How Do I Keep People Listening When Delivering A Speech?
How many times have you been at a presentation and within a few minutes you’ve already stopped listening? You’re suddenly thinking about lunch, some shopping left in your online cart, an upcoming deadline and oh wait, what were they saying?
Eek!
As speakers, we need to be prepared for the fact that people, especially in this modern world of distractions, are prone to drifting off.
Therefore, we absolutely need to have a strategy to keep people engaged.
One fantastic and simple method to combat this listening crisis, is to start your presentation with a hook. A hook is something that catches your audience’s attention right from the start and makes them lean in and want to hear more.
So let’s explore 5 options you have in terms of hooks.
- A story – share a personal experience that helps your audience relate to you.
- A quote – inspire or intrigue your audience with a meaningful or clever quote.
- A question – directly address your audience with a rhetorical question to get them thinking or potentially stimulate interaction.
- A surprising statement – this is a great tactic for reversing peoples expectations and tapping into their curiousity.
- A shocking statistic – find statistics that are dramatic or facts that directly impact your audience to draw them in or boggle their mind.
When was the last time you used one of the above hooks?
