Few people can leave audiences laughing the way Jeanne (GEE-nee)
Robertson does, but Robertson, a professional speaker and a delightfully natural humorist, says there are some techniques we all can learn to lighten up a business meeting or, at the very least, ward off embarrassment at a party.
Listen to Robertson tell a story:
”A man is driving in the country. He has car trouble. He stops. As he lifts the hood of his car and is tryin` to figure out what in the world to do, this thoroughbred horse in the next field trots over and says to him: `Buddy, can I help you?` Well, he`s flabbergasted and turns around and says: `What did you say?` And the horse says: `Look, I`m a thoroughbred horse. I`m very smart. I`ve won three Kentucky Derbies, and I know about cars. Let me help you.`
”The man slams down the hood and starts runnin` as fast as he can. He comes to a mansion and out in front is a gentleman farmer. He goes up and says: `Who owns this horse back here in the field?` The farmer says: `Well, I do.` The man said: `I want to buy it. What do you want for it? Name the amount of money you want for it.`
”And the farmer says: `Why do you want to buy that horse?` And our friend says: `I don`t know if I should tell you this, but the horse can talk. He told me he was smart, said he won three Kentucky Derbies and can fix automobiles on and on and on.` The farmer keeps rocking in his chair and says: `Mister, you don`t want to buy that horse. He`s a liar. (beat) He hasn`t won the derby but twice.` ”
”All right, now let me tell you some things that would really hurt that story,” said Robertson, warming instantly to her subject.
”For one thing, people may come up and say: `Have you heard the joke about the horse that lies?` Well, don`t even bother telling the story. The punch line is gone!
SURPRISE ELEMENT
”And don`t build up the story as being funny. Don`t say: `I`ve got the funniest story. Listen to this.` There`s no way it can be funny then.
”Another thing. Sit down and look at the story and determine what words are key, have to be in there. In the story I just told you, you have to casually include the horse sayin` `I won three Kentucky Derbies. I`m smart. I can fix a car.` At that point, the listener does not associate that with your building up to the punch line.
”What happens a lot of times is people will not key in on what they have to tell and they forget to have the horse say `I won three Kentucky Derbies.` So then they get to the end and they spoil the punch line because they have to say `The horse told me he won three Kentucky Derbies` and the listeners pick up on it. So you lose the surprise.
”Another point would be to leave out things that don`t matter. How many times have you heard a story told like this: (she switches to a sloooww drawl) `This fella was driving through Kentucky on a weekend. Nah, it was a Monday, it was a Monday.` Then the wife interrupts and says: `No, it wasn`t!
The last time you told it, it was the weekend.`
”Finally, don`t be afraid to pause and let things soak in. If you say
`He`s a liar. He`s only won two derbies` too fast, you lose it. It`s better if you pause after `he`s a liar.`
”Now reverse those two lines and see what happens: ”He`s only won two Derbies. He`s a liar.` You`ve got a phrase on the end that`s on top of the laugh. So it`s gone.”
Robertson says there`s a ”key rule” in choosing a story to tell: If three people will laugh, 300 will laugh.
But if you`re looking for a story for a business meeting or banquet, she cautions against waiting until the last minute and then latching on to the current joke making the rounds of the office. By that time, it`s very stale.
”If you`re in a business situation and you know that every year you`ve got to make a report, keep a running notebook,” Robertson suggested.
”During the year whenever you hear four people laughing, make a note of what that was. Then you can slide it in, even if it`s only one line. Your people will understand it. Then when you finish, you`ve left the impression of being very clever and humorous.
USE NEW MATERIAL
”Another suggestion is don`t open with the pat story or joke. Tell some humorous material about the group down in the presentation. Select a story that illustrates a point. Then, if it flops (as a joke), that`s okay. But also be prepared to get a laugh. Have your next line ready. That way you don`t have to pause and shuffle through your notes, which is what happens to people who aren`t natural humorists. They get a laugh and they`re blank.”
Robertson comes by her humor naturally. As a 13-year-old she stood 6 feet, 2 inches ”barefooted with my hair mashed down,” and she learned early that it was easier to stand up straight and to laugh about stupid remarks (How tall are you? Are the others in your family normal?) than to ”go around in flat shoes, stoop-shouldered, trying to pretend I was 5-foot-14.”
She credits her parents with cultivating her sense of humor and helping her to view her height as an asset. After their deaths, she discovered they had done the same with her two sisters, who at 5-feet-5 worried about being too short.
Robertson has parlayed her size (shoe size 11B, weight 160 pounds), her status as ”the tallest contestant ever to lose the Miss America Pageant”
(she was Miss North Carolina of 1964, the one who played the ukulele and sang original songs) and her Southern accent (”I`m a hayem”) into a successful career as a professional speaker.
Last year, Quote Magazine named Robertson, 42, one of the most quotable humorists in America, along with Johnny Carson and Erma Bombeck, her own idol. She makes 15 speeches a month for 10 months of the year, also scheduling plenty of time to spend at home in Burlington, N.C., with her husband, Jerry, a 6-foot-6-inch former Duke University basketball player (he`s not impressed with her hook shot) and son Beaver (real name: Bailey), a 6-foot-8-inch basketball player at Virginia`s Randolph-Macon College.
Robertson had her audience rolling in the aisles at a meeting of the Illinois Retail Farm Equipment Association meeting in Schaumburg recently. That was no small feat, considering that their fates are entwined with those of the nation`s financially troubled farmers.
THE HUMOROUS LIFE
Her humor is drawn from her own experiences and observations: from the airports and convention halls she sees so much of now, growing up tall, beauty pageants, high school reunions, the domestic scene and small-town life.
Robertson finished 49th out of 50 girls in the Miss America talent competition, just ahead of a ”pi-ti-ful girl who played the comb. She had the shop class make her a great big one and they wheeled it out on a little comb cart.”
She did win the title of Miss Congeniality, voted on by the contestants themselves and, she insists, usually considered the contestant least likely to win the pageant.
She was a big hit as Miss North Carolina, though. It didn`t take her long to figure out that people were sick and tired of hearing the same bland pleasantries. Instead, she talked to them as her down-to-earth, humorous self. They loved it and she realized she was onto something.
Robertson majored in physical education and minored in speech at Auburn University. She taught physical education and coached basketball in high school and college for nine years before going into professional speaking full time in 1973. Her fee now is $2,500 plus expenses, an astonishing figure compared with the ”$35 and a watermelon” she got in the early days.
Speakers like Robertson fill in the gap between an organization`s in-house people who are free and usually aren`t expected to be good, and celebrities, who sometimes ask for $10,000 or more and may not be entertaining either.
Those who book Robertson get a skilled professional who can take in or let out a speech depending on the schedule and salvage bad situations. She is a warm, mature woman, slender and impeccably groomed, who can make people laugh without off-color jokes, political satire or smarmy insults.
The humorous stories she tells poke fun at herself first and ever so gently impart her message: ”None of us will be able to laugh at ourselves until we can accept the things that we can`t change.”
Or put another way: ”Having a sense of humor is like changing a baby`s diaper. It`s not a permanent solution, but it makes things feel better.”
She takes her career very seriously. ”This is what I do for a living, and to me, you do it well, even if you`re sick, just so sick you can hardly hold your head up. You never miss a speech once you`re committed.
”I`m prepared. It may seem that I`m doing a lot of adlibbing and that I stand up and just shoot off the cuff, but I really don`t.”
And her work doesn`t end when a speech does. Robertson is always writing and honing her material, trying it out a few times in free programs or in conversation before she takes it on the road. She also keeps a computerized record of the material she uses at an engagement so that she does not repeat herself if the organization invites her back. And many do. —
