
Today there are lots of online quote sites to search through on the internet for a quote, or you can go to The Perfect Quote to peruse an exceptional collection of smart, funny, salient quotes curated from all the quote sites, and some original quotes you won’t find anywhere else. Here are three you might consider adding to your next presentation:
Have you ever noticed what golf spells backward?
Al Boliska
LONLINESS
Robert Bostick
Cheerios is a good name for a cereal but a bad name for a funeral home.
Unknown
Getting your audience to smile by sharing
a well-crafted quote has never been easier.
TIP #3
Funny Graphic Generators
Once you’ve found a quote you love you can use The Perfect Graphic Generator to turn them into light-hearted, smile-inducing funny images. This newscaster generator lets you make breaking news in seconds.
Or put your favorite customer on the cover of Forbes magazine below (massive wealth not required). Or create a skeleton meme message. Or have Einstein share what you’d like him to say on his blackboard. The fun part is you can do all this and much more without having to spend a moment learning any graphic software.
These “graphic generators” could just as easily be called “laugh generators” because they truly are.
Congratulations. You just discovered three new humor tools to add to your presentation toolkit. Adding humor to the beginning, middle, or end of your next presentation has never been easier. Your audience will thank you with smiles, applause, and maybe a sale or a promotion.
You can also use your new humor tools to add humor to your emails, newsletters, and social media campaign. There is nothing a little humor can’t improve.
A new study finds that cats actually bond with people like dogs but they’re too aloof to show it. Which is why I named my cat Dad.
Colin Jost
