Laughter is good for business

I hear many claims that children laugh more frequently than adults. One such claim states that children laugh 300 times a day on average whereas adults only 20 times a day, by implication this appears that as adults we become too serious and are missing out on joy or happiness.  Having extensively researched these claims I cannot find a scientific study that supports these statistics.  There are however numerous studies that endorse the claim that laughter is a great medicine.  Yes there are some sad people who rarely laugh and there are just as many who laugh a lot.  Apparently it is also stated that adults do laugh more at what they have just said rather than what somebody else says!!

My experience in business allows me to emphatically state that laughter is not only good for business it is great for business.  Whether as a leader/manager laughter can be a tension remover, a conflict solver, a stress preventer, a team bonder and a productivity enhancer.  However, there is one big proviso here, humour from the boss must never be sarcastic.

When our clients/customers are laughing with us they are buying.  Humour and laughter becomes a great relationship builder and will increase customer retention.  We all know that people do business with people they like if they have choice and we must make an effort to be nice people to do business with and buying from us is an enjoyable experience. Humour is one of the major ingredients to that word enjoyable.

We like people we can laugh with and in this ‘the age of the customer’ people have choice and they are more likely to choose people they can have a laugh with.