Your Guide to Public Speaking by Amanda Hennessey

Author:Amanda Hennessey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Adams Media
Published: 2019-12-15T14:43:26.457050+00:00

Begin Strongly—Unique Beginnings

In Chapter 1 you learned that public speaking is not about you. This feels truer when you engage with the audience by asking them to consider a question or statement. Your compelling question or bold sentence needs to be relevant to your topic. It’s great if it can cut right to the problem or cause you are trying to get your audience to care about. If you first win their hearts and open their minds, their actions and investments will potentially follow.

Open Boldly

“Pit bulls make great pets.”

That sentence got your attention, right? How about this question:

“What animal is living freely in the big city of Mumbai, India, potentially saving the city money and protecting the citizens?” (Answer: leopards!)

When you start your presentation with a sentence or question that is strong, unique, and attention-getting, you wake up your audience and make them curious to hear more. Many clients have told me that the first few minutes of a presentation are the worst for them. That’s when their heart is racing, their hands are shaking, and they are scared they will go blank. Once they get through the first few minutes, they settle down.

Beginning with a powerful statement or compelling question has the potential to immediately establish rapport with your audience. It also puts the focus on them.

“Who in this room likes feeling nervous?”

This is often how I begin my workshops. I usually hear some nervous laughter; a few folks say, “Yeah, right.” One or two brave souls sometimes raise their hands and share that they like the rush of adrenaline and thrive on the challenge of getting out of their comfort zone. This interaction leads to a great discussion about when folks are able to embrace nervous energy (when on roller coasters or when doing intense sports, like skydiving) and when it feels too difficult (when public speaking, when public speaking, and, oh, when public speaking). My question wakes people up, gets them thinking and talking, and begins the lesson.

To avoid opening an overflowing can of worms, don’t ask open-ended questions. “What is the meaning of life?” is a wonderful, profound question, but it could derail your talk. It’s better to go with a question that has a yes-or-no answer, or a multiple-choice question with answers that you provide. The audience can respond by raising their hands at your prompting.

Say you are a shark conservationist; the following questions could help get an audience thinking:

“How many humans do sharks kill per year? (pause)

“With a show of hands, how many people think that on a yearly basis sharks kill fifty people? One hundred? Three hundred?

“The answer? Sharks kill approximately one person in the US and fewer than six people worldwide per year, according to Mother Nature Network.

“Here’s another question: how many sharks do humans kill each year? (pause)

“With a show of hands, how many people think that on a yearly basis humans kill fifty sharks? (pause) A thousand? (pause) Three thousand? (pause)

“Also, according to Mother Nature Network, humans kill approximately 100 million sharks per year.

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