Key Note: The ROI of an LOL

Key Note: The ROI of an LOL

In our day-to-day lives, real estate business aside, interactions can quickly become repetitive to the point of disassociation. But what if the most effective tool to get someone present wasn’t a data point or a market stat, but a laugh?

Join Keller Williams Realty Maine’s Team Leader Brad Knowles for a quick dive into why humor is a great way to get people here. When you can get someone to laugh, you aren't just breaking the ice—you're pulling out of "autopilot"  and moveing them from distracted to genuinely connected.

What We’ll Tackle:

• How a moment of levity interrupts the noise of the day and forces the brain to become fully present in the conversation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to KW Mean's Beyond the Sale Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

I wanted to share a thought about a tool that I use or a technique that I use and have used for a very long time in my professional life. And I have found it, especially as a coach, as somebody helping to guide other people to get to where they want to go, this is a technique that I have found to be quite effective. And it starts with humor. It starts with humor. And everybody's sense of humor is a little bit different. So what I'm not going to do is spend the next 45 minutes trying to teach you how to be a stand-up comedian. That's not it. However, I'm sure there are things that you do, whether it be, you know, telling a dad joke or finding humor in a recent news story or commenting about something about yourself, a little self-deprecation. Everybody has a little vein of humor that they like to weave into their life. And so I want you to just think about that for a second, because the beauty of humor is that if I can get person to laugh, if I can get the person I'm in conversation with to laugh, what it means is they are present. They're here. They're actually engaged, live, in the moment. I find that humor acts as an incredibly powerful pattern interrupt. What's a pattern interrupt? A pattern interrupt is you're on autopilot about 90% of your day. It may even be more than that. You know, you're kind of going through life and it's a, uh-huh, I get it, yep, move on. Uh-huh, I get it, yep, move on. Your commute to work is like that. The first three things you say to people when you get to the office is like that, right? You know, the kiss goodbye in the morning is like that. Hi, honey, I'm home is like that. It's so much of life does have a lot of repetition. So we can get kind of in this autopilot gear. Yeah, uh-huh, I get it, move on. But then if something hits you and it makes you laugh, you get pulled out of autopilot and suddenly you're present. You're there in the moment, engaging with another person, right? You're really connected and really present, and you're actively listening, you're really engaged. Well, the second part of this technique is to then say the really important thing that needs to be said. So maybe it's something that your clients have been avoiding, you know, the repairs on the house that we really need to get them to understand that if they could just invest the time and effort and money to do those repairs, what we would actually do is probably net them more money at the end of the day. And though we've talked about it and kind of approached it, we've been getting this, yeah, uh-huh, I get it, move on, kind of approach. Well, if I can come into that, if I can enter it through humor, I'm more likely to have them present and engaged, and I'm more likely to have them really understand it here that that thing that needs repairing is a real issue. That this isn't something that's just a would-be nice, that this is actually a pivotal thing when it comes to the sale of their home. And it's the same if you're coaching somebody on your team or you're interacting with a cobro on the other side. If I can get somebody laughing, the very next thing is often the thing that I want to deliver to ensure that they really hear it, really understand it, and then hopefully we can use it as a launching point for that challenging conversation. But we're starting engaged as opposed to on autopilot. I am not gonna move the dial for somebody, either emotionally or mentally, or how they think of it of something, or how they the perspective that they have on that thing. I am not gonna move the dial with them unless they're really listening, really present, and truly engaged. And so what's the hack? Don't double down, yell at them, scream, send emails in all caps. Don't do any of that. Get them laughing. You get them laughing, you've got them here. Now that they're here, let's have the real conversation. I hope you use it, and I'd love to hear how it works.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

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