15 WAYS TO START A SPEECH

“The Quality of your communication determines the quality of your life”

The way we start our speech is extremely important as they say

“First impressions are lasting; you never get a second chance to create a good first impression"

Why start the speech with the same old boring “GOOD MORNING/ GOOD AFTERNOON”? When you can kill your speech in unique ways, then the rest of your colleagues.

Here are the 15 different ways to start a speech.

 

 

                                                                                     

INDEX 1.      Anecdote or story 2.      Quotation 3.      Compliment your audience 4.      Facts 5.      Make them to do an activity 6.      Ask a question 7.      Long pause 8.      Start with a prop 9.      Speak about yourself 10.   Latest news 11.   Visualize 12.   Start with a joke 13.   Start with a static 14.   Share an incident 15.   Narrate about a well-known person 16.  Bonus points 17.  Conclusion

 

1.     ANECDOTE OR STORY

Since our childhood we are always fascinated by the stories, we had stories in our curriculum, we had bedtime stories, granny stories and many more. It’s interesting that no matter the age we still love to listen to stories.

Start a speech with an anecdote or story which would relate to the topic you are speaking with. Once you start your story, you get the attention of your audience, if the story is good the audience will listen to your speech with the same interest as your story.

 

2.     QUOTATION

Did you notice that I started this blog with a blog? Quotation makes a powerful impact on the speeches and some quotations make your audience think of the importance of the speech you are about to talk about. If you know some of the quotations then you have an upper hand to make your speech even more presentable and interesting 

For this you all have to remember a lot of quotations, which looks hard but remembering one quote per day shouldn’t be a hassle.

 

“You make the world a better place by making daily improvements to become the best version of yourself.”
― Roy T. Bennett

 

3.  COMPLIMENT YOUR AUDIENCE

Complimenting your audience is one the best way you can win them. They say to keep yourself in the shoes of the audience but try to keep yourself in the soul of the audience. No matter how old we grow we still love to get compliments.

Thank your audience for showing up to your speech, thank them for listening to you, compliment your audience whenever you get a chance to, because people love to be recognized.

4.  FACTS

Facts are a way of showing your audience that you have prepared for your speech in the best way possible because facts give the exact data about the topic you're speaking.

Facts help to grab the attention of your audience as those are verified data. Here is an example of how you can use facts to start a speech for the topic of hunger.

“Almost 1 in every 15 children in developing countries dies before the age of 5, most of them from hunger-related causes.”

Make sure the facts you speak are verified and try not to make up the facts as it can backfire and ruin your presentation.

5. MAKE THEM TO DO AN ACTIVITY

What’s the purpose of giving a speech when your audience is half awake? Make your audience do a simple activity so that they become more active and listen to you with keen interest and also help to remember your speech for a long time.

So what kind of activity can you can make your audience to do?

The simplest activity you can make them do is to clap.

 

“What we hear, we forget, what we see, we remember and what we do, we learn”

 

6. ASK THEM A QUESTION

Immediately you go on the stage ask a question, because when you ask a question your audience starts thinking. The more you get engaged with the audience the better they remember your speech and also the speaker.

Frame a question in such a way that the answer is simple to answer and the majority of the audience can answer it without thinking much.

For example, if you are giving a speech about entrepreneurship, here is a question you can ask. ” How many of you want to be an entrepreneur?”

 The question may look too simple but it gives the audience a mindset that why they are present to listen to your speech.

7. LONG PAUSE

When you usually go onto the stage people expect us to start the speech right away like all the other speaker, but you're doing the exact opposite of what people were expecting it surprises them when you give a long pause (for about 10-15 seconds) people will start thinking about what’s going to come next? And it also makes sure that everybody in the room is ready to listen to your speech.

8.  START WITH A PROP

Prop is a something which you take along with you. If you are looking for a different way to start a speech then carry a prop which is based on the topic you are speaking about, make a small statement regarding the prop so that it would grab the attention of the audience better than you actually say them to imagine about the thing.

For example, the topic which you are about to speak is about plastic waste, take a plastic water bottle and start your speech by saying

“On an average 1 million plastic bottles are bought and thrown away the next minute throughout the world.  Our small acts can change make a big difference, it all starts from us ”

This will trigger people's minds that it's a serious issue and will have a powerful impact on your speech.

9.  SPEAK ABOUT YOURSELF

It should have been the obvious thing to all of us that we should speak about ourselves when we start a speech, but there is a catch to it. When we usually speak about ourselves we tend to hide the negative aspects of our life, the laziness we had, the ugly faces we had, we never want people to know about that part of our life, that's a great mistake we do when we speak about ourselves.

When you speak about yourself make sure you are being honest and also include the negative aspects of your life so that your audience can relate to you, they get a feeling that the person who is speaking is no genius but a normal person like themselves when they can relate to themselves, they want to hear more from you on how you became what you are, and also the presentation you’re about to give to them.

10. LATEST NEWS

Reading news is the most common habit practised around the world, people tend to get updated with the surroundings. When you start your speech with news, it rings a bell in the people's mind that they read or heard about this news somewhere and this again helps you to connect with the audience.

Make sure the news is from a genuine source and not a rumour and also the news you are saying should relate to the speech you are giving.

11. VISUALIZE

Visualization is the superpower of the human brains, greatest invention started from the imagination, now how would it help us to start giving a speech?

Ask your audience to close their eyes and visualize on the topic you are about to give the presentation on or about to speak. Once you start giving the presentation you will realize that the audience is excited about the topic you are speaking about as they have seen it in their minds.

For example, suppose the topic is India as a developed country

Now all you have to do is to ask your audience to visualize about India being developed. People will have a different mindset and of course have their own imagination and once you start giving your speech they try to find if the things you are mentioning were in their imagination and tend to connect to you easily.

12. START WITH A JOKE

Who doesn’t love to hear a joke? Everybody does, why not start by making your audience smile then? Joke is another way to pull your audience and make you listen to you. Make sure you don’t make a joke on religious or political issues, because we never know the mindset of the audience.

13. SHARE A STATISTIC

Statistic is a data you share with the audience about the topic you are speaking with. Again it gives the idea for the audience that the person standing in front of them has done his homework and knows what he is talking about.

For example, you want to speak about forest conservation and wants to start by giving the numbers here is how you can do it

India has recorded a one per cent jump (8,021 square km) in overall forest and tree cover between 2015 and 2017 despite population and livestock pressures. This happened just by the efforts of the government and the people of this nation.

14. SHARE AN INCIDENT

Sharing an incident is the easiest way to connect to the people because you don't have to search for words or don't have surf the internet as you have experienced it and lived through it. If you get a chance of sharing an incident that is related to the topic of your speech. Don't miss such opportunities thinking that you will be embarrassed by saying such things. Believe me it does the opposite of what you're thinking.

Let’s say you are speaking about kid’s development and you have an embarrassing incident where your school teacher bullied you for not reaching their expectations. Share such incidents and explain to the audience how it affected your growth as a kid and what and all you had to go throw to overcome to be the person you are.

 

15. NARRATE ABOUT A WELL KNOWN PERSON

By now you might have ideas flowing through your mind about this way of starting a speech. Yes, you can start narrating about a role model who has given a lot in that sector which you're about to speak, people will know the importance of the topic you are speaking and also what are new ideas and developments has been made in that sector which makes the audiences surprise.

An important note to be taken when you choose to speak about a well-known person is that the person you are speaking should not be in any controversies if not it will give the negative effect of what you had thought. Make sure you choose the right person to speak about.

BONUS POINT

These are the points which you should take care of before you start a speech.

·         Drink 450mL of water before you start a speech. Keep yourself hydrated so that you can feel relaxed.

·         Reach the place of speaking 15minutes prior so that you get to stand and feel the stage before you actually go and give your speech.

·         Take a water bottle with you while going to the stage, in case if you feel like you are forgetting something just pick the water bottle and take a sip or two which should be enough time to think about the points and the audience will never feel like you forgot your speech.

CONCLUSION

I hope it helped you and you were able to find the answer you were looking for. It's not about how different ways you know to start a speech it's all about implementation, try to implement each kind of technique. It gives you a large number of options and you will learn to control the audience once you master all the ways to start the speech.