12 Ways to Hook an Audience in 30 Seconds

When you advertise fire-extinguishers, open with the fire, says advertising executive David Ogilvy. You have only 30 seconds in a TV commercial to grab attention. The same applies to a presentation. The first 30 seconds of your talk is crucial. This is the time your listeners form an impression of you, and of whats to follow. Like a fine thoroughbred, you need to hit the ground running by starting strong. Instead, many presenters are more like old, tired workhorsesthey start weak by wasting those first precious seconds with platitudes and pleasantries. Brain research shows that we dont pay attention to boring things. Surprise your listeners with a hook that immediately grabs their attention. The key is to make sure that the hook is brief, well-rehearsed and pertinent to your topic. What follows is 12 hooks that will grab your audiences attentionand keep it. 1. Use a contrarian approach. Make a statement of a universally accepted concept, then go against conventional wisdom by contradicting the statement. For example, a market trader starts by contradicting the commonly held advice of buying low and selling high. He says: Its wrong. Why? Because buying low typically entails a stock thats going in the opposite direction downfrom the most desired directionup. This is a provocative opening that engages the audience right away. 2. Ask a series of rhetorical questions. A common way to engage the audience at the start is to ask a rhetorical question. Better still, start with a series of rhetorical questions. A good example of this tactic is Simon Sineks TED presentation. He starts with: How do you explain when things dont go as we assumed? Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions? For example, why is Apple so innovative? Why is it that they seem to have something different? Why is it that Martin Luther King led the civil rights movement? A series of rhetorical questions stimulate the audiences mind as they ponder the answers. 3. Deliver a compelling sound bite. Use a catchy phrase or sound bite that has pungency and watch how the audience perks up. Innovation expert Jeremy Gutshe opens his talk with: Culture eats strategy for breakfast. This is a sign that is on Fords strategy War Room. And the lesson from it is not how good your PowerPoint slide deck is, what it really boils down to at the end of the day is how ready and willing your organization is to embrace change, try new things and focus in when you find an opportunity. To be effective, the sound bite needs to be brief, interesting and compelling. 4. Make a startling assertion. A surefire way to gain peoples attention is by starting with a startling or amazing fact. Take the time to research startling statistics that illustrate the seriousness of what youre going to talk about. For example, a presentation about conservancy can start with: Every second, a slice of rainforest the size of a football field is mowed down. Thats over 31 million football fields of rainforest each year. 5. Provide a reference to a historical event. There are times when the day that you present may have some significance in history that can be tied to the subject of your presentation, as an opening gambit. You can easily look up what happened on any day in Today In Sport or a more general site such as This Day In History. You never know what pertinence it might have that will add some pizzazz to your presentation. Its worth a look.

6. Use the word imagine. The word imagine invites the audience to create a mental image of something. Ever since John Lennons famous song, it has become a powerful word with emotional appeal. A particularly skillful use of the word occurs in Jane Chens TED talk. She speaks about a low-cost incubator that can save many lives in underdeveloped countries. Chen opens by saying: Please close your eyes and open your hands. Now imagine what you could place in your hands, an apple, maybe your wallet. Now open your eyes. What about a life? As she says this, she displays a slide with an Anne Geddes image of a tiny baby held in an adults hands. There is power in asking the audience to conjure up their imagination, to play along. This tactic can easily be adapted to any topic where you want the audience to imagine a positive outcome, or a vision of a better tomorrow. It can be used, as well, to ask them to imagine being in someone elses shoes. 7. Add a little show business. According to research, 100 percent of Americans quote movies, primarily comedies, in conversation. One of the primary reasons is to entertain. Movies occupy a central place in most peoples lives and a well-placed, pertinent movie quote at the start of a presentation can perk up your audience. Here are a couple of examples: Theres not a lot of money in revenge (from The Princess Bride) and The first rule of leadership: everything is your fault (from A Bugs Life.) And here are a couple of sites for movie quotations to start you off: Best Business Quotes From The Silver Screen and The Best Business Wisdom Hidden In Classic Movie Quotes. 8. Arouse curiosity. You can start with a statement that is designed to arouse curiosity and make the audience look up and listen to you attentively. Bestselling author Dan Pink does this masterfully in one of his talks. He says: I need to make a confession, at the outset. A little over 20 years ago, I did something that I regret. Something that I am not particularly proud of, something that in many ways I wished no one would ever know, but that here I feel kind of obliged to reveal. In the late 1980s, in a moment of youthful indiscretion, I went to law school. Curiosity here leads to some self-deprecating humor, which makes it even more effective. 9. Use quotations differently. Many speakers start with an apt quotation, but you can differentiate yourself by stating the quotation and then adding a twist to it. For example, Weve all heard that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. But we need to remember that a journey to nowhere also starts with a single step. You can also use a quotation from your own life. For example, in a presentation on price versus quality, I have often used a quote from my grandfather, who used to say: I am not rich enough to buy cheap. There are innumerable sources for online quotations, but you might also consider The Yale Book of Quotations, an app that brings together over 13,000 quotes you can adapt to your purpose. 10. Quote a foreign proverb. There is a wealth of fresh material to be culled from foreign proverbs. Chances are your listeners have never heard them so they have novelty appeal. Here are some examples: Our last garment is made without pockets (Italy); Youll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind (Ireland); The nail that sticks up will be hammered down (Japan), and Paper cant wrap up a fire (China). Here is a site for foreign proverbs. 11. Take them through a what if scenario. A compelling way to start your presentation is with a what if scenario. For example, asking What if you were debt-free? at the start of a money management presentation might grab your listeners attention as it asks them to look forward to a positive future. It can intensify their desire for your product or service. Using a what if scenario as an opening gambit is easily adaptable to almost any presentation.

12. Tell them a story. Stories are one of the most powerful ways to start a presentation. Nothing will compel listeners to lean in more than a well-told story. Science tells us that our brains are hardwired for storytelling. But the story needs to be brief, with just the right amount of detail to bring it to life. It must be authentic and must have a message, or lesson, to support your viewpoint. Above all, it must be kind. As Benjamin Disraeli said: Never tell an unkind story.

11 Easy Ways to Finally Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking

How successful we are at selling ourselves, our products and our services depends on our ability to stand up and be heard. What often prevents us from telling our story successfully is not our inability to articulate what we do, or how strongly we believe in the value of what we offer. Instead, it is simply the fear of speaking in front of an audience. Being nervous while presenting can put a dint in your credibility and have an adverse effect on achieving your business goals. To manage the fear of speaking in public, you need to first understand the root cause of the fear. One of the best explanations comes from Scott Berkun, in Confessions of a Public Speaker. The design of the brains wiringgiven its long operational history, hundreds of thousands years older than the history of public speaking makes it impossible to stop fearing what it knows is the worst tactical position for a person to be in, Berkun says. That worst tactical position is standing alone, in an open place, with no place to hide, without a weapon, facing a large group of creatures staring at you. As Berkun puts it, being in this situation meant the odds were high that you would soon be attacked and eaten alive Our ancestors, the ones who survived, developed a fear response to these situations. Understanding that our brain cant tell the difference between a real threat (a pack of wolves about to attack you) and an imagined threat (a group of your peers watching you present) is the first step to overcoming the fear. This awareness can help you manage the false alarm that happens in the absence of real danger. How so? As you feel your heart racing when you first start your presentation, you can consciously and deliberately interrupt the fear response with a quick deep breath and a rational thought, This is just a false alarm. The more you get into the habit of interrupting the fear response as soon as you feel it happening, the quicker youll prevent it from being your default response every time you present in front of a group. You must ingrain in your mind the thought that the fear of public speaking is simply a misfiring of the caveman fight or flight fear response, and that you can overcome this. Here are 11 practical tips to help you manage performance anxiety so you can focus on your key messages: 1. Reframe the questions you ask yourself. When you worry before a high-stakes presentation, you may have a tendency to ask yourself negative questions, such as What will happen if I forget my material? or What if I mess up? This form of self-talk is like throwing gasoline in a room on fire. All it does is heighten your anxiety. Replace these negative questions with positive ones. Take an inspiration from Seymour Signet, a specialist in helping people overcome public speaking anxiety. He advises to ask yourself: What will happen if I knock it out of the park? You can view more of Seymours tips in his video Ask Yourself Good Questions. Give this a try; it will calm the noise in your head. 2. Practice as if youre the worst. When you know your material well, theres a tendency to get sloppy when practicing a speech: You might flip through the slides, mentally thinking about what

you are going to say, without actually rehearsing out loud exactly what you plan to say. This results in a presentation thats not as sharp as it could be and might cause you to be nervous once you have 100 pairs of eyes staring at you. You can also forget some important sub-points and key soundbites. 3. Avoid this by practicing out loud and verbalizing your complete presentation. For a high-stakes presentation, do this at least five times, at spaced intervals, to encode your material in long-term memory. Its also crucial that you practice your transitionsthe words that link one idea in your presentation to the next. These are easy to forget if you dont practice them and you end up with a staccato presentation. Transitions are the silken thread that guides your listeners through your story. Some examples: Now that we have established ; This leads us to ; My next item is particularly crucial 4. Memorize the sequence of your slides. Knowing the sequence of your slides so you can anticipate and announce a slide makes you look in control. Nothing erodes your credibility faster than having to look at a slide to know what you have to say next. Being perceived as credible boosts your confidence and reduces your anxiety and the fear of failing. 5. Create a backup slide for some answers. One reason people often experience anxiety before a presentation is the fear that theyll be asked questions that might be difficult to answer. Dont get caught off guard. Think carefully of what potential questions might arise and rehearse your best answers. Go one step further by creating slides for some potential questions about complex issues. You can include in your slide important information, numbers, stats or even a pertinent graph or pie chart that would be helpful to the audience. If such a question arises, its quite okay to say, I anticipated that you might be asking this question. Let me display a slide that will clearly show 6. Visualize your presentation. A study at Harvard University showed the value of visualization in developing a skill: Two groups of volunteers were presented with a piece of unfamiliar piano music. One group was given a keyboard and told to practice. The other group was instructed to just read the music and imagine playing it. When their brain activity was examined, both groups showed expansion in the motor cortex, even though the second group had never touched a keyboard. Visualization is a powerful mental rehearsal tool that peak sports performers use regularly. Einstein, whos credited with saying that imagination is more important than knowledge, used visualization throughout his entire life. Take advantage of this tool and visualize yourself successfully delivering your presentation. Concentrate on all the positives of your presentation, and visualize the talk, in detail, from your introduction to your conclusion. 7. Stop seeing your presentation as a performance. Instead, as Jerry Weissman puts it, treat every presentation as a series of person-to-person conversations. The more you remind yourself of this, the more you can shift your focus away from the fear-inducing thought that you are required to perform. 8. Take some deep breaths. This simple advice cannot be emphasized enough. When youre nervous, you breathe rapidly and shallowly. This is telegraphing to the audience that youre not confident. Slow and measured breathing is a sign that youre in control. Before you go to the front of the room, concentrate on taking a few, slow breaths. Repeat this a few times. When you start to speak, remember to pause and breathe after you make a point. Psychiatrist Fritz Perls said it powerfully: Fear is excitement without the breath.

9. Try power posing before the presentation. Harvard Business School Professor Amy Cuddy discovered that simply holding our body in an expansive pose for as little as two minutes results in a higher level of testosterone in our body. Testosterone is the hormone linked to power in both animals and humans. At the same time, the expansive pose lowers our level of cortisol, the stress hormone. In her TED video presentation, Cuddy shows a number of expansive poses, such as spreading your legs, placing your hands on your hips, or striking the CEO pose: legs resting on desk, and arms behind your head. You can apply this advice before a presentation to lower your stress level and give yourself a boost. Instead of hunching over your notes or BlackBerry, find a spot where you can have some privacy and adopt an expansive pose: Make yourself as big as you can by stretching your arms out and spreading your legs, or stand on your tiptoes with your hands in the air. 10. Pause frequently. In The Kings Speech, a movie about the true story of King George VI, one of the successful strategies the speech therapist uses to help the king overcome his stuttering is the use of pauses. Pausing helped the king regain his composure whenever he was gripped by anxiety. When you feel anxious while presenting, consider pausing more frequently. A few strategic pauses between points have a calming effect. 11. Come to terms with audience expressions. Your anxiety level is increased when you misinterpret the audiences facial expression. In normal conversation, were accustomed to getting feedback from the listenera nod or a smile here and there that signal approval. But when we present, audiences listen differently. Theyre more likely to give the speaker a blank stare, which doesnt mean they dont like what they hear; more often than not, it simply means theyre concentrating on the message. This is especially true of audience members who are introverted. You can get more tips for managing presentation anxiety in my book, Presenting with Credibility: Practical Tools and Techniques For Effective Presentations. Theres a Japanese proverb that says, Fear is only as deep as the mind allows. Put your mind on developing your key company messages and crafting your story. Replace time expended on worrying with time spent on preparing thoroughly for your presentation, by knowing your material cold, and practicing it beyond the point of pain. Then go out there and win them over. http://www.openforum.com/articles/hook-presentation-audience-30-seconds/?intlink=us-openfnav-mostpopular