Guest: Richard Rabins

You know what they say about humor in sales? It's like playing with fire. You might warm up the room or burn the whole deal down. In this episode of Market Dominance Guys, Richard Rabins, Chris Beall, and Corey Frank get into the weeds about using humor across different cultures.
Can you just translate your best one-liners and expect them to land in Japan or Germany? Think again. Richard has some stories about navigating the global sales landscape and is not afraid to admit where he's crashed and burned. But he also has some serious wisdom about how to build trust with prospects, no matter where they're from.
Tune in to hear about the importance of noticing the little things, playing the long game, and always, always doing your homework. If you're in B2B or SaaS sales, this episode is no joke - you'll come away with some practical tips and insights that just might help you dominate your market. So what are you waiting for? Let's get into this episode, “Laughter Lost in Translation - Navigating Humor in Global Sales.”
 
About our Guest:
Richard Rabins focuses on strategy, accelerating global growth and scaling the organization. Richard also served as CEO of SoftQuad International from 1997 to 2001, when it owned Alpha. In addition to his 30 years with the company, Richard played a key role as co-founder, and served as president and chairman of the Massachusetts Software Council (now the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council), the largest technology trade organization in Massachusetts. Prior to founding Alpha, Richard was a project leader and consultant with Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), and a management consultant with Management Decision Systems, Inc. Richard holds a master's degree in system dynamics from the Sloan School at MIT, and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and master's degree in control engineering from University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has served on the boards of Silent Systems, Legacy Technology and O3B Networks, and is co-founder of Tubifi www.tubifi.com.
Links from this episode:
The full series with Richard Rabins here.
Richard Rabins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-rabins/
Company website: https://www.alphasoftware.com/
Corey Frank on LinkedInBranch49Chris Beall on LinkedInConnectAndSell
 
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Below:
 
[00:43:33] Corey Frank: Well, you had said many, many times that outbound is about playing the [00:43:40] long game. To be good at outbound, it's about the long game. And I think part and parcel of that, Richard, is what you're talking about is, if I'm going to be immersed in this craft, in this profession, I've got to be an expert noticer of the residue.
[00:43:58] Corey Frank: We always talk about the false [00:44:00] negatives that happen. And the sales that I didn't get. Not necessarily the sales I did get. What are the nuances of why I didn't get that sale? All of us, if we had a DeLorean, especially if you're in our profession. We would immediately make hundreds of stops at all the sales calls [00:44:20] we blew early in our career to right the wrongs, to tweak the pitch that we know now, and Chris, especially you and Richard, that you guys do so effortlessly, I think.
[00:44:33] Corey Frank: And that concept of playing the long game , where your [00:44:40] confidence is. is accelerated by knowing that there's nobody that's going to take the hook and take me out of my profession if I don't want to. I know I'm going to be in chemistry, , the gal, the situation that you had mentioned, Richard.
[00:44:57] Corey Frank: So whether it's Caltech or [00:45:00] MIT or Scottsdale Community College. I'm going to play the long game and I'm going to do an end around or a flanking. It doesn't have to be a full frontal fast track to the top. 
[00:45:11] Richard Rabins: Yeah. Another thing that Chris said is, it's kind of off topic, but you can't tell somebody that you're smart [00:45:20] and on their side.
[00:45:22] Richard Rabins: That's not credible. And you've got to earn it through your actions. And what I've found in life. The minute somebody's telling me about something and they use the word, trust me, that's the last person you should trust. Anybody who has to [00:45:40] enunciate that, it's, it's, it's something you've got to earn.
[00:45:46] Richard Rabins: You can't tell somebody to trust you. And I speak from experience. I've been, I'm basically, I like people and I like to assume that people are good and [00:46:00] most people are, but not everybody. And just so I think with a lot of prospects for good reason initially, or there's the barrier and it's a defensive barrier.
[00:46:14] Richard Rabins: And it's totally legitimate on their part. The, the art [00:46:20] of penetrating that barrier, it's not trivial. And the other thing humorous grade and whatever, whatever you're selling, you've got to do your homework, you've got to know what you're talking about, because you've got to assume that most people are pretty smart.[00:46:40] 
[00:46:40] Richard Rabins: I mean, I found that from the days when I, we did market research in my first company and we were sending consumer products typically to young girls like shampoo. But the minute one of the consumer product companies try to pull a fast one [00:47:00] and start making claims that were not accurate or, or the advertising, didn't treat people with a sense of intelligence.
[00:47:12] Richard Rabins: People are actually smart and people are instinctive. They pick up on BS and, [00:47:20] I mean, that's got nothing to do with humor. That's just a general observation, but I guess the lesson is you don't want to game the system. You've got to do the homework. You've got to, you've got to know about your product, especially if it's a somewhat technical product.
[00:47:35] Richard Rabins: If you can't answer some core questions, it's [00:47:40] you're not respectful of the other person's time because they're not, you're not able to impart any useful information. And, and so each, if you expect somebody to talk to you again, if they got nothing out of the first call, why on earth would they want to talk to you [00:48:00] again?
[00:48:00] Chris Beall: We just had one of those actually, Helen and I took a meeting. I took a meeting from a cold call on a topic that would have been of interest to both of us, given her business, Pipeline Power and the one that I run, ConnectAndSell. And so we sat next to each other kind of like this. Richard and I are going to [00:48:20] limit how far that goes, but, and and we, we were on with this very, very pleasant young guy who had been a seller for another company that I know.
[00:48:31] Chris Beall: And now, he's selling for this particular company, telling us some stuff. He knew the answer to exactly zero of the questions that we [00:48:40] asked. He was very pleasant. He was personable. And he said, he'd go find out, but after the fourth, I'll go find out. It's I don't even want to hear from his boss.
[00:48:48] Chris Beall: Because what it's like, why did you put somebody in the front lines who literally doesn't know anything except the simplest script about what it is that your product supposedly [00:49:00] does a little less than I could have read on the website in 11 seconds. You have it's it's a delicate dance. I mean, getting trust.
[00:49:09] Chris Beall: This whole podcast is about one thing. I'll just remind everybody, gentle listeners, well, those of you who aren't so gentle, you can go over there. [00:49:20] Gentle listeners, I'll remind you, Market Dominance, this podcast is about two things. One, paving your market with trust. Two, harvesting that trust over the 12 quarters that it's going to take.
[00:49:37] Chris Beall: For everybody in that market to make a [00:49:40] decision about replacing what they do now that you could help them with, with what you could help them with. That is the replacement cycle for everything in B2B is about three years. Some things longer, if you're selling commercial real estate, or you're buying office buildings medical office buildings like, Henry does.[00:50:00] 
[00:50:00] Chris Beall: Anybody who wants to catch those episodes, those are good ones. Then you might have five years, six years, seven years, but it doesn't get much better than three years. You've got to play the long game, not because of some moral reason, it's because it's the only game. In the perfect scenario, only one twelfth of your [00:50:20] market is in the market this quarter.
[00:50:21] Chris Beall: In the perfect scenario. That's with no false negatives. That's with no blown chances. That's the perfect scenario. So what are you going to do in the other 11 quarters? Well, you better do something this quarter, which is get somebody to trust you. And then [00:50:40] as Chris Voss said, when I asked him, how long will they trust you?
[00:50:43] Chris Beall: He said forever until you blow it. So don't blow it. It's actually, this is pretty simple stuff. So the humor part of it is. It's somewhere between a technique and bedrock. [00:51:00] That is, if you're confident enough because you're studied up enough, and you're honest enough to tell somebody what's wrong with your product, which is actually the key to being seen as an expert, is to tell them what circumstance it won't work for them, honestly.
[00:51:15] Chris Beall: Experts do that. Charlatans don't. You might notice [00:51:20] charlatans very rarely tell you what's gonna go bad okay, if you're studied up enough to do that, and you're humble enough to recognize that you don't know all the things even about the application of your own product, you can afford to be funny when it makes sense to be funny.
[00:51:38] Chris Beall: And I [00:51:40] know that's what? I'm going to study to be funny by learning my product deeply and then getting the confidence to actually be an expert who even tells people what might not go great? Yes, that's the groundwork of being able to use humor. If you use humor from a surface perspective, as a trick, [00:52:00] as a magic trick, you will be strung up by serious people in your audience.
[00:52:07] Chris Beall: They're the ones they really care about. They aren't going to go with it. And so it's, it's a delicate thing. I was at General Electric once, when I was called by a very senior person there, who just called me out of the blue and said, it was [00:52:20] Friday. Said, Chris, I'm so and so from General Electric Company.
[00:52:25] Chris Beall: We've heard about your product. It was an electronic catalog for parts, like engineering parts. Heard about your product. We want to see it. Please come here Monday and present to us at 11 o'clock. This was at their headquarters [00:52:40] in Connecticut. And send somebody who can speak for your company. That's a pretty interesting thing to hear, right?
[00:52:47] Chris Beall: We're a very young company, we don't have a lot of cash, we have something we've just built, how did this guy hear about it? A dumb thing to do would be to say, how did you hear about our product? Smart thing to do, it turned out, was say, yeah, [00:53:00] I'll be there, right? So now the question is, well, how does a meeting go?
[00:53:04] Chris Beall: And would you dare be funny in a meeting like that? So I walk into the meeting, got my VP of sales with me, I've got my, my boss with me. And they go around the table, and these people are deadly serious. It's boom, boom, [00:53:20] boom. This is the General Electric Company, right? Mouse traps are snappin mice are dyin it's a, it's a thing that's going on, right?
[00:53:28] Chris Beall: And I play right along with a very quick introduction, and then get up to do the presentation on the product. Now, what would have been [00:53:40] normal? What would they have expected that's not funny? That's a PowerPoint presentation. So I stood up and I said, Well, I have to confess something that I think is rather sad, and I'm hoping you'll forgive me.
[00:53:53] Chris Beall: Now, they're not expecting that, and I said, I'm so incompetent at PowerPoint that it made no [00:54:00] sense for me to come to you with a slide presentation at all, but I did take one of your division's products, all the parts that I could find, which is about 137, 222 of them, and put them into our parts catalog so we could have a look.
[00:54:17] Chris Beall: Are you interested in seeing that instead of PowerPoint? [00:54:20] Now, that is unexpected, and some of them were uncomfortable, and some of them, but a couple of them it was a little laugh, right? And then we did it. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, went through it. It was a 55 minute presentation. It was done in 37 minutes.
[00:54:36] Chris Beall: And I said, well, I have to apologize to you. I don't have any more material. [00:54:40] That's it. 
[00:54:42] Corey Frank: And 
[00:54:42] Chris Beall: then they were like, and we did a deal on the spot, literally did a deal on the spot. It went like this. It was like, okay, which one of your divisions wants to actually take this pilot? Boom. It's you. Do it. You talk to you.
[00:54:57] Chris Beall: We're done. Oh, look, we saved 9 minutes. [00:55:00] Meeting's over. They're out. Was it humor for the sake of humor? Or was it a trick? No, I was really confident that I'd change the entire world of finding parts. By the way, every time you find one of these parts, it's worth 50, 000 to the company that finds it, just for finding it, not making a new part number.
[00:55:19] Chris Beall: So I knew what [00:55:20] the value was. But then later, another funny situation, years, two years later, the Corporate Counsel of the General Electric Company calls me and says, Get out here! I'm in Colorado, they're still in Connecticut. We gotta talk. Now, I wasn't going to say, Gary, what are we going to talk about? I could tell by his tone of voice, we're going to talk about something [00:55:40] serious.
[00:55:41] Chris Beall: Hello again, jump in a plane. I go on the inside of the plane, so I don't really jump on the outside. It's uncomfortably cold at altitude, and, and, and, and, and, and Windy, Richard pointed out, I take you up to 7, 000 feet inside the plane, more than if you're 39, 000 like I was yesterday.
[00:55:57] Chris Beall: So go out there. Now, they're, [00:56:00] it's the conference room of the General Electric Company. It's the one right under Jack Welch's office. It's huge. It's imposing. for listening. The table itself made me a little bit uncomfortable. I sat there by myself for 45 minutes. Why? Because they teach that kind of stuff, right?
[00:56:16] Chris Beall: Cool your heels. Fortunately, I can entertain myself in my mind [00:56:20] easily because I do have a condition that needs to be treated. Guy walks in, sits down, starts literally pounding the table. Boom! Boom! Boom! I'm thinking, this table sounds great. I wonder where I can get a table like this. This is really, this is probably worth more than my house.
[00:56:38] Chris Beall: Boom! You [00:56:40] are destroying the General Electric Company. And I said, Well, Gary, certainly there has to be some amount of, and the General Electric Company is worth a lot, right? He just looks at me, billions. There has to be some amount of money you would like to pay me so I would stop [00:57:00] destroying the General Electric Company.
[00:57:02] Chris Beall: And he just sits there for a moment, and finally he cracks up laughing, and it's Okay, now we can have a real conversation. Now we're peers. Yeah. So that kind of, I don't know how you teach that, but sometimes just knowing, and the purpose isn't to do this and [00:57:20] you'll win deals. I think 
[00:57:22] Corey Frank: it's those little, you've iterated those benign violations.
[00:57:29] Corey Frank: that in this case provokes laughter because it was wrong, right? It could be, it clearly, it would have been unsettling, it was borderline threatening, [00:57:40] right? But it's also acceptable. I mean, it, this is like tickling or teasing or that, that little mix up or that, that, that funny thing that happens after a joke, right?
[00:57:53] Corey Frank: But it's also a thin line, right? Cause I think it's, we all agree that it's easier to, right? to fail with honor than succeed, [00:58:00] right? And it's a delicate operation, which you described, both of you, where it's built on layers of shared knowledge and, and a lot of innuendo. And but you know your crowd, you know your audience, but if you do that, that benign violation, I [00:58:20] think, think, thing works.
[00:58:22] Corey Frank: There is a, there's a quote I'm trying to dig up here, and I think this is it, it's from an anthropologist, Edward Hall, who I think came up in one of our episodes a while ago, because he was quoted a lot in Sapiens, and he says, I'm quoting from Edward Hall, the [00:58:40] anthropologist, If you can learn the humor of a people, and really control it.
[00:58:46] Corey Frank: You know that you are also in control of nearly everything else. And we talked about this yesterday when we talked about cultural differences of selling to the [00:59:00] Japanese. Richard, you've tried, you've sold all the real differences in South Africa, certainly the differences in Europe or, or etc. And but I think what, what Edward Hall was saying is that and even the example you gave of of of the, the English coming in and negotiating [00:59:20] with Gandhi and Nehru, et cetera Richard, is that if I know that this is acceptable in a culture to laugh, poke fun, be nuanced, innuendo about, then I almost have this little unlock code, this cheat code that I'm in the know and that it's [00:59:40] okay to, to, to, to laugh at.
[00:59:43] Corey Frank: So let's end with, with your final thoughts on that.
[00:59:49] Richard Rabins: Well I think it's interesting, the cultural stuff is fascinating. And I think there's two [01:00:00] opposing themes. One is, I think there's some core human behavior that just has to belong to all eight billion people. But, I was mentioning last night that, in the English language, [01:00:20] the concept of somebody being responsible for something and potentially being at fault for something is well established.
[01:00:29] Richard Rabins: So if there's a vase on the table, you knock over, you are at fault and you say to your host, [01:00:40] terribly sorry, I did this. Can I replace it? Or something like that. But you are at fault. In, in the Japanese language, the concept of being at fault like that doesn't exist. What they would say is the vase fell over.
[01:00:56] Richard Rabins: without any assignment of who was responsible for the [01:01:00] bars falling over. And I think that probably translates into stuff that people find funny. So I guess the point is, if you are going to use humor in a different culture, say and I'd say largely, US, UK, Australia, It's, it's more similar [01:01:20] than, than different that's fine, but if if you're going to use it, say in Japan or some other place, you really have to do your homework because as you said, there's some level of risk in, if you use humor, not using humor as a straight path, it's a low risk path, [01:01:40] using humor is somewhat riskier, but also often necessary if you're trying to penetrate it's if, if you're facing a immovable brick wall, and everything else isn't working, humor, but, but you've got to, you've got to do your [01:02:00] homework.
[01:02:00] Richard Rabins: Okay. and understand that it may not always work. 
[01:02:05] Chris Beall: Yeah. I got a rule for you. If you're traveling, I used to do a lot of business in other places, right? India, China, Japan, Europe, all over the place. When you're in a, in another culture and every company you go [01:02:20] into is actually another culture and you're going to make fun of something, make sure you're making fun of yourself.
[01:02:28] Chris Beall: Don't presume that it's safe to make fun of anything or any person. other than yourself. 
[01:02:36] Corey Frank: Yeah. Other than myself or yourself. Because everywhere I go, I seem to have a [01:02:40] good traction when I make fun of you or you're talking to myself. 
[01:02:44] Chris Beall: Yeah. Well, I mean, this is what it means to be a sidekick. I am your sidekick.
[01:02:48] Chris Beall: You can make fun of me. That's why the kick part is in there. Otherwise I 
[01:02:53] Corey Frank: thought I was the foil. I thought that's the role that I play. So 
[01:02:58] Chris Beall: since we're confused about [01:03:00] our roles. I really don't know how we're going to get through this, but we hope for forgiveness from the audience and from Richard, who has to show up and have a laugh with us.
[01:03:10] Corey Frank: Absolutely. Well, Richard, final thoughts on your inaugural appearance on the Market Dominance, guys, man, the wisdom. [01:03:20] The tips and it's, 
[01:03:23] Richard Rabins: I've had a lot of fun just listening to this and, I think if you respect people, you like people, and you wanna engage with people, you're gonna, you're gonna [01:03:40] learn something, always gonna learn something.
[01:03:42] Richard Rabins: And I, I, I certainly didn't come up with this, but whoever came up with that's why human beings were given. Two ears and one mouth and that's kind of the, probably the ratio of stuff you really got to listen to and, and everybody's [01:04:00] interesting, everybody's got a story.
[01:04:01] Richard Rabins: I, I love, like when I go to a restaurant and one thing that's interesting, the waiter will come up to you and ask you how you're doing, et cetera. Invariably I'll say, I'm doing fine. Thank you. How are you doing? And it's surprising how many people are taken back [01:04:20] by that because it's not that common.
[01:04:22] Richard Rabins: And it's like you, you actually asked me how I'm doing. I'm serving you. It's yeah, how are you doing? I wanna know how you're doing. And I've had wonderful conversations with them. Waiters in restaurants and stuff like that. And, [01:04:40] everything's just a learning experience. But it does come, I really like your comment about noticing.
[01:04:47] Richard Rabins: It's, it's little details, can make huge differences.
[01:04:57] Corey Frank: Absolutely. Well, that's, that's just great. Well, I tell you [01:05:00] what Chris, we, we could have got to get Stephen right on next, I think maybe Conan and Brian, because I really think that It is a secret weapon. As we were talking, the three of us were talking offline yesterday and today, and I think there's something to deconstruct that and putting folks folks through the [01:05:20] crucible in a safe environment about how to test it.
[01:05:24] Corey Frank: And much like you gave, James Thornburg does it over and over again, till his timing is just impeccable. That's something I think we should look forward to in future Market Dominance podcasts is this how to leverage humor for for success. [01:05:40] Final thoughts to you, Chris. 
[01:05:44] Chris Beall: Well, I just happen to know something about Richard, and he's not gonna confess it, so I'm just gonna say it, which is, he keeps saying he loves he likes people.
[01:05:52] Chris Beall: Trust me, he likes dogs better. 
[01:05:55] Richard Rabins: It's true. I mean, I'll, I'll, I'll end on, on one thing [01:06:00] is often you say to somebody what, what your end ultimate dream, what do you want to do? And if I could open up a dog shelter, I'd be in in heaven, totally. Really? Yeah. Oh, 
[01:06:15] Corey Frank: That's awesome. That's great.
[01:06:17] Corey Frank: That's great. I will look for that. [01:06:20] If you need any volunteers, I think I could be persuaded to do that as well. Well as long as we're in the subject of sharing, my, my, my future endeavor is to be a short order cook at a truck stop, because I like doing things like that. Chris you're, you're next.
[01:06:38] Corey Frank: What's the what's the, [01:06:40] what's the, what's the dream gig? Dog shelter, short order cook, and 
[01:06:45] Chris Beall: Oh, the dream gig is being a pied piper of barefoot running in Quail Creek, Arizona. If I can pull that off, I'm in heaven. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough. 
[01:06:56] Corey Frank: Well, okay. Well, this has been a multi faceted, multi topic Market [01:07:00] Dominance Guys episode.
[01:07:02] Corey Frank: So Richard, thank you for your time and for Chris Beall and the rest of the Market Dominance crew behind the scenes. This is Corey Frank. Until next time. 
[01:07:11] Richard Rabins: Thanks a lot, Corey. 

In the second part of our conversation with Richard Rabins, CEO and Co-Founder of Alpha Software, we delve into the delicate balance of using humor effectively in sales. Chris Beall shares insights on guiding prospects through emotional transitions, from fear to trust, using the power of laughter and surprise. However, the discussion also explores the risks of pushing humor too far and the importance of knowing when to rein it in. Richard and Corey examine the idea of teaching humor, drawing parallels between sales and the world of comedy and performance. They emphasize the significance of confidence, vulnerability, and the ability to read your audience to avoid alienating prospects. Join us as we navigate the comedic conundrum of harnessing wit without crossing the line, and discover how to strike the perfect balance for building genuine relationships with prospects.
About our Guest:
Richard Rabins focuses on strategy, accelerating global growth and scaling the organization. Richard also served as CEO of SoftQuad International from 1997 to 2001, when it owned Alpha. In addition to his 30 years with the company, Richard played a key role as co-founder, and served as president and chairman of the Massachusetts Software Council (now the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council), the largest technology trade organization in Massachusetts. Prior to founding Alpha, Richard was a project leader and consultant with Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), and a management consultant with Management Decision Systems, Inc. Richard holds a master's degree in system dynamics from the Sloan School at MIT, and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and master's degree in control engineering from University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has served on the boards of Silent Systems, Legacy Technology and O3B Networks, and is co-founder of Tubifi www.tubifi.com.
Links from this episode:
Richard Rabins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-rabins/
Company website: https://www.alphasoftware.com/
Corey Frank on LinkedInBranch49Chris Beall on LinkedInConnectAndSell
 
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Below:
 
[00:25:51] Corey Frank: Sure. I think you're getting into a different level of rapport building, Chris, I think it'd be a good reminder to talk about the [00:26:00] swirling blue orb and the, the reason why that works, because I think that ties in a lot of what Richard is saying here with regards to, building that, that rapport, which in essence is.
[00:26:13] Corey Frank: Moving from fear to trust, is it not? 
[00:26:16] Chris Beall: Right, I mean, we're always trying to help somebody along this [00:26:20] this emotional journey to a next emotional state where we can maybe help them see something new that might be of value to them. So it's always just one emotional transition. So fear to trust is one, trust to curiosity is another, curiosity to commitment is another.
[00:26:38] Chris Beall: And emotional [00:26:40] transitions are tricky things. We actually prefer to hold on to our current emotional state, even if we don't like it, because it is a comfort to us To feel as we feel. We really don't want to change anything in our life, much less how we feel. So in sales, we're trying to help somebody [00:27:00] change something in their life.
[00:27:01] Chris Beall: And if we cold call them, that something is, they're afraid of us. And we want to help them change that to being trusting of us, right? And it's actually why the second sentence in the breakthrough script that we teach. The one right after throwing yourself under the bus, which is raising the [00:27:20] tension, and it is surprising, to this little piece of relief, and it has the chuckle in it.
[00:27:24] Chris Beall: By the way, when people laugh, other people laugh. Right? Nobody knows why you're laughing, but you laugh because others are laughing. Laughter is, as they say, contagious in the same way that yawning is, but in a way that sneezing is not. At least, we hope, right? It ain't to sneeze [00:27:40] and have everybody in the room suddenly sneeze.
[00:27:42] Chris Beall: I mean, you might get a pandemic or something like that. But this, this business I know I'm an interruption. I mean, nobody expects to hear that. And, and almost nobody in sales, by the way, is confident enough to throw themselves all the way under the bus and have it [00:28:00] go ba bump, ba bump, ba bump, because buses, by the way, have that many sets of wheels, and then it backs up over you and goes ba bump, ba bump, 
[00:28:07] Richard Rabins: ba 
[00:28:07] Chris Beall: bump, right?
[00:28:08] Chris Beall: Now you're really under the bus. And then how do you switch your voice sincerely to being playful? A playful and curious voice is what allows somebody to have that relief. [00:28:20] from your initial statement, which is you throwing yourself under the bus, which creates tension. You talk often, Corey, about tension being important in sales.
[00:28:30] Chris Beall: Well, the story that starts out with, I just ambushed you, has got tension built into it, but it has more tension if you amplify it verbally. I know I'm an interruption. [00:28:40] And then you change your voice to PlayfulCuriousCat. Can I at 27 seconds tell you why I called? If you really want to see this in action, hear this in action over and over, just go out to James Thornburg's LinkedIn profile and listen to one James Thornburg video after another.
[00:28:58] Chris Beall: He will often end one [00:29:00] that's really brutal. He has a recent one that has somebody at the very end just going off on him, and he has to bleep most of it out. But right before that, he does his standard, what would you say to that at the end, which is so is it okay if I end this with the joke? What do you call five coal collars at the bottom of the ocean?
[00:29:19] Chris Beall: And [00:29:20] we only ever hear his side. Pause. He says, a good start. And then he goes on, right? Well, he says it, and it's really funny, because James Thornburg has great comedic timing. And he's very, very dry. He's the Stephen Wright of sales, of cold calling, right? He is a funny guy who can talk to you also about [00:29:40] slaughtering pigs, and make that seem somewhat amusing, even though that's a serious business.
[00:29:44] Chris Beall: So he raises pigs. It turns out he doesn't, he doesn't go slaughter other people's pigs. He kind of sticks to his own, right? It says he and his pigs have an agreement. This is how it's going to end. I have an animal example, by the way. This one [00:30:00] back in the first days of COVID, literally the very first days, Helen, who was at Microsoft, was on a happy hour.
[00:30:09] Chris Beall: They used to do this. They called them like team happy hours and everybody was introducing their pets and I was somewhere else in the room where I couldn't be seen, but it's a [00:30:20] happy hour. So alcohol is going to be involved and I'm listening and I'm just wondering where she is going to go when they come to the pet thing because Helen doesn't have any pets and what she says, I didn't anticipate.
[00:30:34] Chris Beall: It was funny to me, but I managed to participate. by Pantomime. Pantomime can be pretty funny, [00:30:40] actually, if you are lucky enough to get a chance. She says, well, everybody's been showing their pets. I actually don't have, well, I actually do have an animal. He's 6 '1 goes 2' 15 and at that point I walk up with a bottle of Blanton's and pour her a shot.
[00:30:57] Chris Beall: She says he fetches. And, [00:31:00] and he pours. That's funny. So he fetches and he pours became a trope joke, actually, and has run ever since then. Covid's now, that part is 3 years behind us, right? And it's still pretty funny. Fetches and pours, and that became a trope joke. kind of how I was known right up until the point where she renamed me as [00:31:20] almost a thing.
[00:31:21] Chris Beall: So now I am almost a thing that fetches and pours, which makes no sense whatsoever, but is also somewhat funny. That kind of thing, it is noticing, right? What was I doing? I was noticing that this situation is evolving and I could have just not done anything, but I [00:31:40] prepped. And why did I do that? What am I selling?
[00:31:42] Chris Beall: I'm selling this. a group of people that she's now not going to go to the office with, Helen, their boss. It is cool. You can hang with her. You can bring your problems to her. You, it's a tiny contribution, [00:32:00] but it had that effect, right? By the way, what can you do to develop humor? I don't know if this works for most people, but some people when they go to stand up classes to learn standup comedy.
[00:32:11] Chris Beall: where you're being workshopped over and over and over and over and over, you're workshopping over and over in order to be able to respond to something. What [00:32:20] you're learning to do is to pay attention to what the other person says within the context and respond in a way that reframes so that the dialogue goes forward and it might get to somewhere funny.
[00:32:32] Chris Beall: And that ability to notice, respond with reframing, and take the conversation in a direction that has a [00:32:40] positive resolution. In their case, standing up is funny, that is a good thing to practice, whether you will learn to be funny by doing it, I can't say, but I can certainly say the greatest cold callers I've ever known are people who are stand up comedians.
[00:32:58] Richard Rabins: Just to add to [00:33:00] that, I had the fortune or misfortune of going to business school. And, so I get the newsletters and magazines from the school. And I noticed that they had profiled a student. [00:33:20] who had gone off and started a company and was doing really innovative, good stuff.
[00:33:26] Richard Rabins: And she was talking about her experience. This was at the Sloan School, the MIT Business School. She was talking about her experience and that the best course she [00:33:40] took was apparently they started a course where the professor, is a joint professor at the business school, but also teaches drama.
[00:33:53] Richard Rabins: She teaches theater drama. And so it's [00:34:00] You know, I mean, humor is, it's part of a performance. It's comedy part is a performance. Getting back to your question, which is a really practical, interesting question is, can you teach humor? I suspect you're not going to turn someone who innately doesn't have a [00:34:20] sense of humor into someone who does, but I think you can certainly, sand the edges significantly.
[00:34:27] Richard Rabins: And it's, it's possible you could actually. Make progress in that area.
[00:34:38] Corey Frank: Yeah, I would, I would think you [00:34:40] can with a lot of noticing practice. Like we talked about the synopsis that are broken. There's something that maybe our listeners can look at. There's a rapper by the name of, of, Harry Mack. And he was just, there's a video that you can see it on YouTube and, and TikTok and [00:35:00] Instagram.
[00:35:01] Corey Frank: And he went into the New York Yankees clubhouse and he asked them for seven random words, a raid. OpeningDay, Sandwich. It's just non sequitur type of, type of words all globbed together. And he proceeded [00:35:20] to put together an M & M 50 cent level quality reduced wrap in real time. And it was incredible to the point where You know, it's not maybe our type, type of music, but the artistry and the [00:35:40] craftsmanship that went into developing the ability to see forward.
[00:35:46] Corey Frank: Right? Writing a sonnet in real time. I have to see, okay, A, B, A, B, A, B, right? The iambic, pentameter, right? I have to see ahead two or three stanzas to make sure this is the right number. And I think [00:36:00] that people who are very good at it. Warren Claff, Chris, certainly you're a master at it. Other public speakers that we know with, with this persona, this confidence, they have this ability to almost have this matrix out of time process to see time in reverse.
[00:36:19] Corey Frank: [00:36:20] And, I, I don't know of any other way to do that, except to put yourself out there, like you were talking about, about a good standup workshop and get your butt kicked. I'm sure. As James Thornburg has documented hundreds, if not thousands, of [00:36:40] calls in his years working with ConnectAndSell and BridgePoint, is that the latter performances are much better than the earlier performances.
[00:36:52] Corey Frank: And I would bet, Richard, that you are going into a presentation today, or Chris, you going into a [00:37:00] present today, you have nothing to lose. And so you're more at ease, and you're apt, more apt to notice things that are different or unusual in the world, than if you're a newer sales rep. You're so focused on your deck, the presentation, the body language of your prospect.
[00:37:18] Corey Frank: What are your What are your [00:37:20] thoughts on, on on that? 
[00:37:23] Richard Rabins: I think that's a really interesting point that I keep thinking about, I keep coming back to the fact that you need to understand that the other person is a human being. And, And [00:37:40] anything that breaks the expectation so the expectation is you're going to come in there, give a PowerPoint, very formal.
[00:37:50] Richard Rabins: It's not, it's not like initially a fun experience. It's not unpleasant. It's not a fun experience. But if you can, walk [00:38:00] in. And let's say, depending where you are, you look out the window and you see some mountain, you say, wow I didn't realize you guys were this close. Can you ski or whatever?
[00:38:12] Richard Rabins: You immediately, you, you change the atmosphere of the room. [00:38:20] And so I do think that When you're a young, inexperienced person, you don't think you've got license to behave like a human being. You, you feel like you have to follow in a robotic fashion. And as soon as you can get rid of that sort of [00:38:40] inhibition, and, and just be more confident.
[00:38:42] Richard Rabins: And, and also I think I realize that Even if it's a really important meeting or call, that if it doesn't go well, the world doesn't end. It's not the end of the world. I mean, how many times, Malcolm Gladwell [00:39:00] the author's interesting guy. So, in one of his recent books, he talks about the concept of, you can't take yourself too seriously, that there's a, a young girl.
[00:39:15] Richard Rabins: Somewhere, she's in high school, she's really, really good at chemistry. She loves [00:39:20] chemistry and she's number one in her school in chemistry. And her dream is she wants to go to Caltech or MIT, to go and study chemistry. She applies, she doesn't get in. She thinks the world has just ended. And [00:39:40] but she ends up going to another school, very good school, chemistry, and does brilliantly.
[00:39:45] Richard Rabins: And the reality is all the kids who go to MIT or Caltech, they were always probably number one or number two in their class. maths and physics. They come to MIT and by [00:40:00] definition, 50 percent of them have to be in the bottom half of the class. There's no avoiding it. You can't, so all of a sudden she might've gotten to MIT and there was a 50 percent chance she would be in the bottom half of the class.
[00:40:16] Richard Rabins: That would do a number on her ego and her self [00:40:20] confidence. So what, what William Gladwell describes, she goes to this other school, and she's like the top student in that class, and her career blossoms because it didn't affect her, her self confidence. Firstly, the lesson there is, [00:40:40] you didn't get in, should I literally jump off the next building, or do I say, okay, Plan B, and move on, and On a more serious tone, I think they've improved this at MIT, but MIT used to have the highest suicide rate of any college [00:41:00] for exactly that reason.
[00:41:02] Richard Rabins: You get these 17, 18 year old kids, their whole sense of self is tied up in how brilliant they are. And now all of a sudden there's this wet slap across the face. And in fact, When I was there, there was a building called the Green Building, the [00:41:20] tallest building, and they had to make sure that the top of the building wasn't accessible, because it was a perfect way to jump off the building.
[00:41:31] Chris Beall: Wait a second. MIT engineers are capable of taking a car apart and reassembling it in your dorm room. Certainly they can get to an inaccessible part of [00:41:40] the 
[00:41:40] Richard Rabins: building. That's true. Well, they, they still did in fact have. the high suicide. So there was a lot of successful, but you know, it's, it just, yeah, I think the whole thing is, if you're relaxed, I think Chris alluded to, if you're relaxed, the people around you all relax.[00:42:00] 
[00:42:00] Richard Rabins: And that, that's a good thing. 
[00:42:03] Chris Beall: You gotta have the goods. I mean, this is one of the, one of the things you gotta have, right? You have to be a very serious, hardworking student of whatever it is that you're an expert in. I mean, in sales, the job is pretty simple. You're an expert who is on their [00:42:20] side.
[00:42:20] Chris Beall: That's it. It's hard to establish yourself as being on their side. Because people are naturally wary of somebody who says they're on their side. You can't just come out and say it. Hi, I'm an expert. I'm on your side. Now let me see if I can find a pen here so you can sign this deal, right? It's a, it [00:42:40] doesn't work like that.
[00:42:41] Chris Beall: You're helping somebody come by themselves to the conclusion that you're an expert and you're on their side. Well, being on their side, you don't have to be funny. It turns out. But you're showing a little bit of vulnerability by your willingness to try to be funny. That is, you're actually going out on a limb.
[00:42:58] Chris Beall: If you say something [00:43:00] that might be funny, you're exposing yourself to the criticism of why are you being funny? That's not a funny thing, right? So you're actually going a little ways toward being on their side by being willing to be funny, but you're also going a long ways to being an expert by having the confidence to be [00:43:20] funny, and those two things go together in a kind of mutually reinforcing sort of way.
[00:43:27] Chris Beall: But once you get that going, you better not go too far with either one. 
In our next episode, we wrap up our conversation with Richard Rabins and delve into the fascinating cultural differences in humor and how they can impact sales interactions. Join us as Chris and Corey share their dream retirement gigs and reveal a surprising fact about Richard's true passion that explains why he's such a master at connecting with others.

In this episode, the guys explore the art of ricocheting your way to sales success. Chris Beall and Corey Frank are joined by Richard Rabins, the CEO of Alpha Software, to discuss the power of humor in disarming prospects and humanizing interactions. As Richard shares his personal anecdotes about leveraging laughter to close deals, the group delves into the age-old question: can humor be taught, or is it an innate skill? While confidence plays a crucial role, the ability to notice and connect seemingly unrelated things emerges as a key aspect of effective humor in sales. So, whether you're a golden retriever enthusiast or just looking to add some lighthearted surprise to your sales arsenal, join us as we explore the art of the ricochet and learn how to turn dead leads into living, laughing, and buying customers. Join us for this episode, “Ricochet Your Way to Sales Success: The Power of Humor.”
Richard Rabins focuses on strategy, accelerating global growth and scaling the organization. Richard also served as CEO of SoftQuad International from 1997 to 2001, when it owned Alpha. In addition to his 30 years with the company, Richard played a key role as co-founder, and served as president and chairman of the Massachusetts Software Council (now the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council), the largest technology trade organization in Massachusetts. Prior to founding Alpha, Richard was a project leader and consultant with Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), and a management consultant with Management Decision Systems, Inc. Richard holds a master's degree in system dynamics from the Sloan School at MIT, and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and master's degree in control engineering from University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has served on the boards of Silent Systems, Legacy Technology and O3B Networks, and is co-founder of Tubifi www.tubifi.com.
Links from this episode:
Richard Rabins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-rabins/
Company website: https://www.alphasoftware.com/
Corey Frank on LinkedIn
Branch49Chris Beall on LinkedInConnectAndSell
 
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Below:
 
[00:01:04] Corey Frank: One, two, three. Welcome to another episode of the Market Dominance Guys. A Branch 49 home-based mothership version with Corey Frank.
[00:01:13] Corey Frank: And of course the Sage of Sales, the Hawking of Hawking. and the Elvis of [00:01:20] EBIT. What do you think about that? The Elvis of EBIT? No? All right, we're still working on that one. And in the studio, all the way from Boston we have Richard Rabins, the CEO of Alpha Software. Richard, thanks for coming all the way to Branch 49 to have a little fun with the Market Dominance [00:01:40] guys.
[00:01:40] Richard Rabins: Fantastic. Great to be here. Thanks.
[00:01:45] Corey Frank: As is per custom, when Chris arrives here at the Branch 49 mothership, he gets the regalia, the full regalia of my office and as I sit here on the sales floor. So as we were talking about last night at [00:02:00] at dinner and a little bit today, that bled over.
[00:02:03] Corey Frank: One of the things that came up in the GoToMarket and the Sales Market Dominance Guide Strategy Richard, with you and, , and Chris, is we were talking about different techniques in GoToMarket and the subject of, of humor came up in the subject , of Chris, I guess what we're calling [00:02:20] ricochet opportunities.
[00:02:23] Corey Frank: Opportunities that I once thought were dormant, were dead. My marketing expenses has probably already been flushed. And what's some techniques I can, I can resurrect these things, maybe recoup some of the [00:02:40] costs of acquisition that I had that are creative, that certainly can be leveraged with a good message and, and a powerful weapon like ConnectAndSell.
[00:02:48] Chris Beall: Well, I'll, I'll speak to this. I'll tell a story about yesterday being on the airplane. So I was coming back from Nashville. To Phoenix in order to attend the event that we were all at [00:03:00] yesterday evening, Josh Wagner of InRevenue Capital invited us to a tremendous event and there were LimitedPartners, and PortfolioCompany, now called PortCos.
[00:03:13] Chris Beall: Eventually they're going to be called PCOS, but I don't know if that's really going to work so well. And we just have to keep shortening things. Finally, just [00:03:20] call them COS. But anyway, we were all going to get together there. I came back a little early, sat next to a nice, quiet woman on the airplane.
[00:03:29] Chris Beall: She was writing a screenplay. And just because the pilot inadvertently said we were going to Las Vegas instead of Phoenix, which created a [00:03:40] moment of surprise, then a whole bunch of humor, as everybody told jokes about or made fun of going to Las Vegas instead of Phoenix. That broke the ice.
[00:03:47] Chris Beall: She and I started talking, and at the end of that conversation, one thing led to another, and she said, Oh, now I have to be careful not to introduce you to my boss, the owner of the company, because they'll be so [00:04:00] successful with ConnectAndSell that they'll sell the company within two years and I'll lose my job.
[00:04:04] Chris Beall: That's an example of a ricochet that bounced all over the place, starting with the pilot saying, Phoenix. That would be a ricochet right there because you still got to get to Phoenix, but it caused a conversation to take place with somebody [00:04:20] that otherwise would not have taken place. And I think there's a lot of examples that are available.
[00:04:25] Chris Beall: I had one this morning. I was cold called by somebody. I couldn't quite recognize his name. I picked it up because it was a 206 number. And I'm waiting for a call from the Social Security Administration to tell me when I can [00:04:40] actually speak with them about something. This has been a four month process waiting to Get an appointment for a 10 minute conversation, and I knew it would be a Seattle number.
[00:04:52] Chris Beall: Well, it turns out it's somebody from another company, I think Paylocity, and I encouraged him to speak with our CFO. But [00:05:00] I pointed out to them that he could do his job much more easily, possibly, by using ConnectAndSell, pushing a button and talking to people. Again, that's why we call that a boomerang, which is a kind of ricochet.
[00:05:10] Chris Beall: But there's so many indirect ways, and I think in sales, we often think, Everything has to be direct, direct, direct, right to [00:05:20] I, like, why would I make a list of companies that hire people who do the job that I help with unless I'm going to talk to those people? Well, because you might want to talk to their boss.
[00:05:30] Chris Beall: But to get to their boss, you might have to talk to other people. So that's another sort of a more of an IED approach to ricochets, [00:05:40] put the weapon somewhere near, and if it flips the Humvee over, then at least you can have a conversation with the scattered former inhabitants of it. So we'll talk later about how that fits in with humor.
[00:05:52] Chris Beall: But to me, humor is the kind of the ultimate, always available [00:06:00] ricochet mechanism that can be used in sales if you have enough confidence. So that was kind of long, but it's a setup for what I think is kind of an unusual episode with Richard Rabins here, who is. He can introduce himself, but I'll introduce him.
[00:06:14] Chris Beall: He's the CEO founder of a company that's called Alpha Software, and Alpha [00:06:20] Software is going after something you gotta ricochet for. There's a lot of paper forms out there. They turn those paper forms into mobile capable forms that even work offline and are smart enough to keep you from making the stupid mistakes.
[00:06:35] Chris Beall: I have never correctly filled out a form in my life. They're probably going to ask me for the Social [00:06:40] Security Administration and fill one out. I will make a number of errors and I will wish they had Richard's software making that form because then I could do it on mobile and I wouldn't tear my head off and nail it to a coffee table, frankly.
[00:06:54] Chris Beall: So that's my intro to you, Richard. What do you think?
[00:06:56] Richard Rabins: Yeah, no, I think that's great. I'll dive in on, [00:07:00] on the humor, item and, we're talking offline and humor is a very powerful weapon. Obviously the person on the other side has to have a sense of humor. Otherwise the weapon's not going to work.
[00:07:18] Richard Rabins: But you know, [00:07:20] what it does is when you're in sales and it's a cold call there's this natural distance that the other person's on the other side of the table, he's not on the same side of the table, and what HUMOR does is it [00:07:40] warms things up in my case. I'm a big, I love dogs.
[00:07:45] Richard Rabins: So if I can, if I'm on a call with someone zoom and they're working at home and I see their dog, I'm golden because not pun intended, even if it's not a golden retriever,
[00:07:58] Chris Beall: I was going to say that was a good one. [00:08:00]
[00:08:00] Richard Rabins: Because that's a way of humanizing. And putting us kind of on the same level, because otherwise, if you're trying to sell to something intrinsically, your target has more power than you.
(COMMERCIAL)
[00:08:16] Richard Rabins: Talking about dogs is certainly one thing, but [00:08:20] using humor is, can be powerful. And I was telling you and Chris last night about one case that happened to me. That, but humor ended up being a game changer . Early on in my career, I was working for a [00:08:40] market research company and they did some very innovative stuff.
[00:08:44] Richard Rabins: So if you could get an appointment with the prospect, you had enough data and evidence. That you will, you were almost guaranteed to close business, but getting the appointment in the first place was not, was non [00:09:00] trivial. And I'd started, this was not younger. And I'd started in some sort of analyst role, but was promoted to a project manager, which sounded pretty cool until I found out you actually had to, [00:09:20] kill what you wanted to eat.
[00:09:21] Richard Rabins: And I knew nothing about sales. So I went to my boss at the time and told him I went. There was a popular course, maybe still around Xerox professional selling skills, which Xerox had used internally and had [00:09:40] productized. And I'd heard about this course. And I went to my boss and I said, please, can you send me to this course because I need to learn how to sell.
[00:09:50] Richard Rabins: And it was a lot of money, and he was reluctant and I just nagged him. So finally, he said, if you promise [00:10:00] to get out of my office, you go to the course. I went to the course and yeah, it was useful. You learned, you should probably listen more than you should talk about a bunch of course setting stuff.
[00:10:13] Richard Rabins: So my first. Sales opportunity after the course [00:10:20] got hold of a prospect and I went through the whole routine of why he should give me the meeting and all the objections handled it, perfectly, except he wouldn't give me the meeting. So at that point, I'm toast. Failure. [00:10:40] Failure. There's nothing to lose.
[00:10:42] Richard Rabins: So I said to the fellow, I forgot his name, Bill, Hey Bill, I got on a level with you. So that was already caught him off guard. I've got a level with you? And he said, well, what? I said, well, and I told him the story that I'd just gone to this, [00:11:00] professional selling course. My boss didn't believe in it.
[00:11:04] Richard Rabins: And, and I said, now I've got a dilemma. My dilemma is I have to get off this call, go into my boss's office and tell him that the course does not work, doesn't work. [00:11:20] And he thought that was funny. And I got the meeting and we closed the business. Because at that point, humor can really humanize it made him empathize with, with me, my situation, and versus if I had just pleaded with him and said please give [00:11:40] me the meeting, whatever, probably wouldn't have got the meeting, but humor was, it allowed me to be at the same level, and, fortunately, he thought it was funny and so that's just one example, but there's Tons and tons of examples of human Well, [00:12:00] let me ask
[00:12:00] Corey Frank: Richard and Chris, I would think that a classically trained MIT schooled engineer from South Africa.
[00:12:10] Corey Frank: That's not a bastion of influences that blossom into humor. So when you have it or your [00:12:20] sales reps have it, and Chris, to the larger question, is it something that's taught or is it something that. That just is, right? A lot of last borns have this irreverency gene, right? This humor gene. But Richard, if we were to come in to take your sales organization [00:12:40] and upskill them on many things, their CRM, their automation, their list strategy, their, their, their sales methodologies.
[00:12:50] Corey Frank: Where would humor fit in? And Chris, how do you teach, train, where does it come from this confidence to use humor? And [00:13:00] let's, let's, let's, let's start right right there.
[00:13:04] Chris Beall: Well, I've never been able to teach it, so I've given up. I am the last born, as you well know. And I also think everything's pretty damn funny, which helps if.
[00:13:13] Chris Beall: You're looking at humor. I mean there's an agility of mind that's required to be [00:13:20] funny at the moment. And then there's the ability to learn a bunch of funny things and trot them out. And the former, I think, is extremely hard to teach. That agility of mind to find something funny in the moment.
[00:13:33] Chris Beall: Because our minds go where our minds go. Mine happens to go mostly to puns. I reason, as I've said [00:13:40] before in this podcast, I actually reason in a solution sense by following the sounds of words rather than their meanings, because it gets me out of whatever box I'm in, because a word that sounds like another word is Very rarely gonna mean the same thing.
[00:13:56] Chris Beall: And so it takes me outta my rut and I'm like everybody else. I'm in a rut and I don't [00:14:00] like being in a rut. So I like the sounds of words. In fact I won't tell you what company it is, but with Helen, folks on the podcast know I'm married to this brilliant MIT trained. Mechanical engineer who happens to have written a wonderfully famous [00:14:20] book.
[00:14:20] Chris Beall: Everybody should read this book, by the way, love your team, because there's nothing funny in it, except one thing in one of the forwards. And if you can find that and send it to me, I will either send you a dollar or I won't. So anyway, we were talking about a company that's names she couldn't remember [00:14:40] just for whatever reason.
[00:14:42] Chris Beall: And I finally said, well, it rhymes with what's on her face. And suddenly she could think of the person that she knows who's running that involved with that company and go, Oh, it rhymes with what's her face. And she's gotten the name right ever since. Part of which is because that's a funny thing to say.
[00:14:59] Chris Beall: It rhymes with [00:15:00] what's her face. And it's very easy to remember things that surprised you, which is the essence of humor is humorous surprise, followed by relief. You're surprised, which is a negative. All surprises are considered a threat. Every surprise, good, bad, or indifferent, they're all a threat. [00:15:20] So as you talk about the croc brain, the crocodile brain, Corey, the crocodile brain always responds to a surprise.
[00:15:27] Chris Beall: as a threat. Now the question is, what comes next? So if what comes next is relief, it's not a threat, that's funny. And how do we advertise that relief to the people [00:15:40] around us so that they can relax because now they're no longer threatened by the surprise? We laugh. So laughter is a way of saying it's okay.
[00:15:50] Chris Beall: And that's why people like to go to catch great comedians because they get to laugh a whole bunch, which is a way of taking a pill that says it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Oh, it's [00:16:00] okay when they know damn well very few things in their life are okay, and they're going to die relatively soon compared to what they would prefer, but laughter is the best medicine.
[00:16:10] Chris Beall: Well, it's also the best kind of dodge, right? But it's always a surprise. And the problem with surprise, it's hard to teach people to be surprised because they would [00:16:20] prefer not to be a threat. So you have to be, this is why humor raises your status. Because you're willing to be surprised. And it actually fulfills the same role as, I know I'm an interruption, which is another way of dealing with being a threat.
[00:16:36] Chris Beall: And nobody wants to be a threat, so very few people want to be funny. [00:16:40] It's just kind of fun, but if you can learn to overcome that, I don't know how to teach it, then you can be a
[00:16:46] Corey Frank: confidence thing? I mean, Richard and Chris, is it a confidence thing? If I'm a new sales rep and I'm listening to this and I say, I have, the chairman of the board of a very, very [00:17:00] successful software company, who knows the left brain, who knows how things work, classically trained MIT, and the CEO, holder of 24, maybe 25, he's not sure, patents.
[00:17:12] Corey Frank: And these aren't the exact old Abbott and Costello I want to learn from to say you should incorporate humor. But [00:17:20] after I get past that, I want to say, Should I, how do I learn it? How do I adopt it? Is, is is there, is it a confidence thing that I have to be bold enough to try things as you did, Richard, when you, when you talked about the Xerox training example with the prospector, or where should I start?
[00:17:38] Corey Frank: I think I think [00:17:40]
[00:17:40] Richard Rabins: it does require a good chunk of self confidence. I don't know if you can teach self confidence. I think there probably are certain techniques that can help boost your self confidence. And you also, [00:18:00] in a fundamental way, you as a human being have to realize there's some really serious things in life.
[00:18:08] Richard Rabins: And most of the, most everything else is not that serious. It's not a life or death matter. And at the end of the day, we're born, [00:18:20] we live, we die. And at the end of the day, you look back at all these things that you thought was so important and so critical, and you, and you look at them and you, you, you put them in a, I think probably proper perspective.
[00:18:38] Richard Rabins: So I think [00:18:40] if you go into, let's say a sales situation and you, if you are self confident and you do have, I think humor is an intrinsic capability. If you do have that capability, at least the self confidence will prevent you from suppressing it. [00:19:00] I, I gave you guys another example last night, so when I was in that same company, pitching, getting meetings, I got a meeting with J& J, big company, it was the Tylenol group.
[00:19:19] Richard Rabins: And [00:19:20] I was presenting, this was actually, we'd closed a deal and this was the findings and the company I was working for at the time, they would run these simulated test markets. So they would advise. consumer product companies on whether they should [00:19:40] launch a new product, a new cat food, a new shampoo, a new form of, in this case, Tylenol.
[00:19:47] Richard Rabins: And, I was pretty young, 25, and I'm presenting in this amphitheater in J& J's headquarters, probably 60 or 70 people [00:20:00] there. And the first slide comes up and there's a typo. And these guys have just spent 250, 000 on a market research project, and this 25 year old twit comes up with a typo. Again I don't know if you can teach this.[00:20:20]
[00:20:21] Richard Rabins: I had to think quickly, do I pretend that the typo is not there and assume nobody's going to see it? It's like people will see it out of 60 or 70 people, they're going to see it. And so you've got to acknowledge it. You know what I did, [00:20:40] I said, we're going to start this with a test.
[00:20:42] Richard Rabins: How many of you guys have spotted the typo? Now, why is that funny? I don't know why it's funny, but it's funny. And it basically took a negative, which is on a 250, 000 consulting project. There shouldn't have been a [00:21:00] typo, right? But yeah, there was a typo. And rather than let that tear you down. So again, there's a confidence issue.
[00:21:10] Richard Rabins: And it's also somebody, I mean, a lot of people have said, you've got to remember everybody, when they put their clothes on, it's one leg at a [00:21:20] time. There's no getting around it. At the end of the day, we're all human beings. And if you can somehow, it, again, it's, it's no reason to accept a lower status, when it's in a sales situation, you want to keep your status [00:21:40] as much as possible on the same level.
[00:21:44] Corey Frank: Interesting. I, I, I love that. I love that story. I think we were talking about the ability to notice. And, Conan and Brian, Conan O'Brien was had a podcast and he had [00:22:00] Stephen Wright, one of your favorites, Richard, on the podcast and, and what the advice that Conan O'Brien, was, was giving to other young comedians that were listening to this podcast is that you have to train your mind to notice.
[00:22:18] Corey Frank: When you notice the [00:22:20] typo, you notice something that was unusual. And he, he suggests to hone in, to develop your comedic skills, is hone in and be aware of your noticing abilities. It's all about scanning, scanning, scanning. And you, ultimately the best comedians [00:22:40] Chris, I think we've talked about this, the best comedians connect things that should be connected.
[00:22:45] Corey Frank: And Conan O'Brien's father made the observation as Conan was coming up into the business, father was a scientist. And he says, you're making a living in essence off of something. that [00:23:00] should probably be treated. In other words, the synopses aren't supposed to cross like that. They're not supposed to touch, but things are wrong in a beautiful way.
[00:23:12] Corey Frank: And somehow you see a connection. So if you can do that and in a modest way or in a [00:23:20] humorous way, like you did about identifying the tempo, I think things are on the track to identifying humor.
[00:23:27] Richard Rabins: Just talking about comedians. Some people love him, some people hate him. I happen to think Larry David is very funny.
[00:23:36] Richard Rabins: And if you look at his episodes, [00:23:40] they're quite complex, the script. There's three or four things woven in together, and he ties them in together. But one thing about what he does, it's back to the notice. He picks up on just little things that people do that you notice, but you ignore. [00:24:00] And he turns them into a big deal and it's funny, but it's all based on real world observation of humans and because we're very strange creatures, very complex, very strange and intrinsically we are funny.
[00:24:18] Richard Rabins: We don't necessarily mean [00:24:20] to be funny, but any observer I think the bottom line is people take themselves way too seriously. And on the other hand, if in the sales thing, if the salesperson can disarm you through humor humor [00:24:40] is generally enjoyable. And it also, as you've said, it relaxes you and it allows you then maybe to focus on or at least the conversation to focus on, hey, maybe this person has a Called me and has [00:25:00] something to offer that is valuable because there's this natural shield that goes up.
[00:25:07] Richard Rabins: If you're speaking to an unknown person and it's not coming from a recommendation, the shield automatically goes up. Mm-Hmm. . So you have to use whatever weapon you can. And, [00:25:20] whether it's commenting on the guy's golden retriever, which I, I find it works every time. You can take the stiffest, coldest call for someone, very formal, and if you're lucky enough that he's working, well, maybe even in the [00:25:40] office, and he has a dog or a cat, but generally a dog.
[00:25:43] Richard Rabins: You ask him it's like asking mothers about their babies. What mother doesn't want to talk about their baby, 
 
OUTRO:
In this episode, Richard and Chris explored the delicate art of wielding humor in sales. But as Chris hinted, there's a balance to strike - you can't take the funny too far.
Join us next time as Corey, Richard, and Chris dive deeper into this comedic conundrum. They'll discuss the risks of overdoing it with humor and share tips for harnessing wit without alienating prospects.
Until then, keep sharpening your comedic chops and ricocheting your way to sales success!