What a terrible weather year we had.
The economy!
Is it just plain impossible to find good help anymore?
Tractor’s stuck.
Why is it that when I need the family to pitch in the most on the farm, that’s when they have the big game, the big school project, band rehearsal or a wedding to go to?
Did it rain in your state? Every weekend?
Why are the customers so grumpy this year?

It’s hard to keep a smile on when the cards are stacked against you. Yet, we’re in the business of making customers smile! Every person who goes to a NAFDMA Convention knows there is a direct correlation between wearing a smile in our busy season, and sales volume. (We know it works in reverse order even better!)

Levity helps people get what they want. Laugh-O-Nomics introduces specific tactics and techniques on how to incorporate lightheartedness into our lives and jobs.

Laugh-O-Nomics is a laugh-out-loud funny workshop that connects humor and the bottom line. Just come!

If you want to know more…?

The studies are clear: organizations and individuals who enjoy what they are doing are more effective and therefore more productive. Locating and accessing our senses of humor helps us with employee retention and recruitment, morale, creativity, energy levels, and creating and maintaining a positive workplace culture. In the end, it’s really about productivity. Liberal doses of humor make sense in our hearts. The data backs its importance to our business heads and sales too.
If we’re in a good mood and having fun at work, we are better at our jobs. We sell more. We provide better customer service. We handle change and stress better. We are healthier. We attract better employees and hold them longer. We lead and manage better. We work in teams better. We ignore the weather. (okay, okay, so there are limitations…. ) And (here it comes again…) we are more productive.

In other words, your grandmother had some killer business advice when she told you to “Turn that frown upside down.”

Even though we are aware of the connections between levity and success, few of us take it to the next level intellectually. In other words, we lack the knowledge and skills required to maintain and even promote, a sense of humor in our business culture. We miss the fact that it’s MOST important when we are working under the most stressful conditions. In fact, in some of our businesses, this is more critical because of our annual income flow. We gear up all year long (usually at a relatively calm stress level) for our three-month season. Then, opening day arrives, urgency is in the air, and some of us scowl at our customers because it’s raining, or because the customers are carrying singles in their pockets rather than ten dollar bills this year. Those things are out of our control! These people are on your farm aren’t they? They were probably smiling when they left home. What did you do to them when you tore into them to stay out of the muddy field!??

When Brad talks about humor in the workplace, he isn’t talking about joke telling in the machine shop, wearing clown shoes to a meeting, or teaching how to open your staff orientation with a comedic “skit.”  (Though if that stuff floats your boat, go for it!”)

Humor at work is often better defined as an absence of stress and crankiness. It means being more glad about being at work, being in a better, more lighthearted mood and generally enjoying ourselves more. Don’t confuse “humor” with “comedy.”   Brad doesn’t teach people how to be funny; he teaches them how to create a work culture that is more fun, because it’s good, (wait for it…) for productivity.

The Laugh-O-Nomics program illustrates humor-in-the-workplace with real life examples of how real organizations have successfully used levity to get more of what they want and increase their bottom line. There are famous examples of fun work places that also are making record profits. Do you think it’s an accident that the only airline that invests in a positive work culture is also the only airline still making money in a lousy economy?

We’ll use examples of small organizations that excel with this concept too. Best of all, we’ll use examples from YOUR farms and your peers. We’ll interview some of the top humor-performers in the room and get their insight on how they use levity to lead the way to a more fun-ctional workplace. And then we’ll discuss success stories about how YOUR peers have already adopted Laugh-O-Nomics. (We might hear about a couple cases they weren’t laughing too. But we won’t laugh at them, if we can help it.) The result is that we’ll be teaching and inspiring the entire organization to lighten up.

Brad has a black belt in Laugh-O-Nomics. (Ok, so he got it at MACY’S, but you get the idea.) He has spent his entire career studying the use of, and effect of humor. He’s a darn funny guy, but he’s also an expert at teaching others how levity, humor and generally taking ourselves less seriously can improve our lives both at home and at work. His background is in entertainment. For the first ten years of his career he worked his comedy everywhere from clubs to cruise ships, from Arkansas to Alaska to Australia. He’s not a comic now, but his comedian skills will not be lost on our group.

NAFDMA brings Brad to our conference after a farm season when folks seem to be finding it hard to cut loose. But we’re here to tell you, it’s not a sin for a farmer to laugh and smile. Further, there is nothing wrong with having a good time in a workshop in which you’re supposed to be learning either!

Laugh-O-Nomics is all about connecting humor and levity to your bottom line. The result is an increase in (here’s a surprise…it HAS to be the last word…) productivity.