Introduction

Get Them at ‘Hello’

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The first few minutes of any presentation are most important minutes. Start strong, powerfully, engaging and immediately so you don’t blow your intro. And never start with a joke unless you were hired as an entertainer and the only goal is to be humorous. Jokes rarely work in typical workplace presentations.

What does work is thorough planning and careful crafting of your opening comments. Introductions should generally be 10 % of the running length – or less – and accomplish a lot of important tasks:

  • Engage the audience immediately with a question, fact, stat, quote, etc. Stories work, but they have to be very short and connect directly to the message … and most aren’t.

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Get Them At Hello! (3/17)

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We all learned about the three parts of a speech in high school: the introduction, body and conclusion. You remember … ‘Tell ‘em what you’re gonna say … say it … and tell ‘em what you said.’  Nothing new here.

Each of these three components is important for different reasons, but your Power Intro plays a critical role in the success of your presentation and accomplishing your intended outcomes. On average, it’s less than 10% of your total presentation time. So, with a 30-minute presentation, your intro is three minutes … or less.

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