The Power of Humor, Health —DeWese
Welcome to class!
Let's first have the Pledge of Allegiance.
Now let's sing the Mañana University fight song. We need to hold our heads high, despite the loss our football team took at the hands of the Pennsylvania Correctional Institute for Women. I honestly thought the warden would keep his word and search the women before kickoff. Our players are recovering nicely though, and we hope to remove all the stitches before our next game against the Merry Dell Home for the Aged.
Now for my lecture.
Some of you students have made great progress toward attaining your Ph.D. Just imagine how thrilled your mama will be when I hand you a diploma that tells the world you hold a doctorate in print sales and marketing. Freeze that beautiful graduation image in your educated brains. It's a picture of motivation. You're gonna need all the motivation you can get 'cause these lessons get harder.
My lecture today is once again about bringing in, and then keeping, business.
This is important nowadays, with all the screaming and hollering about widespread unemployment. Republicans point at Democrats and ask, "Where are the jobs?" Democrats yell back, "Your guy lost the jobs and now we can't find them." What confounds me is that amid all this blame, neither side is SPECIFIC about what it will do to actually create jobs.
Depending on what type of printing you sell, roughly speaking, for every $200,000 in new business that you generate, you support one new job back in your plant. That can vary greatly between high-speed, webfed printing and slower sheetfed printing. It varies greatly from print segment to print segment, and within the niches of the segments. It can also vary depending on the amount of finishing required by your customers. It will vary a lot if your plant is diversified and you sell, for example, fulfillment services. But, for now, let's just use the $200,000 figure as being enough to support one employee in your company.
Humor/Health Connection
I know three printing salespeople who sell more than $20 million annually. This means, using my simple math, these folks support, give or take, 100 jobs each. If we listed these men individually on the most recent Printing Impressions 400 list, they would rank around #230 next to Victor Graphics in Baltimore and Shapco Printing in Minneapolis. If we lumped them together and called 'em, say, Super Trio Graphics, they would be selling around $65 million and rank about #81, below Continental Web Press in Itasca, IL. Admittedly, these salespeople are selling web work. Five million dollars annually would be a better number for sheetfed sales.
I have enjoyed meals with each of these men at one time or another. They always pay. I'd love to take them to dinner as a foursome sometime soon.
The food might not have been memorable, but I always left each meal feeling better because each course was served with humor. Our humor fed off one another—not with one-upmanship, but rather with reciprocal, cheerful, spontaneous conversation. Oh, they are all tall and handsome. Each of them is well-groomed. They are articulate and self-effacing. There is not a rude bone in their bodies.
These guys have a lot in common, but two things stand out when I think about our dinner conversations. They have a great sense of humor and great health. It occurred to me these traits may go together. So I rang up my crack research department down in the basement here at Printing Impressions headquarters. No one answered and the voice mail never came on to record my inquiry.
I'm an impatient old coot, so I walked down four flights of stairs to the dark and musky cellar. I found a light switch and spotted Maurice, our crack researcher, sleeping on a cot in the corner. Maurice Googled "sales," "health" and "humor."
First, we found that people who have an active sense of humor have lower blood pressure. I called my three sales superstars real quick and found that their blood pressure is consistently in the 80 to 120 range. Beautiful. So far, so good.
We learned that happy, humorous salespeople have reduced stress hormones, namely a big one called cortisol. I could give you a lecture on cortisol but, basically, the proper levels of this hormone enable salespeople to deal better with stress. They also have increased muscle flexion, whatever the hell that is, but it sure sounds good. I think it means you want them on your company softball team.
My smiling sales stars have a better immune function. When there's pain they release more endorphins, which are their bodies' natural pain killers. No wonder they sell more printing. Above all, the Google information that Maurice found told me that they have a greater sense of well-being.
Good humor helps to foster good health. Here's my next profound observation: good humor and healthy people create situations where good feelings become contagious for the buyers. My sales stars are fun to be around. They enjoy other human beings and like to hang out with them, even when they are total strangers.
These salespeople don't approach life with a brain full of standard jokes. They don't let inappropriate jokes get in the way of their sales conversation. If there is an opportunity for humor, they let it happen spontaneously.
It's time for me to check my blood pressure and my blood sugar. And it's time for you to get out there and sell something! PI
—Harris DeWese
About the Author
Harris DeWese is the author of "Now Get Out There and Sell Something" and "The Mañana Man, Books II and III," available at www.piworld.com/bookstore. He is chairman of Compass Capital Partners and also authors the annual "Compass Report." DeWese has completed more than 150 printing company transactions and is viewed as the industry's preeminent deal maker. He can be reached via e-mail at HDeWese@CompassCapLtd.com.
