Three Opening Strategies to Grab the Audience and Make Them Yours

You have 30 seconds to grab an audiences’ attention. The best way to open depends on who you are, what style you use, and the purpose of your presentation.

1. Use a Story: A story is a strong way to open a presentation if you can transition to the objective of your speech. A personal, well told story works best.

2. Use a Quote: If you’re talking about leadership you might want to start with, General Eisenhower said, “Leadership is the ability to decide what has to be done and then to get people to want to do it.”

3. Use an Interesting Statistic: Newt Gingrich had a great opening to a speech using a statistic that connected with the audience, “If you were born today, you would already owe $186,000 to pay off your share of the national debt." He also used the word you three times instead of the word I or me. Including your listeners in your speech is a way to captivate them.

Have you used any of these strategies to open a speech? Did they work?