PlusPlus. Florian Mueck
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me, the same thing applies to public speaking. When you speak in public, when you present your product, when you give a eulogy, when you make a pitch for funding for your start-up company, when you give a best man’s speech — always think about how you have 1.3 to 1.7 seconds to capture the attention of your audience.
With this in mind, here are five ways to start your next speech or presentation:
QUOTATION
A quotation from an admired personality is a safe way to start a speech.
I recommend quotations that express the central, key message of your speech. Imagine a speech to a group of employees: perseverance might be the key to your message. Use Google, search for “quotation” and “perseverance”, and you’ll find a vast variety of useful quotations.
You could start a speech by saying,
Albert Einstein once said...
Pause! Let them picture the guy with the crazy white hair-do.
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer." — I want us to stay with our problems longer than any competitor, I want us to stay with our problems longer than any analyst expects from us, I want us to stay with our problems longer than any solution would ever require.
A neat side effect of starting with a quotation is that it awards you borrowed credibility and intellect right from the start.
POLEMIC
Our sector will drown...
This is a miserable situation...
Starting your speech with a polemic has an immediate impact, and will grab an audience’s attention. I call it the WHAT? effect.
Hello, my name is Florian... — That lady in the back thinks, Yeah, whatever!
Our sector will drown... — Your audience thinks, WHAT?
Polemic openings are great; however, it’s important to make sure you resolve them in a positive way — but only after a long, dramatic pause.
Our sector will drown... Pause! ... in a sea of success!
This is a miserable situation... Pause! ... for pessimists. Again we outpaced our competition!
Polemics are great attention-getters.
ONE WORD
Does your speech have a message? It had better. Without a message you have no speech; you have nothing to present. Now — you can reduce any message in the world to one word.
Take the Albert Einstein example from above: Perseverance.
Personally, I love the one-word start because of its radical simplicity. Once expressed with dignity and intonation, your portentous word hums in the room, and everyone in your audience knows, after just 1.3 seconds, what your presentation will be about.
A participant in one of my seminars once started his speech by saying,
Divorce....
An uncanny silence blanketed the room; we all felt smothered by a blanket of negativity. It didn’t even take him 1.3 seconds to capture our fullest attention.
QUESTION
Rhetorical or not, questions are always a great tool for getting your audience to listen to what you are about to say.
Have any of you guys ever been to Barcelona?
What would you picture in your mind if you heard this question? Isn’t it hard not to picture the Sagrada Familia, F.C. Barcelona, or the beautiful sandy beaches? Even those who have never been will search their memories for anything they might have heard about Barcelona — Gaudí, perhaps, or the 1992 Olympics.
Whether we verbalize an answer or not, we will always be alert to questions. Questions make us think. Always remember, a thinking audience is a good audience — unless you’re a politician!
PERSONAL ANECDOTE
Sharing a personal anecdote at the beginning of your speech that shows why you’re passionate about your cause will automatically increase the level of your ethos, the credibility you convey as a speaker.
Imagine you want to persuade your audience to become entrepreneurs. You could start your speech by saying:
The room was always full. I remember that our classrooms at university were always overcrowded — but not because of me! I would be sitting at home, in the students’ residence, launching my first entrepreneurial adventures, together with my friend Dennis.
I may not be Michael Dell; I’m certainly not Bill Gates. But I tried; therefore, I do have the credibility to talk about entrepreneurship.
When you start your speech or presentation with a story or anecdote that boosts the level of your personal ethos, step by step you wade more deeply into the waters of persuasiveness.
Boost your content by taking an unbreakable hold upon your audience’s attention; begin your speech with a quotation, a polemic, a single portentous word, a question, or a personal anecdote.
WELCOME AND THANKS
But I can’t start my speech with one of those five patterns. I have to welcome the dignitaries and authorities and thank the organizers first.
I hear this all the time. Yes, some events and occasions require a welcome, and thanking certain people and institutions. But my question is:
Have you ever tried to do it differently?
Only dead fish swim with the flow. I don’t want to be a dead fish. I want to capture the full attention of every last seat in my audience in the first 1.3 to 1.7 seconds.
Imagine these opening words:
Dear Mr. President, dear Madam President, honored Dean and Professors, honored guests and friends of this institution....
Would words like these ever capture an audience’s full attention? Ever?
Instead, by this time the last three rows have already fallen asleep.
You can do better. You can change the order of things. You can welcome the dignitaries and thank the organizers after your opening lines.
Example: a “Commencement address”
It was a rainy November evening 18 years ago. A new chapter of my life was about to begin. 1,000 anxious eyes gathered in this very same room; mine were among them. Doubt and anticipation met and mingled. What would my future bring? What would it look like? Would I become the CEO of Siemens? Would I start my own venture? My future was draped in fog, but now my present is clearly in my sight. What made the fog disappear?
Dear Mr. President, dear Madam President, honored Dean and Professors, honored guests and friends of this institution.
There are no rules in public speaking. You make the rules. You can change the expected order of things to increase the impact of your speech. No one is going to come up to you at the cocktail party later and say,
You didn’t follow protocol!
(And if someone does, just smile, chuckle indulgently, and turn away.)
Boost your content even more by grabbing the audience’s attention straightaway, and then doing the welcoming and thanking.
WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?
Have you ever attended a talk by a speaker who just talks and talks and talks, but you haven’t a clue about where the whole thing is going?
It’s