Dare to be different with your presentation opening!
Successful presentations and speeches need to hook the audience’s attention in the first few seconds. Despite this being obvious, I am constantly shocked by at the number of people who ignore this principle. Instead, they start their presentations by giving their name and their credentials.
Despite this being obvious, I am constantly shocked by at the number of people who ignore this principle. They prefer to start their presentations by giving their name and their credentials. For example, “Good afternoon, my name is X and I am the marketing manager of …”
Yawn!
How many times have you heard a presentation start this way? Is it any wonder that our audience starts to drift off before we get to the important parts of our talk?
Imagine if a film, TV programme or play, started off with the credits. What are the chances that you would keep watching unless you absolutely had to?
So what should you do instead?
Take a leaf out of the film director’s book. Start with something attention grabbing and interesting!
Here are some ideas to get you going.
- A thought-provoking question
- A startling statistic
- A powerful quotation
- A challenge to your audience
- A dramatic short story – “Imagine….”
It’s easy when you know how! Use these techniques individually, or in combination, to hook your audience’s attention first, before you set the scene and tell them who you are.
Remember – The primary purpose of your first few words is to arouse curiosity and gain attention.
Example:
“When I was a sales manager I used to attend the company’s annual sales conference. At some point during the event, we would be ‘subjected’ to a compulsory presentation from Human Resources about the pension scheme.
One year we had a new presenter who clearly understood the need to engage his audience and to transform a potentially dull subject into something important.
He started by switching off the PowerPoint, turning up the house lights and coming out from behind the lectern to talk to us directly, from the centre of the stage. This in itself was different, and we all started to get curious.
Then he asked us to shout out something that we wanted to be able to do when we eventually retired.
The energy in the room grew as people shared their personal dreams and aspirations.
Now he had our attention!
So next time you are preparing a speech or presentation test out your opening remarks. Are they dramatic? Are they different? Will they raise questions in the heads of your audience for which they want answers?
