{"id":3552,"date":"2023-07-04T12:53:42","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T12:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/?p=3552"},"modified":"2023-07-04T12:53:42","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T12:53:42","slug":"ditch-the-boring-introductions-start-with-a-bang-%f0%9f%92%a5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/ditch-the-boring-introductions-start-with-a-bang-%f0%9f%92%a5\/","title":{"rendered":"Ditch the Boring Introductions: Start with a Bang \ud83d\udca5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey Reader,<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

It was supposed to be a simple task:<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

Start my presentation without telling the audience who I am.<\/p>\n

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I don’t NEED to start with the words ‘thanks for inviting me’ or by explaining how happy I am to be here.<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

It shouldn’t be hard.<\/p>\n

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I’ve watched hundreds of TED talks and I know what a captivating start to a presentation looks like.<\/p>\n

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I must grab their attention.<\/p>\n

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I must make them like me at the beginning.<\/p>\n

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But I’ve never done it before.<\/p>\n

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I’ve never launched right into the presentation.<\/p>\n

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I’ve always started with a thank you, or a summary of who I am.<\/p>\n

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The audience needs to know I’ve got the expertise to talk about my topic. If I don’t do this, they won’t trust me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Right?<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

Wrong!<\/p>\n

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The best presentations start with a bang.<\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

But I’ve always had a title slide. And years of medical school, and hospital teaching taught me that’s where you begin.<\/p>\n

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I kid you not, for YEARS I couldn’t help myself.<\/p>\n

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And I know that 90% of the people I coach for their presentations have the same problem.<\/p>\n

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People are horrified at the idea of NOT INTRODUCING THEMSELVES to the audience.<\/p>\n

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But if you start your presentation with impact then your audience is more like to pay attention.<\/p>\n

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Here are 5 simple ways to start your presentation:<\/p>\n

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    \n
  • A joke<\/li>\n
  • A story<\/li>\n
  • A quote<\/li>\n
  • A statistic<\/li>\n
  • A question for them to ask themselves
    \n\u200b<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    And don’t take my word for it, here are 3 of the opening lines from the most popular TED talks.<\/p>\n

    \u200b<\/p>\n

    \n

    “The human voice. It’s the instrument we all play. It’s the most powerful sound in the world.”<\/strong>
    \n\u200b<\/p>\n

    “I wanna start by offering you a free, no-tech life hack. And all it requires of you is this: that you change your posture for 2 minutes.”<\/strong>
    \n\u200b<\/p>\n

    “I would like to start with testicles. Men who sleep 5 hours at night have significantly smaller testicles than men who sleep 7 hours or more.”<\/strong>
    \n\u200b<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    None of them start by explaining who they are.<\/p>\n

    \u200b<\/p>\n

    And here’s the truth about your audience.<\/p>\n

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    They don’t care who you are.<\/p>\n

    \u200b<\/p>\n

    They care about what you can do for them.<\/p>\n

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    And if they really care about who you are…<\/p>\n

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    …they can read the freaking program.<\/p>\n

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    Or Google you.<\/p>\n

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    Don’t waste precious stage time by taking them through your CV.<\/p>\n

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    When you do this, 60% of them will be checking their emails by the time you get going.<\/p>\n

    \u200b<\/p>\n

    And it’s the most common problem I see with people I coach.<\/p>\n

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    You see, we are nervous.<\/p>\n

    \u200b<\/p>\n

    We want to prove our expertise to the audience.<\/p>\n

    \u200b<\/p>\n

    We want to share:<\/p>\n

    \u200b<\/p>\n

      \n
    • where we work<\/li>\n
    • what qualifications we have<\/li>\n
    • and how happy we are to have been invited to speak.
      \n\u200b<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      But here’s the thing.<\/p>\n

      \u200b<\/p>\n

      The best way to get your audience’s attention from the beginning?<\/p>\n

      \u200b<\/p>\n

      Ditch all of that.<\/p>\n

      \u200b<\/p>\n

      Get stuck in right away.<\/p>\n

      \u200b<\/p>\n

      It took me years to learn this lesson.<\/p>\n<\/div>

      <\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Start my presentation without telling the audience who I am. I don’t NEED to start with the words ‘thanks for inviting me’ or by explaining how happy I am to be here. It shouldn’t be hard. I’ve watched hundreds of TED talks and I know what a captivating start to a presentation looks like. I must grab their attention. I must make them like me at the beginning. But I’ve never done it before. I’ve never launched right into the presentation. I’ve always started with a thank you, or a summary of who I am…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3552"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3561,"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3552\/revisions\/3561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tessardavis.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}