How do I start? It’s one of the most frequent questions I get as a presentation coach. But introductions don’t have to be some kind of strange enigma. First of all, there is no one right way to begin a presentation. So start by acknowledging that you’ve got some freedom for what happens in your introduction.
Beyond that, use these four tips to help you avoid some of the most common pitfalls for presentation intros.
1. Begin When You Begin
Some speakers will plan a truly fantastic introduction only to spoil it with added comments when they first stand up to speak. They might say something like “before I begin today” or “I want to say a few things before I get started.” I always remind speakers that there is no such thing as “before I begin.” You begin the moment you start speaking whether you say what you intended to or not. So avoid those extra statements that can take away from the initial impact of your introduction.
While it can be tempting to warm up slowly, there is a new trend in introductions called a jump start. It feels like your presentation starts almost mid-story or mid-sentence. It’s a fast-paced way to get the audience excited and engaged quickly. We wrote about this new trend recently, check out our blog on how to jump start your presentations.
2. Use Only One List
One element of introductions that is nearly universal is the preview of main points. I like to call it the verbal map. Colorado State University gives some good examples of preview statements here. A preview is when the speaker tells the audience where he or she will be going during the presentation. It’s valuable because it helps the audience to feel like they have some sense of control over the situation because they know where they are heading. It also lays out the speaker’s organization, making it easier to follow. And it highlights what is most important. And while different speakers have different styles of introductions, the preview of main points appears in some form in nearly all presentations.
Because of that, audience members have been conditioned to listen for a list of main points early on in the presentation. Knowing this, speakers need to be careful to limit the number of lists they use in the introduction. Anything that comes in a series or sequence can feel like the preview of main points. And if it’s not, things get confusing.
3. Get Specific
Specificity is one of the greatest tools speakers have. And yet, we tend to think it’s best to stay “zoomed out” and general in the introduction. Even though a wide view of our issue or product or topic might help the listeners gain context, it won’t typically help them experience the message on a more personal or emotional level. But the use of a specific story or example or statistic will. As Dr. Shahram Heshmat says in Psychology Today, “Emotional intensity acts to narrow the scope of attention . . . and affects all phases of memory formation.” So use specifics to help set a mood and tone for your information. And hook your audience right from the start with specifics.
4. Set Up Key Terms
One of the most difficult things for speakers to learn is how to move from the world of written language to the world of spoken language. In writing, we like to make our main points creative. And to avoid being too repetitive, we have been taught to change them up every time, using synonyms for our key terms.
However, in the oral presentation of words, it’s crucial that our main terms stay the same every time we mention them. That’s because those specific terms become sound cues that our listeners latch on to in the introduction. Those terms are quite literally what your audience is listening for as they follow the presentation. So set them up clearly in the intro, and keep them consistent throughout.
Introductions don’t have to be scary. But they do have to be impactful if you want to capture your audience’s attention from the get-go. So remember to begin when you begin, avoid extra lists, get specific, and set up strong key terms in the first moments of your presentation.
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