How to Pick on Someone (during a presentation)

You may have heard many times that humor should not occur at anyone's expense. That's mostly said by people who are not good enough speakers to pick on someone else successfully. This article will tell you how to do it.


First of all you better be pretty good using humor already to try this technique. I'll also give you fair warning that if you do this wrong it could backfire, so pay close attention.

STEP 1 RESEARCH

When you are doing pre-program research, ask who are the real hams that are going to be in the audience. Ask for traits about them that everyone in the audience will know about. Start a list which includes the highest ranking people that will be in the audience.

STEP 2 ASK PERMISSION

Call up the people on the list and ask them if they mind if you tease them a little. Tell them you heard about how much they love golf, or whatever else you have learned about them already. Tell them you plan on teasing them and giving them lines to say back at you. You will most likely get a resounding yes if they are truly hams.

NOTE: BE CAREFUL OF PICKING ON LOW LEVEL PEOPLE. IT MAY APPEAR YOU ARE BEING MALICIOUS. IT'S BEST TO PICK ON THE HIGHEST RANKING OFFICIALS, THE SALES LEADERS, WELL-LIKED PEOPLE, ETC.

STEP 3 WRITE OR RESEARCH HUMOROUS LINES

I suggest buying yourself a roast/insult book. Here's some examples:

"Some people believe that Joe is one of the best, most prolific salespeople this company has ever seen . . . (pause) and some people believe in the Easter Bunny.

"I've got good news and I've got bad news. The good news is Sally is taking golf lessons. The bad news is she's taking them from Fred (Fred would be a guy who is always bragging about his golf game, but he's really not that good)