Use This Stand-Up Comedian’s Trick to Communicate Your Success

So, you’ve smashed your sales target or completed a project ahead of schedule. Now, you want to communicate this success to your team and make your boss proud.

First of all, well done. (virtual high-five)

But it can seem icky to brag about yourself.

Is there a way to communicate our success stories or #wins without sounding like a jerk?

Yes! And that’s what I’m sharing with you today. It’s using a little communication trick that comedians use.

Communicating your success: The reaction

When sharing our successes with an audience, we desire two reactions from them: 

1. To acknowledge our hard work (the journey)
2. To celebrate our success (the destination)

The stand-up comedian’s trick you can copy

There’s one breed of humans that’s amaaazing at getting the exact reaction they want from an audience: stand-up comedians. 

Here’s the formula they use: 

SETUP + PUNCH = Desired reaction

By using punch lines, they bring the desired reaction out of their audience – uproarious laughter, ugly truths, jaw-dropping news and so on. But here’s what’s interesting: the punch line means nothing without the setup.

Let’s take a look at two examples from stand-up comedians:

SETUP: At my gym they have free weights…
PUNCH: …so I took them home
Desired reaction: audience laughs

SETUP: I hate road signs. They are everywhere telling me what to do: ‘stop’, ‘yield’, ‘merge’. My mother recently took a job at the highway department and I think she went a little crazy with it…
PUNCH: ‘Call your sister’, ‘change your underwear’, ‘get married’.
Desired reaction: audience chuckles

In the both examples, the punch only works when the audience is ‘primed’ with a setup.

The key to communicating your success with an audience is to ‘prime’ them with a setup (your journey) before you reveal the big news.

The setup-punch method in real life

Now, I know what you’re thinking. But Anita, when I receive good news in real life, no one ever uses the ‘setup-punch’ formula.

You’re right. Well, kinda.

When you receive good news in real life, it may sound something like this:

• Mom, I got the job!
• Dude, she said YES!
• Babe, our munchkin took her first steps!

This one-sentence ‘punch’ brings a smile to your face… but only because you already know about the setup. Let me explain.

We all use setup + punch when sharing good news in real life. Just that the setup is the inside story you already knew about:

SETUP: [John has been trying to break into advertising for 7 months. And finally…]
PUNCH: He got the job!

SETUP: [Ryan and Jill met only a year ago, but Ryan knows deep down she’s the one. He’s been debating whether or not to pop the question. But guess what…]
PUNCH: She said YES!

SETUP: [With a travelling job, Pete always misses the milestones of his baby girl. He wasn’t there when she crawled, or said ‘ilneb’ for the first time. But today…]
PUNCH: He saw her take her first steps!

You see what I mean? We love to cheer on success when we know the backstory, the challenges and efforts, i.e. your setup.

Now, back to communicating success at work: here’s how you’re going to design a setup + punch delivery for your audience. (We all want happy bosses, right?)

How to use the setup-punch method to communicate your success

Your setup will include everything that went into the journey of your project – plans, expectations, fears, efforts and challenges.

SETUP: Include all the efforts you put into the project.

• Tapping into your expertise
• Taking calls outside of work hours
• Networking at conferences
• Using social media tactfully
• Utilizing resources well
• [Enter your own]

SETUP: Include the challenges you faced.

• A difficult client
• Limited budget
• Tight deadlines
• Outside your comfort zone
• [Enter your own]

PUNCH: Reveal your success in one ‘punchy’ sentence.

• The client signed a contract for $56,000.
• Our final registration count is 1009.
• The readership went up by 312%.

Keep your punches short. You want the audience to soak in the news so they can appreciate your success, especially after they’ve heard your setup. Plus, savor the moment, my friend. You earned it. Rambling on and on will rob you of this.

Hope this helps! In the comments below, feel free to share what setup + punch you plan to use to communicate your recent successes.

Until next time,

Anita