10 Marketing Lessons You Can Learn From Comedians

Hint: it’s more than how to make people laugh

Laughter is one of the best ways to reduce stress in your life. Watch a stand-up comedian and you can laugh away your worries and stress. Comedians have a lot to teach us beyond simply making us laugh.

In this story, we are going to discuss what you can learn from comedians and why you should approach your life and career like comedians approach their job.

Why?

People with a sense of humor do better at their jobs. They know how to find the humor in everyday problems. They are better managers, leaders, and just overall good people. When you think like a comedian, you’ll improve your leadership skills, become a better problem solver, and find more enjoyment in your life.

If you boil it down to its core, comedy is a series of stories with surprise endings that make people smile and laugh. In other words, comedy is entertainment with funny content.

Comedians know how to build trust and rapport with the audience. They read the crowd, they are confident with their jokes, and they know what the audience needs: a lot of laughter. Comedians have natural talent but they also work hard at their craft like we do. They tell stories about ordinary life experiences and find the nugget of truth for comedy.

An MIT study found that people who participated in an improv workshop before a product brainstorming session increased idea output by 37%. This shows people who are funny are more creative. It also shows that it’s not what comedians think about but how they think that makes all the difference.

As career professionals, marketers, and writers, there are 10 things we can learn from comedians.

1. They Pay Attention to Everything

We spend our lives being taught to think a certain way: linearly or sequentially. With comedy, you think non-linearly or non-sequentially. Comedians look for the things that are out-of-place.

Incongruity is the main reason we laugh. Humor happens when our minds recognize things don’t fit together and we try to connect them. Comedians look for the cracks. They pay attention to every detail. Why? Because they turn the problems into comedy gold.

Humor requires a person to think about things from a different perspective. Great comedians look for strange, odd, and absurd things in everyday life. They are in tune with their surroundings and what’s happening around them. They notice everything and look for things that clash, things that are at odds with each other, and things that are inconsistent.

Key takeaway: You don’t need to make fun of the cracks you see, but when you pay attention to them, you can craft a better product, service, or story. It can also help you better carve a niche in your industry, improve your company’s performance, or better lead a team that may be having relationship issues.

2. They Listen Really Well

Comedians are usually shy people. Why? Shy people are gifted listeners. Anthropologists found that comedians fit the definition of an introvert. Most comedians are shy in their personal lives so the comedy stage gives them a chance to talk. Once they are on stage, they can’t stop talking because it’s an outlet to share their observations.

Comedians are good at listening because it’s an essential skill for connecting with the feel or vibe of the room. Comedians know the only way to perfect a sense of timing is by listening really well. They notice what people say and what they avoid saying.

Key takeaway: When you listen more, you gain knowledge that will help you craft better messages, deliver better products and services, and attract better customers. When you listen, you know the key terms and phrases your target audience uses when talking about their needs and you can better meet those needs with your offerings.

3. They Keep You on Your Toes

One of the keys to good comedy is the idea of misdirection. They set up the listeners so that they are going down one path and then switch it up. In comedy, the set-up of a joke is the direction and then the punchline is the misdirection. That’s why you see that most jokes start with the positive before they go negative.

Watch late-night TV, especially the monologues. Late-night comedians such as Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Conan O’Brien all do jokes with a two-sentence structure. The first sentence introduces the joke and the second sentence provides the unexpected punchline.

Here’s an example: Canadians are now eligible to compete on “Survivor.” Which will be great until they all politely vote themselves off.

A joke hinges on setting up expectations on where the story will go and then it veers off course to make a surprising association.

Key takeaway: Keeping yourself on your toes can be a great way to solve problems. Great problem solvers embrace surprise ideas because there are lots of different ways to solve a problem. To solve problems, there’s a lot of trial and error. It’s important to be ready for the unexpected such as the article you didn’t think would resonate that goes viral. Be ready for the unexpected.

4. They Are Great at Delivery

Comedians can make any topic interesting. They live and die on engaging their audience to laugh. It’s not what you say — the magic is how you say it. Comedians have excellent stage presence. Some people call this delivery while others call it style, voice, or personality. Whatever you call it, the bottom line is that comedians are great at captivating an audience.

Comedians are the masters of speaking slowly enough that the audience can understand them. They pause between ideas and avoid filler words. They carefully articulate and pronounce their words. Comedians are also authentic, identifiable, and relatable. They excel at empathizing with the audience to land the punchline.

Key takeaway: It’s all about how well you sell yourself in your career and in life. To be successful, you need to have good public speaking skills. They help you hone your poise, professionalism, and body language. These qualities are valuable in today’s job market. Speaking at events is a great way to build your credibility no matter what profession you are in.

5. They Find Something Worth Repeating

Good comedy depends on repetition. Usually, the magic number for repeating themselves is three. Repetition builds the jokes and gives the audience the feeling of being an insider because they were there during the first two times.

Three is the smallest number that can form a pattern. Comedians set up our minds to perceive a pattern and then throw you off track with the third element. It makes you laugh. The rule of three fits the joke structure of set-up, anticipation, and then punchline.

Here’s an example: I can’t think of anything worse after a night of drinking than waking up next to someone and not being able to remember their name, or how you met, or why they’re dead.

Comedians use the rule of three all the time because it works and it’s a safe way to make something funny.

Key takeaway: There‘s conflicting evidence on the number of times a person needs to hear a message before they respond to it. The bottom line is a message needs to be seen and heard a lot of times before it makes an impression. The mere-exposure effect says people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. People only show a preference for an idea, a message, or a person when they are familiar with it.

6. They Cut to the Chase

Comedians cut to the chase and find ways to say what everyone else was thinking. We have short attention spans, especially the younger generations who live on their smartphones. It’s important to get straight to the point and leave out unnecessary remarks.

Key takeaway: In marketing communications, every word you use is important. Anything that distracts your target audience from a marketing message has to be avoided. People don’t have a lot of time these days so it’s important to get your message across as quickly as possible.

7. They Push the Traditional Boundaries

Comedians are good at talking about taboo topics that are typically excessively repulsive or sacred for people. Comedians believe nothing is off-limits. Limits lead to fewer laughs so they push buttons and become fearless. They believe they can go anywhere and talk about anything because they like to say something everybody is thinking but is too afraid to say.

Key takeaway: Research shows that brainstorming sessions based on how comedians craft jokes help people who are not funny produce more original ideas. It’s important to have safe zones during brainstorming sessions at work so you can discuss anything. Sometimes an idea is so crazy that it works.

8. They Practice a Lot and Learn From Others

Comedians practice their jokes a lot. They polish their craft, and they practice material on different, smaller audiences. They learn from other comedians. Very few comedians can get up on stage and improvise for very long. Comedians spend hours and hours practicing, polishing, tweaking, and testing their material.

If you hear a joke, you can bet it has been told a lot and has produced laughs. Comedy writing takes most writers 10 attempts at a joke to create a funny punchline. The rule of 10 works well with brainstorming because you shouldn’t settle for the first thing that comes to your mind. A good joke takes polish and time to be tweaked. It becomes even better with collaboration.

Key takeaway: Practice makes perfect. You are not going to be successful on your first draft of your article. It’s going to take a while to master your craft. You become better at something if you do it often. I remember my first Medium story. It’s night and day different than this one.

9. They Speak in Real Language

Comedians speak like real people. They don’t use buzzwords like “leverage our synergies.” Jargon doesn’t work for comedians because it’s abstract and vague. Audiences want details and imagery.

Here’s an example of a joke: Marriage is like a game of chess except the board is flowing water, the pieces are made of smoke, and no move you make will have any effect on the outcome.

The joke paints pictures with words and is in plain English that adults can understand.

Key takeaway: Avoid jargon. Make sure you write and speak in a way that anyone can understand. Most adults read at an eighth-grade reading level so you need to ensure your writing is readable. People want stories where they can imagine being in that situation. With your personal stories, they want all the specific details so they can envision being shoulder to shoulder with you — experiencing in their mind what you experienced.

10. They Know Laughter Equals Agreement

Comedians know a simple truth. They point out the stupid things we all do in life and make us laugh at them. If you think about it, when people laugh, they are agreeing with you at some level. In other words, getting people to laugh shows people find the humor in a comedian’s reasoning or point of view. When people are laughing with you, you don’t have to work as hard to sell your ideas.

Key takeaway: To get people to agree with you at work and in your personal life, make them laugh. It defuses tense situations. When you get people to laugh, they agree with you on a different level. This helps them “lower their guard” and it’s easier to sell your ideas.

Bringing It All Together

Comedy is an industry and its product is laughter. We can learn a lot from this industry. The biggest thing we should learn is that it’s not about what you think about in your profession but how you think about it. Humor is a great tool to make you successful because it brings people together. Comedians can teach us about better connecting with our audience. We can listen better and pay closer attention to every detail. We don’t have to be a comic genius to speak in simpler language, get to the point faster, and master the delivery when we are on a Zoom call.