From SaaS to Laughs: Improv Skills Every Salesperson Needs-165

What happens when an enterprise SaaS seller discovers that improv and stand-up can make you a better salesperson, teammate, and leader?
Kevin Hubschmann, founder of Laugh.Events, joins Anya to break down how humor, active listening, and “yes-and” thinking can transform high-stakes sales conversations, especially in emotional industries like homebuilding.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why comedy skills = better communication, curiosity & connection
• The difference between being funny and using humor effectively
• How to shrink the fear of failure (yes… bombing on stage helps)
• Improv rules every salesperson should steal (active listening, yes-and, F-your-good-idea!)
• How humor lowers defenses, builds trust, and boosts customer satisfaction
• Simple, low-stakes exercises any sales team can use to collaborate better
  
  

Whether you’re in new home sales, leadership, or just want to communicate like a human again, Kevin’s approach will help you sell with more confidence, and have a lot more fun doing it.

🔗 Connect with Kevin: Laugh.Events
🔗 Sign up for LaughRx newsletter: laugh.events
🔗 Follow Kevin on LinkedIn: Kevin Hubschmann

Transcript

0:34

Hello and welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for a new episode of a new Go of New Home Sales. I'm your host, Anya Christianen, and joining me today is Kevin Homan. Kevin is the founder of a Laugh.Events, so welcome to the show, Kevin. I'm very excited for our very different conversation than my audience is used to. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. So Kevin, you went from selling SaaS to selling laughter as a service, so that's quite a leap. So tell us what inspired that pivot for you and how did you realize comedy could make better business? Yeah, so yeah, I love that tagline. I went from SaaS to laugh and it's a true story. I started working at a company called Splash. I was the first salesperson, at this company, one of the first 10 overall employees. And while I was there, I was still getting my feel for, honestly what my career was gonna be. I wasn't really sure they even threw me into this sales role because they didn't really know where to put me. And they said, Hey, this guy can talk to people. Maybe maybe he can make some money out of it. That's what I was doing at the company. And but while I was still feeling myself out in my career, I was also. Trying to get into more hobbies in New York City where I was working and, I love comedy. I'm a huge comedy nerd. I started an improv group with my two brothers and my best friend, and we would do three hours of improv every week, and we would go to my brother's apartment, we'd move the furniture out of the way. And we would just laugh and have fun for three hours. It was the most fun ever. Our group was called The Brothers in Flaws. We just had an absolute hoot. But we would do that and I would think, okay, this is the end of it. We did it. It was three hours. The end of it will be had a lot of fun. And that's the only benefits that I'll see. I'll just get a lot of stress relief and. And I got to enjoy, doing this hobby. But it wasn't until the next day that I actually saw that there was huge benefits that I was having. Improv teaches you to communicate better. It teaches you to listen better, it teaches you to take risks. So all of those different skills were translating into work. I was, a small team, about 10 people. You have to effectively communicate and innovate and come up with new ideas. And, this experience that I was having in training in this comedy these comedy skills were allowing me to really excel amongst all of my teammates. And then in the sales world. Huge part of sales is really just sitting back and listening and being very curious and keeping the momentum going and validating your customer's problems. And those skills. I was able to translate from the comedy stage right into the phone calls and the demos I was having, and and it was just a really amazing amalgamation of all these different types of skills coming together. To help me work better with my teammates, to help work better with my prospects and ultimately my clients. And it was the first time where I said, whoa, comedy really has an opportunity to level up people professionally. And when people think of comedy, they think jokes, but in reality, it's actually the skills that comedians. Have, and then they form jokes from it and they form comedy from it. But it's the skills and the base of these soft skills that comedians have that I was really seeking. And I was really after. Once I got saw the value of the improv, I, I just kept going. And I eventually got into standup comedy where you learn a whole different set of skills and you learn skills like. Failure, like tons of failure bombing, they call it. And that is exactly what I did. I bombed like crazy on stage all the time but I was able to be not so scared of failure and that was really huge of removing that fear of failure. But then also I allowed myself to communicate better and, get my point across in the fewest amount of words possible. And again, I saw that standup comedy. Mixed with improv comedy was really making me the best professional that I could be. That's amazing. I love it when people start a business from passion. So this was something that you used as stress relief for you personally. You didn't think it would lead somewhere, but now you actually turned it into a business. So tell us a little bit more about your business. What is it that you do now and how do you help people now? Yeah, so our business is in two parts. When the business first started, it was exclusively around entertainment. It was how can we bring comedy to work environments? And during the pandemic is really when our business took a really big leap because obviously during the pandemic everyone was at home and. Not around their team and really looking honestly for anything that they could do with their team. And a lot of people said, let's try comedy. Let's, we could all use a laugh is what you always hear. We also had comedians that were the best comedians in the world that I had close relationships with that could not work in comedy clubs legally because of the pandemic restrictions. So this was a kind of a perfect mix of being able to bring amazing comedy. Two corporate audiences that really needed it. And it was the first opportunity that I saw that bringing humor into the workplace had a huge positive impact on people. And I was seeing that through. The post-event surveys that we were giving, people weren't just being like, great show. They were like, we really needed this, and I'm going through a really tough time and we haven't connected with our team in a while. And so that's when I started to look into the science of laughter. And why is it so valuable to laugh and biologically amazing things happen when we laugh. Our endorphins. Increase our stress levels, our cortisol levels, they decrease. And when you're laughing with other people you're also releasing oxytocin. It's the social bonding hormone, so you're also bonding with other people. So that was the first time where I was like, okay, wow. Laughter is not just an entertainment vehicle, but it's actually a health and wellness benefit. Let's keep going down that path. And that's what I remembered my time. I said in the beginning of improv, I said, let's start to, now that people are going back in person, let's start to bring applied improv and applied standup skills to companies. And so we developed something called Laughing and Development, which allowed us to bring instructors in and make custom curriculums for teams, whether they were. In sales or marketing or healthcare or lawyers, really every industry, every position could use it. And we'd form fit. There's a hundred different exercises to choose from when it comes to applied improv and applied standup. So we would customize them based off of what the group was looking to get out of it. So if they wanted to communicate better with their team, or they wanted to listen better, or they wanted to just. Take risks or if they just wanted to have fun and do something silly and get out of their comfort zone, we would create these curriculums for them. And so that's those are the two sides of our business. It's the entertainment side where people are booking comedy shows, whether that's in person booking comedians or virtually. We have amazing virtual comedy shows. Or people are looking to do professional development and team building, and we call that laughing and development, and that's available virtually and in person, and it focuses on using these comedy skills to level up people professionally. Love that. Just to name laughing and development. That sounds so much better than your typical. Sales training. So Kevin, can you tell us how can humor be used strategically in sales, especially in industries like home building where purchases are so emotional and really high stakes? Totally. Yeah, any sort of sale that things are emotional and high stakes, the best skill that. You can use, and you might not think of this as a comedy skill, but it's the most important comedy skill, and that is active listening. It's really listening to people and saying, okay, I'm not going to talk over you. I'm not going to say my point. I'm going to wait and I'm going to really listen and I'm gonna be really curious and I'm going to just try to extract. Information from you through this curiosity so that I can use that information to help get my value across. And so using that active listening skill is so critically important. And there's a really, great line that we love to use in improv called f your good idea. It's when your brain goes, I can say this. I got a good idea. And you suppress that, and you say, no, let me wait a second and let me listen to them a little bit more because. Especially when you're dealing with sales that are very vulnerable and very emotional, you need to use that validation. You need to validate the person across the table and say, I got you. I'm listening to what you're saying. So the next thing that I would say after active listening is effective communication. And that's using words like yes. And certainly not using words like, no, but or, we I, we have this phrase, no, but, or. Or leave it at the door. We want people to always be saying yes. And because that is, is a really great way to validate someone, yes, I hear what you're saying and this is how I'm gonna help you. And so that is like a really effective way to do that. And that is a comedy skill that's used. In improv comedy all the time. It, some of those skills are used in standup, but comedians in general, that's what they base their their craft on is building those soft skills. And so I'd say those are really two of the most effective skills that people can use when it comes to sales. A hundred percent. I think more people need to be better listeners in sales. So many times when you come into the sales office, whether it's new home sales or car dealership or any other sales, you can detect somebody who's new to sales just because they tend to spew out that presentation instead of asking questions and engaging you in a conversation to begin with. Yeah, and a lot of the times you're trained off of a script. So in your brain you go, okay, I gotta hit my points. I gotta hit A, B, and C. And if I don't get those out, my manager's gonna ask me, Hey, did you get A, B, and C? And that's also where managers can come in and give people permission to go off script, give people permission to really be themselves. I think there was a really amazing turning point in my sales career. When a manager turned to me after listening to one of my calls where I was so scripted and he said, Hey, stop being so salesman and start being more Hubschmann. You know my last name. So that was this moment where I was like, I'm at these guys letting me be myself. He's giving me permission. And from that moment on, I really allowed me to loosen myself up a bit and get in the ring and really feel like I can move around there and freestyle a little bit and allow people to see some of my personality. Because I'm trying to make a human connection with them. That's what's gonna separate us from automated messaging or auto artificial intelligence or anything like that. It's that human to human connection. So that's the third thing that I didn't mention. It's the ability to go off script and really be comfortable in being yourself and knowing that, having the confidence that you know how to take this and you know where you're gonna, where it's gonna go. And it's okay if you. If you miss A, B, or C may, maybe you get one of those, but maybe you just get that connection with that person and you can continue that conversation a hundred percent. I agree with you. It's important to know what the talking points are, right? You definitely wanna anticipate what your clients are going to come back with as far as objections. And you wanna have some of those scripts ready but planned, not canned as we like to say it. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Definitely you got a lot of nice wor phrasing going on that people are gonna love in this pod. I've been in new home sales for almost 15 years now in this industry. So we have some really great trainers in industry that I've learned from. So when when I heard about you, I was like, that's such a different approach, something so unique. So I was like, I gotta get this to my audience. Love it. So Kevin, question for you. Can you talk a little bit about difference between being funny and using humor effectively in business? Because sometimes I've seen certain type of person tends to be a guy and they try to be all funny. Sometimes it doesn't come off super professional. Yeah. So what I would say is. Humor is not having a joke ready. Humor is not having, that, that pun or that dad joke or having something that's ready. Because not, I'm not saying that's not going to create laughter but the laughter is going to be so ephemeral. That it's actually going to almost distract from the connection that you're trying to make with someone. And so humor is really about making a connection, with someone, and organically creating laughter from that connection. Laughter is a recognition. Of each other's intelligence. Laughter is saying, I get your joke. I get that you are listening to me. And so that is what comes from laughter and that's what comes from connection. So on the improv stage, if you go into it going, man, I'm gonna be the funniest person on this stage and I'm gonna get the biggest laugh. You're actually going to derail the whole company, or the whole show. And you might get that laugh and the audience might recognize it, but suddenly you've taken everything off track and it's just become distracting because the goal of improv, and it's different than standup. That's why I said there's some stuff you can learn from improv and there's stuff you can learn from standup, but focusing on improv. The goal of improv is not to be funny. The goal of improv is to have the best show possible. And to have the best show possible is to support your teammates, to follow these rules of active listening, to have effective communication to think off the top of your intelligence and really try to say, what is the best next move that I can make? Like you said planned, not canned. You want to plan, not what you're gonna say next, but just plan that I'm going to be listening to this person and I'm going to. Validate them and add on to what they're saying and add on momentum and have each other's back. Because when you go for a joke and you go for a laughter it really is a, it's very much like an individual contributor type of play. It's it's really selfish, honestly. And so that's what I communicate a lot of the times is if you want to use humor effectively in a business relationship. Don't try to be funny and you will use it effectively. And I know that sounds counterintuitive, but when you try, you die. We're going after it with these sayings. I'm saying that, I just made that up the top of my head, but you got me going on a rhyme scheme right now. But I think you don't really want to try, you want to go for having a very organic conversation and making that connection with people. I can definitely see a lot of parallels between, improv and sales presentation. I remember at some point I've read Tina Fay's book and I do remember, yeah, that's one thing I remember. Awesome. Parents remember the yes and for sure. So that definitely resonates with me. Now what advice would you give to salespeople who say I'm not that creative, or, I don't know if I can be funny. So can these skills actually be learned? I think you know this to just jump right into your second point. I'm not that funny. The goal of improv is not to be funny. So I think that's the first thing that you need to get out of your head is that, I'm not very funny. And that's really what my whole business is focused on, is trying to destigmatize the word of improv and humor and laughter. And I think that hu improv, when people think about it, they think of. Tina Fey, they think of whose line is it Anyways, they think of, some of their favorite comedy scenes that were improvised and they say That's the most elite version and that's really intimidating and I can't go there. Or it's negatively portrayed as, drama club and something that's like very alternative and something that you really is not in your personality. And so what we're trying to do is meet in the middle and say, no, it's laughing in development and it's not improv and it's not stand up, and it's not this thing that says you have to be funny because you're not there to be a professional comedian. I always would say for the longest time. I thought I was doing improv training and I thought I was doing standup to become a better, to become a professional comedian. But what I realized after what I was doing these things was training to be a better professional. And I think once I was able to see that, it allowed me to take the pressure off of being funny and focus on the process. And when you focus on the process. Organically, you're gonna get those laughs and it's about how do I create better connections with people? How do I make the people around me feel really supportive and supported that they can be themselves? That's also part of it. You can feel yourself, but. When you start to have the confidence in yourself, you're also giving other people permission to be themselves. And so that can also be your customer and let them let their hair down and they're gonna say something that they otherwise maybe wouldn't have said, because you're making them comfortable. So I think that if you take the pressure off of yourself of being funny or being creative or whatever that may be that's going to help you because that doesn't. Creativity and being funny does not equal humor. It's those different soft skills and really honing those in. That's what's gonna make a magical and humorous moment. Yeah, I can imagine that one of the biggest benefits of improv is just becoming comfortable with yourself. And not feeling embarrassed. I think that's the biggest thing. And I'm sure, Kevin, you felt that when you got on stage when you were doing that first, you just feel like, oh, all eyes are on me. And I don't know what to say. I'm not funny again, maybe that's preconceived motion, right? I am not funny and I don't know if I can do this. So can you take us through an effective exercise that you would recommend that people can do? Maybe they're in the model home. And, there's two of them. What can people be doing to incorporate these principles of improv to create some sort of a role play situation between the salesperson and the customer? Yeah, so when you're doing improv typically we're not going to be doing improv and games and stuff with customers and things like that. So it's more like when we do improv, it's gonna be with like your own team or with other people or strangers and like a very, low stakes environment. So that's what I would also say, if you're ever gonna practice improv, practice it in a low stakes environment where you're not saying, I'm the buyer, you're the seller, let's go, because that's acting. You know what I mean? Like you're acting in this character of buyer. You're acting in this character of seller, even if you are a seller. But what I would say, and this is just gonna, I'm reiterating what I've said throughout this conversation, but play a game with yourself of two things. One. F your good idea, right? That's what I said before. Have that in your brain when you wanna say something and it's going to give you just one more, like 10 extra seconds to let them, the other person speak longer, and I think that's going to help. The second thing that I would say is. Eliminate No, but or eliminate those three words when you're talking to anybody. And I think just focusing on Yes and you have to slow yourself down with doing both of the, of these things you have to say, like when I say F, my good idea. Okay. Keep going, I'm listening. You know what I mean? And then when someone, it's your turn to speak and they say I wanna do this and I'm nervous. And you say, ah, no, but don't say that. You wanna eliminate those things. Say, yes, I understand that you're nervous. And that makes a lot of sense. And I think that we can come to a solution together and it's those words. So I think focusing on those two things, while they're not improv games, they are rules of improv that people must use when they're on stage. And I think it'll be very effective. Yes, and I agree with you, there we go. I think most of the sales books that I've read maybe not even realizing those are the rules of improv. A lot of them talk about something similar to that where it's yeah. How do you disarm the customer if you're saying no right away? They're like, okay you're disagreeing with me, right? Or you're saying, okay, say yes. And how can we come up with a solution? So show empathy, right? Show that you understand totally how they're feeling. Let them know that you hear what they're saying. Yeah, I, I completely understand what you're saying. And sales books are amazing, and I've read so many and they are really good, but a lot of them are in. Theory. And then when you're only saying, okay, I gotta go and practice this live, and that's what why improv is so awesome as a training tool is because it's a low stakes environment. You might be practicing these exercises and these skills, while you and a scene partner are pretending to be astronauts in space. You know what I mean? Like that is where you really can take the pressure off yourself and go this doesn't make any sense and this doesn't. This doesn't have any stakes to it. So I think that's a really effective thing because when I would read a lot of sales books, I'd go, I'm gonna apply this right away. And there's, I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying that puts a lot of pressure on yourself. And as you say, a lot of the sales books, the improv applies to them. I'd encourage people, whether that's working with us directly to, to train an improv or going to a local improv theater to do a drop-in class. That's the best way to start to hone in on these skills. So speaking of training with you, if you bring your team over to a company to help them build a stronger collaboration and creative thinking, what shifts have you seen in team dynamics after your sessions? Yeah, so it can come in a multitude of ways. I would say that we see a lot of people focusing on talk time. They're reducing the amount of time that they're talking in conversation, and that gives their customer more time to talk, and it gives their customer more time to spill their guts and tell a little bit more about what's on their mind and what they're worried about. We also see that people. Feel like they can go off script a lot more and they feel like they can really freestyle and they can, again, connect with people. When they're working with other teammates, there's a lot more satisfaction. We always strive too, we're like. Whether it's like a net promoter score or a customer satisfaction score, we try to focus on how can we improve that number so that people feel like they were listened to and taken care of because. A lot of people just really want to be heard, and they really want to know that they were listened to the whole time and not talked over or not ignored. And so it's really just basic stuff like that. Reducing the amount of time you're talking, increasing your amount of listening, not feeling so scripted and ultimately going and improving that customer satisfaction score. I love that, and I assume the same techniques can help with bringing people together in an organization, like for example, in home building, we tend to be siloed between sales and marketing people. It can sometimes feel almost like. We know we're on the same team, but sometimes we don't play like we are. Oh yeah. So I imagine exercise is similar to that, can really help bring those teams together and feel more cohesive and comfortable with each other. A hundred percent. That's what I said. Improv is all about support and having each other's backs. And I'm gonna take an action forward and I know that you're gonna have my back and there's a really great exercise to exemplify what you were just saying of like why it's such a good team building event. And that's a lot of people, if they're not coming to us, like for very specific. Sales training or whatever specific industry or role training that they're trying to do with a really big goal in mind. They're coming to us with saying, our team just needs to connect. Our team needs to get out of the office, and we need more cross-departmental collaboration, and we need people to be on the same page. And there's one exercise that I always try to explain to people that I love and it explains roles in, in a work environment. And it, and this is something that, teams can do to as a warmup in their own meeting, but they can, it's it's called one word at a time story. So people go around in a room in a circle and the one person starts and they have to start the, a story with a word, and the last person in the circle has to end the story properly. So it's gonna be like I, and then you say, went, and then another person says to the store and we, whatever it is, and the first time we always see. Someone is going to go I went to the banana, whatever it is. They'll say like a word that is not what the word they were supposed to say, but it gets that laugh, like I said before, it gets that aha, that was really good. But you just derailed what we were going for because they maybe were gonna land on a word that was like an or a, the, or a but, or a, and like a non, interesting word so to speak, but a word that's critical to, for it to make sense. So when we do it a second time, we say, let's be really conscious. And if you get a word that's not like a spotlight word, that's gonna be a really big. Moment, you just gotta own it and say, that is the word that I have. And we go through it. And that person that says banana then eventually says a, the most boring word that you could say. But it shows that there's some people that are gonna get the spotlight and they're going to make that get that big moment and that big laugh. But they wouldn't have gotten that laugh if their teammate didn't set them up. To spike it, with an A or a, the and so that's a really good thing to say, like marketing and sales. Hey, I'm d I'm getting your lead. And then you're gonna go and spike it. You're gonna close it and you know you're gonna get the credit and I'm gonna get the word that, just set p set you up for it. So it's a really good exercise. And there's tons of other exercises like that really showcase, hey, we've got our each other's backs. I'm here to support you because improv is a team sport and so is running a business. Love that. So many great takeaways from today's podcast, and I think especially now where, the economy is very uncertain. We have so many home buyers. Sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what's gonna happen next. Is it a good time to buy a house? We've seen some reps that haven't sold a house in a while, and it is different all across the country. Still some are going strong and it's on fire, but we are seeing that a lot of people are definitely hesitating and it can have such a. Negative effect on a salesperson because you start to doubt your own ability to sell. You start to doubt your value. And then when the next person comes in, it can be like a snowball effect and suddenly you're like, you feel incapable of even doing anything. So I think in a time like this, especially where all of us could use a good laugh. So you guys, I would highly recommend reach out to Kevin, connect with Kevin. So Kevin, tell us all the details. How can people learn more about your company? How can people book your services? And if they wanted to personally connect with you, where do you hang out on social media? Yeah our company's name is our website, laugh.events. So just go there if you ever wanna do some team building or you want to book a comedian, things like that. But yeah, laugh.events is where you can get involved in a lot of the different workshops that we do for companies, whether that's very sales specific workshops. Or if it's just a general team building workshop where you want to connect with, cross-departmental stuff. We also have a newsletter called LaughRx.Laugh.Events. And that is really where I dive deeper into, people that are just interested individually in learning comedy skills and. Look at comedians and what they say and what they do and and those skills and why they're valuable to the workplace. And we also try to bring in some neuroscience. I, I mentioned some science earlier in here. I always think that helps validate a lot of what we're doing. And say, Hey, don't take my word for it. Take some medical journal's, word for it. And then the third way is, if you want to get in touch with us is or in touch with me on social. LinkedIn is my best form of social media. Kevin Hubschmann, H-U-B-S-C-H-M-A-N-N. I think I'm the only one on there with that name, so you're not gonna miss me. And yeah, that's definitely the best place and if anyone's interested in, individual coaching. I offer that as well. You can connect with me there to talk about that. My email is kevin@laugh.events I think that's everything. That's amazing. Now, Kevin, I cannot let you go before asking you the crst question Any comedian can ask. Oh. Can be asked. And that is, tell me a funny joke. I'm kidding. I'm not gonna do that to you. Oh, no I bet you hear that all the time, right? When you're traveling or anywhere. When you say, what do you do for a living, I'm a comedian. Is that the first thing people ask is tell me a funny joke. But I will ask you one last question, and that is, is there anything else that you think that's important for our audience to understand whether it's something that we've covered today or anything we did not talk about today? One, I thank you very much for not asking me that question. That is the number one question. You don't ask any comedian. It's like asking a surgeon, can you, are you a surgeon? And then stabbing your flesh wound and being like, do it. Let's see your skills. So I would say you mentioned what about people who don't think they're funny and what do people who don't think that they're creative? That's just, that's a confidence thing, and that's a self-doubt and that is something that people need to understand is. To be funny and to be creative is really a matter of locking in and it's really being a matter of being aware of your circumstances and like the environment around you and working on these soft skills. So to anybody that says oh, he's just comfortable talking in front of people, it's no, I did the reps. And he's just. Creative. It's oh.'cause I engage in creativity all of the time. IC create, I engage in divergent thinking constantly, and he's funny. It's I don't necessarily think I'm funny. I'm just listening for an opportunity to make where there might be a opportunity for a joke. So I think that everybody has the opportunity. To be quote unquote funny or be quote unquote creative. They just need to have the confidence to do and the way you get those confidence is by engaging in low stakes reps and not being afraid to take those reps. And I've seen the most introverted people in these workshops who go in looking down at the ground and they come away. With arms around everybody in the group and people are like, who's that guy? You know what I mean? So I think that, we've seen it firsthand and it really is something that, to encourage everybody that's listening to this, that has that self-doubt, you can do it and you can improve and you can grow and and don't box yourself into this archetype you might have made for yourself. Great advice. I feel that I personally certainly can take some skills from improv even for my interviewing skills on this podcast, and I know throughout the years. I've transitioned from doing this over the phone, right? Skype wise, where you couldn't see a person and I felt like all I was doing was thinking about my next question to ask them. Yeah. Versus now I'm trying to more connect with person and not think about what I'm gonna ask next. Although I'm still working on it. It's certainly very challenging. So Kevin, thank you so much for being here today. It was such an enlightening conversation. Definitely guys, check out Kevin and everything he is doing. Again I think there's always a great time for learning new skills and we can all get better and why not laugh while we do that. So Kevin, thank you so much for being here and talk to you next time. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Bye-bye.