Comedic timing and getting laughs in your presentations.
During your presentations and your stories you need to take your audience on a rollercoaster of emotions. When your story has some heavy topics, like death, suicide attempts, big failures… it can be very emotional for you and that emotion transmits to your audience. They are under tension. They will feel that emotion and it’s going to be pretty heavy.
You will need to relieve that tension. We can’t keep your audience sitting on a heavy topic. We need to bring them back out of that and the best way to do that is through a little bit of humor. And when you relieve that tension, you will most likely get some laughs.
I’ve used this technique in a lot of the stories that I tell and it really works. One story that I use this really effectively Is my bodybuilding fail story, and I would go through how I got disqualified and how that just absolutely devastated me and it was truly one of the worst days of my life. Emotion always comes up at that point in the story, and then I break that tension with, “And then I went to Starbucks for a caramel macchiato.”
Something completely out of the blue, something opposite than what people would think. It’s actually a true story, I did go for a caramel macchiato, it’s when I place that in the story right after the tension, then it gets a really good laugh.
When you’re thinking about where your story takes the audience, right after you’ve take them into a deep dark place, you want to relieve that tension with something that they don’t expect.
One of my private clients was talking about a very heavy topic of wanting to kill herself, and how she was thinking about killing herself by drowning in a river. As she tells the story, she’s standing on the river’s edge knowing that this is what she wanted… she jumped …. Hit the bottom of the river and stood up… the river was too shallow. Combined with how she delivered the line, facial expression, and words… she always gets a laugh. The audience is relieved of the tension they were under and laughter will follow.
Why you need to do this
Why do you want to take your audience on a rollercoaster? Well, they’re going to remember you and your story. When you make people cry or laugh, they’re going to remember you and remember your story.
At the end of your presentation when you’re asking them to make a decision of working with you or buying your idea or your service, they are going to do it, because now they have that connection with you, they understand why you do it in the first place, and they’re going to follow you to where you want them to go.
That is how to get laughs during your next presentation, even though it might be a little emotional. I hope that was helpful for you. Definitely make some comments below.
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