When compared with the productivity in companies that use sales jokes and general
humour to motivate the sales team and others within their organisations, those that do not embrace such an approach simply do not measure up when it comes to retention of staff, staff motivation and all importantly sales and profitability.
Mangers in those companies where a sense of humour was considered to be an integral part of the organisational culture and adopted as value held by the companies, had a far better rapport with their sales teams because they included sales jokes as part of the working day or a sales meeting joke when doing presentations to their team. Other recognised values such as professionalism, integrity, pro-activeness and the like were not ignored - these too formed part of the companies' values and all staff were encouraged to adopt them as their own.
Staff were involved in the process of determining the values they wished the organisation to conduct business by and this inclusive approach ensured that staff embraced the values and lived them on a daily basis. Jokes about sales were acceptable and gladly shared amongst not just the sales team but also administrative and other staff. On the workshop floor where management had been concerned that the introduction of humour to the day - be it jokes on sales or some with a more mechanical bent - would result in less output the contrary was in fact the case.
Cars in for repair were attended to with greater enthusiasm and available for client collection on average 3 hours earlier. Mechanics were happy to share a few sales jokes or other jokes they had heard through the week but surprisingly to management this did not result in slower output of vehicles. Adult sales jokes sometimes caused angst for management because they were concerned that some staff might be offended but once discussed with all staff on the workshop floor it was agreed that adult sales jokes or other general jokes had to pass an "acceptability" test.
Everyone recognised the risk for the company if any one member of staff felt intimidated or embarrassed about a joke and as a result were careful to ensure that any jokes, sales jokes or otherwise were appropriate. Where companies made a cultural shift to include humour in their day to day activity they discovered that productivity improved considerable and this all translated to a better bottom line.
When staff in these organisations were surveyed after a six month period it was found that they enjoyed coming to work much more, they were mindful that they still had to meet targets and be efficient. Importantly for management these staff.