A short instructional video by TJ Walker advising presenters how to begin speeches. Walker argues presenters should open with something interesting and audience-focused (not routine introductions, credentials, or a preview) to hook listeners immediately and avoid losing them at the start.
Chapters
The hardest, hardest thing for so many business people, executives, consultants, authors, others to do when starting a speech is to actually start the speech. It just feels awkward. There's this moment when you're like, okay, today I'm going to talk about. And people just feel that they have to tell people what they're going to talk about. They have to say their name. They have to say, I'm happy to be here today. I have to tell you about my credentials so you take me seriously. And it turns out none of that is true. You don't have to start a speech with a story. You don't have to start a speech with a funny joke. But here's what I have found. Works every single time, and that is for you just to say something interesting to your audience that's about them. Human beings are different everywhere, but they're also the same. They care about themselves. So what I want you to do when you're starting your presentation and when you're planning the start of your presentation is imagine yourself getting down off the stage or from the front of the room, sitting down and being an audience member, just asking yourself, am I going to be shaking my head in the first 20 seconds saying, oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that. You need to be able to have a good answer to that question. Is this interesting? I didn't know that. If you do that, you're going to have the audience on your side from the very beginning. If you do the way most people do, the boring, perfunctory boilerplate stuff, you can still give a good presentation, but you have to worry about reeling them back in. You never have to hook them back in if you've never lost them in the first place. Start by saying something interesting to your audience the very first. Second, don't tell them what you're going to talk about. Don't tell them you're going to say something interesting. Don't tell them you're going to tell a story. Just talk to them and say something interesting. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. If you'd like more tips on how to present, present in a more persuasive way, how to use stories in your presentations, then I urge you, sign up for my upcoming webinar. There's no charge, but you do need to sign up in advance, so please scroll down and sign up now.
