Brian Tracy discusses multiple techniques for opening a speech or presentation, offering examples and sample lines. Techniques in this chunk include starting with a positive statement, complimenting the audience, referring to current events or historical events, repeating a recent conversation, and making a shocking statement to gain attention.
Second of all, start with a positive statement. Some people think that they start with a downer. It's a good way to get attention. No, what I do, and I've used this for years, is I say, thank you very much for having me. I want you to know that we are looking at one of the very best times in human history where there'll be more opportunities in this business to dominate our markets than ever before, but they'll be different from the past. So you start up and people say, I wonder what they are. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, I hadn't thought about that. Another thing you can do is compliment the audience sometimes. What I will do is I will say, you know, it's a great honor to be here with you because I understand you are some of the top people in this company, which is recognized as one of the best organizations in the world in this industry. So, wow. To get a chance to talk to you is a really big deal for me. Another way to start a talk is to refer to current events. You could say, did you see today in the newspaper where it said this about that, about this, and so on and so forth. This is very important to us. And I'll show you why. As we go through my talk today, people are listening. Refer to an historical event. Did you know that today, July 4th in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was formed, which actually affected our entire lives and the lives of all our friends and families? Or refer to a well known person is do you know so and so who lives here just said this the other day and how important that is as an observation, or you can repeat a recent conversation. You get up and you say, hello, thank you very much for having me. I was just talking to Bill Smith over here and he was telling me just before I came up here about the situation that you're facing in your business. And I thought, wow, that's a good place to start. You have the total attention of everyone. This, you can make a shocking statement. One of the great statements that I heard is that every single person here is going to be in a new business within two to three years or they're going to be out of this industry altogether if they don't continually upgrade their skills. A friend of mine stood up in front of a medical audience room full of doctors, PhDs, and he said, do you know that 50% of all doctors graduated in the bottom half of.
