5 Tips For Adding Humor To Your Keynote Speech
If you’re giving a speech or presentation, it’s always a good idea to inject some humor in it. A good laugh makes your audience more receptive to what you have to say. But how do you add humor to a speech if it doesn’t come naturally to you? Here are five tips:
- Don’t Do Stand Up
The Borscht Belt era is over. Comedians don’t telegraph set-ups and punchlines the way they used to fifty years ago. The best ones tell stories in which the jokes are so cleverly embedded you don’t realize they’re jokes. They’re having a conversation with the audience, punctuating their story with clever observations, sarcastic asides, and an occasional “act out” (repetition of dialogue in another person’s voice).
If you’re “trying to be a comedian,” your audience won’t take you seriously because you’re trying to be something you’re not. You’re undercutting your own credibility as an expert, which is why you were asked to speak in the first place. With the techniques that follow, you won’t need to step outside your brand expertise to find humor.
So don’t try to be funny. Just try to be witty. That’s enough.
2) Know Your Audience
Identifying your audience is crucial. If you’re giving a speech to a political group, you’d better know which side of the aisle they’re on and make sure to tell jokes about the other side.
I give a one-hour keynote called “A Culinary History of Jews in America based on the Astrological Signs of the Delicatessen.” It’s a comic history lesson which combines deli food history with four generations of Jewish American culture. The “astrological signs of the delicatessen” refers to my Jewish Zodiac®, a deli food parody of the Chinese zodiac.
My audience is Jewish, so naturally I’m going to tell jokes about being Jewish, using cultural markers that all Jews have in common. For instance, early in my speech I introduce the concept of my deli food zodiac this way:
“I bet you’re wondering where I came up with such a meshugenah (crazy) idea? I came up with it at a place where good things always happen to Jews: a Chinese restaurant.”
When I give the punch line “a Chinese restaurant,” the laughter comes from my audience’s recognition of the cultural link between Jews and their love of Chinese food. Yes, Chinese restaurants are indeed a place “where good things happen to Jews.”
“Recognition,” a term taught to me by my comedy mentor, Jerry Corley, is one of the best tools to use to connect with your audience. It’s like saying “you and I have so much in common. Let’s share this journey together.”
But in order to employ recognition, I have to understand my audience. I have to know who they are and what we have in common. By understanding who my audience is and what their interests are, I’m jacking up my likeability by finding humor in shared thoughts and experiences.
3) Start With The Truth
Notice in the example above that I didn’t have to make anything up. All I did was tell my story, and tell it honestly.
The truth is a great place to start in comedy because every set-up to a joke is nothing more than a statement of fact. Let me repeat that: every set-up is a statement of fact.
When you are telling the facts about yourself and your topic, not only is it easier to be funny because you’re speaking from your own experience, you’re also speaking from integrity. That’s a much better place to be than someone who is “making stuff up” in an attempt to be funny.
So start with the facts.
4) Add Your Point Of View
If every set-up is a statement of fact, every punch line is your point of view about that fact.
For instance, maybe you were raised in a traditional nuclear family. A fact about your life might be: my mother cooked for us every night. Your point of view might be: I hated her cooking. That could be the joke right there, if you proudly said “my mother cooked for us every night” and then undercut that pride with “she was a TERRIBLE cook.” Or maybe the joke is even simpler: “My mother cooked for us every night. Unfortunately.”
The contrast between those two statements is what’s funny, combined with the fact that you misdirected us into thinking you liked your mother’s cooking because of the pride in your voice.
A little quip or aside is sometimes all you need to add humor to your speech. But recognize the technique of stating a fact and then adding your point of view to make it funny. Also recognize that it is much easier to have a point of view about a true fact about yourself than it is to have a point of view about something you’ve made up because you’re trying to be a comedian.
5) Mining Facts For Humor
Sometimes comedy can be found by combining two different facts about yourself. But whereas in math A + B = C, in comedy A + B = Q. Two straight-forward facts need to come together to give you a surprise conclusion, an incongruity that people weren’t expecting and thus will find funny. You get to Q by adding your point of view or attitude which connect the two in a surprising way.
But perhaps you’re struggling to find something funny. A good technique to mine facts for humor is by making two lists of facts, then compare and contrast them. For instance, let’s say you’re in real estate and you’re giving a speech at a real estate convention. Make one list of facts about the real estate business and another list of facts about your life. Does anything jump out at you that could be inherently funny?
On the real estate list, you might have written “open houses are on Sundays.” On the personal list you might have written “I’m a son of a minister.” Can you combine those into a joke?
Start by recognizing the inherent conflict — or incongruity — between those two statements. If you’re a son of a minister, you’re supposed to be in church on Sundays, not at open houses. In fact, your father might have disapproved of your career choice for that very reason. Or not, it doesn’t matter. But recognize there’s a kernel of comedy there.
Now add a point of view to it. What if you didn’t like your father, or weren’t particularly religious? Or simply didn’t like going to church? Even if that’s not true, pretend it is for a moment. Here’s the joke:
“I got into real estate quite by accident. My father was a minister and I was looking for any excuse not to go to church on Sundays.”
Two straight-forward facts about your life come together to make a joke, all by adding a surprise point of view which makes A + B = Q.
Once you have lists of facts, you’ll have many more options available to you to find humor. Not that you need them all. A few well-told jokes, cleverly placed within the context of your speech, is all you need to have the audience paying attention to your every word.
Conclusion
Adding humor to your keynote presentation may seem daunting at first, but unlike most stand-up comedians, you have an advantage: you’re actually an expert at something. Now that you know how to combine the facts about your profession with your attitude about it, you can mine your story for humor. In doing so, you’ll be adding the kinds of observations, quips, and humorous commentary professional comedians use in contemporary stand-up.
More importantly, when humor flows naturally from your subject matter, not only is your brand expertise reinforced, your audience will respect you even more for having a sense of humor about what you do.
