How to Start a Speech

• 00:04 So what's the perfect way to start a speech or a presentation?
• 00:08 Should it with be a joke?
• 00:10 An icebreaker?
• 00:12 What's the best way to really start.
• 00:14 Well, there's no one best way.
• 00:16 I can tell you the worst way and it's unfortunately the way
• 00:20 most people start most business presentations everywhere.
• 00:25 Good morning, my name is this, my title is this.
• 00:29 Today, I'm here to talk to you about X, Y, Z.
• 00:31 I'm happy to be here today.
• 00:33 Before we start,
• 00:34 let me tell you about the boring history of my company that you don't care about.
• 00:38 That's how most people start presentations.
• 00:42 It's entirely predictable, everyone is tuned out,
• 00:46 the speaker isn't really focused on the audience.
• 00:50 So what's the audience is doing?
• 00:52 Well, they're no dummies.
• 00:53 They're checking out their email, that's what they're doing.
• 00:58 So as long as you don't do that,
• 01:00 you're probably gonna be the best speaker most people have heard all day long.
• 01:06 If you're really good at telling jokes and it seems legitimate and authentic, fine.
• 01:12 If you wanna use an icebreaker and it seems like it really fits.
• 01:17 I mean, if you're at a chamber of commerce networking event and
• 01:21 you're the organizer, it's perfectly fine to ask people to stand up and
• 01:26 introduce themselves to their neighbors, but be careful.
• 01:30 If it's done at a big convention and
• 01:32 people have come to get your expertise, it can seem cheesy, contrived and
• 01:37 manipulative to start asking people to talk to total stranger.
• 01:41 So you've got to be careful about that form of an icebreaker.
• 01:46 If you're gonna use humor, don't read something from an old joke book that
• 01:50 you got from a library that's a 50 year old joke.
• 01:53 Make sure it's authentic and legitimate and
• 01:57 that it's real and not just something generic.
• 02:01 The easiest way to start off any presentation is to launch right
• 02:06 into a story that relates to your main point that's interesting to your audience.
• 02:14 The other best way of starting a presentation is by instantly
• 02:19 saying something interesting to your audience that relates to them.
• 02:25 So when I'm giving a speech on public speaking.
• 02:28 The way I start is this, so why are we here?
• 02:33 Jim you mentioned that you're comfortable in small audiences, but
• 02:36 you get a little nervous when you're speaking to a large audience.
• 02:39 Well, I'm gonna give you some tips on how to deal with that.
• 02:43 And Brenda, you mention that you actually see your hands shake and
• 02:47 you're not sure what to do with your hands when you're giving your presentation.
• 02:51 Well, I'm gonna give you some tips, so
• 02:53 that no one will ever see your hands shake.
• 02:55 Now how do I start a speech that way?
• 02:58 I get there five minutes early and I talk to people and
• 03:02 I simply ask them, what their biggest concerns are?
• 03:07 I'm then able to incorporate those little snippets of conversation
• 03:11 into my presentation.
• 03:13 The result is Brenda and Jim are really paying attention, cuz it's about
• 03:18 them plus everyone else I introduced myself to before the presentation.
• 03:23 They're paying attention, cuz they're thinking, oh, he talked to me too.
• 03:26 Maybe he's gonna mention my name.
• 03:28 So I'm mentioning their names, I'm mentioning their concerns and
• 03:32 I'm talking about how I can help them based on what they said.
• 03:36 That makes the whole speech more interesting.
• 03:38 It makes it fresh and it seems the opposite of the contrive, phony,
• 03:44 reading, a canned speech that somebody else wrote six months ago.
• 03:50 So try those techniques, but the biggest principle you really
• 03:55 need to focus on is say something interesting to your audience.
• 04:00 Today, I'm going to talk about is not interesting.
• 04:05 My name is this, my ti, not interested.
• 04:11 There are gonna be seven key themes in my, not interesting.
• 04:14 Say one thing of interest to your audience, hook them in.
• 04:19 That way, you don't have to reel them back in after losing them.
• 04:23 So focus on starting with something interesting for your audience.

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