Are you looking for a sure-fire way to engage your
audience and grab their attention as soon as you arise to speak?
The solution….. to have a vibrant, challenging, attention-grabbing
opening to your speech!
Many people spend hours preparing speeches but give
little time and attention to the most important part of their presentation,
the opening. It is essential that
you gain audience attention within the first 90 seconds of your presentation.
You want your audience to accept you as a speaker and a person and
accept the logic or information you present.
Your opening is your chance to make a great first impression, you never
get a second chance to make that first impression.
If you lose your audience at the outset, you are going to have a tough
time hooking them later on.
How Do I Get Started?
It’s fine to say that one should have a dynamic
introduction. But, how do you do
that? One way not to have a powerful impact is to be matter of fact.
For example, “This evening I am going to speak about the importance
of encouraging boys to read”. I,
as an audience member, might believe in the importance of this topic, however,
that opening is not going to make me sit forward in my seat in rapt attention.
There are a variety of approaches that can be used to
generate high energy or attention grabbing speech openers:
-
direct a guestion, appropriate to the topic, to the audience;
-
a fact, striking statistic or little known fact;
-
a news item;
-
retrospective/prospective – look backwards or forwards;
-
an anecdote – strong human interest story;
-
a quotation or familiar saying;
-
an analogy – a comparison between two seemingly unrelated
things
-
a joke
A great beginning can be the hardest part of the speech
to write. Some speakers spend a
quarter of their planning time or more coming up with the right opening. Regardless
of the amount of time you spend on it, your opening statement should be given
serious effort. The opening
statement should help to put you at ease, win over the audience and set the
stage for the rest of the speech. Sometimes,
if you find the right opening, the rest of the speech will write itself!
How much time do you spend on preparing your opening
comments for your presentations? For
your next speech, plan to spend additional time to hone an exceptional
introduction and then watch how well your audience will respond!
