Sarah Archer says traditional talk openings that preview what's coming kill engagement. Instead, start with curiosity: a question only you can answer. She gives three tactics: challenge a common belief, show what the audience loses by staying the same, or drop them mid-story.
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Most speakers think their job at the beginning of their talk is to explain what they're going to talk about. It's not, because if you tell the audience everything upfront, there's no reason for them to want to continue listening. So today we're going to do something brutal. We are going to kill the obvious opening and replace it with curiosity. Not hype, not shock tactics, not those slightly painful imagine-if gimmicks, not also no inane questions that everyone and their mother could answer yes to, none of that. We're talking about real curiosity because it's curiosity that makes the audience get off their phone, Stop talking to their mate sat next to them and lean in and pay attention to you. So, it's tension that gets them wanting to hear more. It's creating a question in their minds that only you and your talk can answer. So, let's talk about what curiosity actually is. Let's get practical. Curiosity usually comes from one of 5 things.
A gap.
The kind of gap you've probably seen at the end of programmes where they're a series, or before an advert break, or at the end of a 3-part trilogy, they'll leave you on a cliffhanger. That kind of gap. Then there's tension, a contradiction, a cost, and an incomplete story. So we're going to talk about using some of those things today as tactics to apply to our opening so that you get your audience leaning in, because curiosity isn't about mystery, it is that unanswered question. So here's a couple of examples just to illustrate what I mean. Here's a typical opening. Today, I am going to talk about leadership. Versus, most leaders don't fail because they're weak. They fail because they're certain.
Ooh.
Here's another one, obvious one. Let me tell you a story. Versus, I nearly didn't come today. Here's another one. I'm going to share 3 strategies with you. But what if we said, I'm going to share 3 strategies with you, and the 3rd strategy is the one nobody wants to admit works. Can you feel the difference? So that's what we're going to practice today. I'm going to share some ideas and tactics for you, and then you're gonna have a go in your own time, put it into practice. So what I want you to do first is to take a talk that you normally, you normally give, or perhaps that you're working on, or the core idea you teach, or a belief that you challenge, and I want you to write down what you normally say at the start. Might even be a pitch as well, this works for pitches, Absolutely brilliantly too. So that normal start is the comfortable opening, the explanatory one potentially, the one that makes sense but doesn't necessarily make people lean in. That opening is what I lovingly call the cat, and today we're going to kill it with curiosity. Do you see what I did there? Okay, so version 1, the tactic we're going to play with here is called the contradiction. We're going to start with something that challenges what people think they know about your topic. Okay? And here's some examples of how this might be used in practice. Everything you've been told about confidence Is slightly wrong. This advice sounds helpful, but it's quietly destroying your results. You're not explaining the talk here. You're disrupting an assumption, a myth, something they believe about the problem or even the solution that they're currently using. And when you start to challenge those thoughts and create that curiosity gap and tension, they will start to lean in. Okay, so that's the contradiction— taking something they think they know and undermining it. Version 2, second tactic, is the cost. And here we're aiming to highlight the cost of staying the same. Sometimes I call this Scrooging your audience. You might hear it in another context called future pacing, but it's kind of like along those lines. So here's some examples for you. If you keep doing this, you'll stay busy but invisible. Next one. Most people never notice the moment they lose credibility. Powerful, aren't they? And I love these type of openings because they're a bit provocative, you know, they're what I call push. There's a little bit of push in there, so we've got to have the pull to get them back, which is what, you know, we've got to let them off the hook. After we've said something like this, we're going to say, and you're— if that's you, you're not alone, or, it's not your fault. So, just to bring them back to us. But when you start using the cost in your opening, your audience starts to feel the stakes at risk when you do that, and it creates tension, and that tension creates attention. Okay? So, that's the cost. So what is it that your audience is worried about? What do they want to avoid? You know, what's the, the thing they're moving away from? That's where we tap into the cost strategy. Okay, then we've got the 3rd tactic is called the incomplete story. And speaking of stories, I wanted to share this with you. If you're listening to this and thinking, well, Okay, but I am not actually sure which stories I should use in my talk, then that's exactly what I'm going to be working on in an upcoming training called Strategic Storytelling. I'm going to take you through which stories you need to choose, how to structure them so that they land, and then also how to craft them in a way that when you deliver them, you're absolutely bringing them alive. Because a great story doesn't just entertain an audience, it creates an emotional shift and a strategic one too. And if you'd like help with your strategic storytelling, finding the stories that actually move your audience, and getting better at using your stories to get people into action, then you can find details of that strategic storytelling training in the show notes. Right, back to the 3rd curiosity opening. So the 3rd way to create curiosity is to start mid-moment in a story. We want to drop the audience straight into the scene. Here's a couple of examples for you. The email just said, we need to talk. I realised halfway through the presentation that I'd misunderstood everything. Now the audience wants to know what happens next. Curiosity is pulling them into the talk, and this could be a great segue into the main big idea story of your talk. So what I want you to do is have a go at trying these out. Come up with a few different versions of each: the contradiction, the cost, the mid-story moment, and see how they feel to you. Then pick the one that you or the three that you like best, and then go and test them on some people to see which ones get them leaning in more, which ones intrigue the most, which ones. Make them want to hear more from you. And then you can pick that one and try it out next time you open that talk or that pitch or share that idea. Okay, so here's what I want you to— to leave you with. Don't open by explaining. Open by creating a question in the mind of your audience. One that is relevant to them and that gets them leaning in, paying attention to you, because your audience doesn't need your topic. They need a reason to care about your topic, and curiosity gives them one. Okay, that's it from me. I hope you found this quick tip episode useful. If you did and you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment, subscribe to the channel. If you're listening on On a podcast, uh, then you can leave a rating or review, and you can subscribe too. Um, that would be amazing. Uh, if there's not a place to do that, you can go to ratethispodcast.com/tsc, and you can leave, uh, your honest review and rating there. Thanks so much for listening to the show, watching the show. Uh, go and try those things. Let me know how you get on. I'm interested to see if they make a difference. I believe that they will. I believe you'll be getting a lot more audience engagement if you apply curiosity to the opening of your talk, and indeed, as you shift through your talk, you can use these to segue into the next section to keep your audience engaged. So good luck with that. In the meantime, before our next connection point, I want to say, don't forget to go out, grab your life by the nuts, and get cracking. Bye-bye!
It's a nightmare. You're an expert with so much to say, but now that you've been booked to speak, you're struggling to know exactly what to talk about. You want a talk that engages the audience and wins you new clients without you losing your personality or anyone feeling pitched to. But what happens when you sit down to create that talk is that you end up staring at a blank page for ages, or worse, surrounded by hundreds of sticky notes with content that you could include. With so much material, you just don't know where to start or finish. Don't worry, because many experts like you face exactly the same challenge, and that's That's why I created the Blank Page to Stage Guide. In just 50 minutes, this breakthrough resource is going to help you identify the big idea of your message, make it relatable for the audience that you're speaking to, and convey it all in a way that gets the audience inspired and on board with your idea.
And it works even if you have tons of material or your subject feels less than exciting.
If you want to cut through swathes of content and get a talk that you're excited to share, your audience loves, and wins you new clients, then grab your Blank Page to Stage guide from saraharcher.co.uk/newguide-tsc. Oh, I forgot to say, it's completely free. Enjoy!
