Transcription
You have one job in the first 30 seconds of any speech, pitch, presentation, or meeting. And only one job: make them sit up and listen. And believe me, they will only listen if you make them. It's not their job to give you their attention. It's your job to grab it.
The beginnings of most pitches, presentations, and speeches are as dull as dishwater. It is no wonder the audience keep checking their phone, or reading their emails, or speaking to the person next to them. The good news is, you actually don't have to do a lot to stand out and start your speech like a pro. In this video, I'm going to show you the major pitfalls to avoid and my 5 and a half top tips for killer intros that will have your audiences hanging on your every word. Let's get started.
Put yourself in your audience's shoes. We are bombarded by information. If we're sitting in a meeting, attending a conference, or or listening to someone speak, chances are there's lots of other noise competing for our eyeballs and our ears. So if you want to grab your audience's attention, they need to know that you've started.
One of the biggest mistakes I see people making is doing the housekeeping first. If you're going to be talking about where the fire exits are, or thanking people for being there, or worrying about how their journey's been, then chances are people are going to think you haven't actually started. Until you grab their attention and make them understand that things have begun, people are going to default to doing all of the other things that are competing for their bandwidth. So don't bore people with the small stuff. Ideally, get someone else to do that for you. But if you do have to do it, then you can do it later on. And I've got another video that will show you how to do this. But for the moment, I just want to think about how you capture that attention.
So avoid the small talk and start with a surprise. As I said at the beginning, we've got to do something that gets our audience to sit up and pay attention. Don't be like all of the other presenters and speakers you see. If you want to present like a pro, you've got to do something different. And the surprise doesn't have to be massive. I'm not talking necessarily about pulling rabbits out of hats, but there are a few different things that you might like to consider that are going to help you engage your audience from the offset.
Before you jump in, though, there's one thing that you've got to do first, and that's breathe. The best presenters stop before they start. They take time to get themselves grounded. And what this does is it lets your audience know that you've arrived. If you walk out onto stage and pause, people pay attention. It signals that you are in control and that people should give you their attention. So the first thing I'd encourage you to do is take a deep breath.
Once you've done that, you've got a few options. I'm a massive fan of storytelling, so I couldn't make a video like this without suggesting that the first thing you think about is whether a story is an appropriate way to capture your audience's attention. So of course, you say, "Good afternoon, it's lovely to be here." But then you might want to jump back into the narrative. "Let me take you back two years to a cold December evening in the Austrian Alps." Right, whatever it might be, you want to drag your audience with you into the world of imagination. If you're going to tell a story, it's got to be succinct. The start of a pitch, or a presentation, or a speech isn't the moment to launch into War and Peace. But actually, if you can structure a narrative that has a past, a present, and a future, and takes that audience on a journey, then they're going to be leaning in and wanting more. Think about it as the classic three acts: the beginning, the middle, and end. Keep it short, keep it punchy, keep it relevant. 60 seconds tops. But that's a really punchy way to start a speech.
Another option is to pose a question. "How many of you in the audience have experienced X?" It doesn't have to be mind-blowing, but by posing a rhetorical question, your audience is forced to formulate an answer. We find it very difficult to ignore a question being posed to us in that way. So if you can get your audience to think in line with the topic that you're going to be talking about, then instantly you drag them away from distraction and into the moment. So questions are absolutely brilliant ways to start. I'd encourage you not to actually elicit answers from the audience. You can do, but that's a high-risk strategy. So you're posing a question that you want them to answer, a rhetorical question, rather than something where you're looking for engagement straight away.
"The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it's taken place." - George Bernard Shaw.
Starting with a quote is another fantastic way to let your audience know that you've begun. It's a great anchor point that helps contextualize what you're going to be talking about. So the quote absolutely has to be relevant and meaningful. But again, you're borrowing credibility from someone else and engaging your audience's brain with the topic. So it's a massive win-win.
For those of you that are a little more analytical, or have an audience that are into the details, then a fact or a figure is a really great place to start. A big headline number that grabs people's attention, or something that maybe your audience didn't know that you're then going to unpack. It's a great way of starting with a really bold statement. And you may find that as you go through the speech, you then go and unpick that, and the conclusion is something different. But if you can give your audience that clear hook at the beginning and engage their analytical minds, then you're going to have them ready and waiting, listening for more.
My fifth tip for a killer intro is to let an image or a video do the heavy lifting for you. So if you walk out onto stage, or stand up in a meeting, and direct people's attention to the screen where there is something that is interesting and compelling, then you can just sit back and allow the audience to process what's going on behind you. This can be a really powerful way to set the scene, especially if you use video footage, because it instantly engages your audience's emotions. So we pass just the analytical part of the mind, and we start to engage their heart as well, which is a fantastic benefit when you're starting a pitch, a presentation, or a speech.
My bonus half is not for the faint-hearted, but a great way to start if you are good at it is to tell a joke. If you can get your audience to laugh within the first 60 seconds of a speech, you're going to really increase the amount of rapport between you, and they're going to be much more open to what you're saying. Now, this is a really high-risk strategy, and if you're not good at telling jokes, then I'd really counsel you against doing it. But if you've got a little bit of a cheeky streak, then it's definitely something that's worth giving a go.
Stories, questions, quotes, facts, visuals, and maybe a cheeky joke. So you've got their attention, but what's next? The surprise is actually only the first part of your introduction. If you want to know the three things that you should be doing next to keep your audience leaning in and wanting more, I've got you covered in this video. And if you'd like to benchmark your presentation skills against the six key ingredients of impact and discover how you can instantly increase your influence, take my Presenting with Impact scorecard using the link in the comments below.