Rather that have steered away form humour in the office for fear that staff become
too easily distracted, do not focus on the job at hand and as a result productivity reduces. The reality is something quite different. By adopting an approach in the work space that allows for a sales meeting joke or sales training joke during weekly sales team meetings management discovered that sales target s were more readily achieved. Furthermore the sales team worked much more cooperatively.
Rather than being very competitive amongst each other and becoming disillusioned or disgruntled when another team member may have scored a great lead, the team were happy for that to have happened. The camaraderie within the sales team escalated unexpectedly as well which created a more motivated team and one that was excited when the overall sales targets were exceeded.
Prior to including jokes about sales each salesperson was working for themselves and focused only on their own performance because they feared the consequences of falling short of others in the team.
Once a few sales jokes were included in the meetings the team were less aggressive by nature and more willing to help one another with introductions for business or imparting techniques, tips or skills to close a difficult deal. The outcome of the approach to include humour in the office environment resulted in companies increasing sales turnover which also meant a better looking bottom line.
Management were careful not to encourage adult sales jokes that might offend or intimidate any of the team. Where a sales team was all male there was a more relaxed attitude to adult sales jokes but where the team was mixed with both males and females on board it was considered inappropriate to tell adult sales jokes.
It was also recognised that by telling adult sales jokes the company ran the risk of action against them if any one of the staff were embarrassed or offended. The general rule was any jokes about sales that were not sexist or racially focused were acceptable and the sales team soon recognised what were and what were not appropriate sales jokes to tell in the meeting environment.
A sales training joke told by the manager was also found to be a great start to the meeting. It relaxed the sales team and created a good connection with the manger for them.While initially it was thought that the manager telling a sales joke would lose him respect the contrary was true. The sales team respected the manager more because they felt a real connection with him.
The sharing of a few good sales jokes was something they related to and as a result they also related to the manager much better.