A wooden leg — named Smith:
Making business people die laughing, for fun and profit.
Visualise the most gorgeous person you can possibly imagine. Venus. Adonis. Your absolute dream date.
Now, go up and engage them in conversation.
What will you say to them? Once the palpitations have died down, chances are you’ll try to think of something funny.
It’s no fluke that so many chat-up lines are jokes. When we really want someone to like us, we try to make them laugh. People like funny people.
Business speakers use that knowledge all the time. Business writers, by and large, don’t. And they should. We know it’s not as much fun when you can’t hear the laughs, but that’s no excuse to be po-faced.
You might think your client is po-faced — you might think they’d find humour a frivolous waste of time — but nobody is pin-striped to the core. (Remember what happened in Mary Poppins when Mr. Banks told his ghastly geriatric boss the wooden leg joke [1]? That’s right — boss died laughing, Banks got promotion, and everyone flew a kite.) We’re all people, and we can all be cheered up by a joke — especially when we’re ploughing through pages of business writing.
Don’t underestimate the value of humour as a free gift. Someone surfing your website may be thrilled by your offer of a free widget, but cheering them up is far more immediate. They don’t have to send off for it, buy something to get it, or click to download it. It’s the only free gift that doesn’t come across as a mercenary enticement. And to be honest, it’s probably worth more to them than the widget.
When you use humour, you’re treating the reader like a human being — and reminding them that you’re human, too. This has a powerful effect in getting them on your side. It’s hard to feel defensive or antagonistic when you’re laughing.
Humour shows you don’t take yourself too seriously. One of the greatest turn-offs in business writing is giving the impression that your product or idea is your life, your meat and drink, your lover, and your god. Which makes you look pretty pathetic. If you joke about it, it shows there’s more to your life than Whizzo Bathroom Grout: again, it shows you’re human, and people will buy a lot more grout from you if they know you don’t have three heads.
Another fun fact about humour: it’s an aid to memory. Anyone who’s read a book on memory will know this — for instance, if you want to remember the words ‘oxtail soup’, imagine an ox with a giant tail being chased by a mad chef with a soup ladle. So: if you want your readers to remember something, make ’em laugh.
This memory-aid trick is particularly useful when explaining a complex process. You can make sure Step A is firmly imprinted on the reader’s brain before starting to explain Step B. They may also forgive you for overtaxing their intellect if you tickle their ribs at the same time.
Here are some tips on using humour in your writing:
Like when you were chatting up that gorgeous person: find things your reader can laugh about with you. Things they can relate to. Take a tip from the stand-up comics and use your observations of everyday life.
Put yourself into your writing. You’re trying to show you’re human, so don’t be afraid to relate your mistakes and mishaps. People will love you for being honest and un-pompous.
Don’t just sling in random jokes. Make your humour shed some light on what you’re writing: that’s what it’s good at.
Startle your readers. Ever burst out laughing just after a shock?
“I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith.”
“That’s interesting — what’s the name of his other leg?”
