you are about to give a lecture, speech, presentation, or have an important conversation at work, plan the first three minutes. These first minutes are crucial in our attempt to recruit our audience, interest them and imply how important the issue we are going to talk about is.
We wish to create a meaningful experience in a very short time. This will convince our listeners that what we will be talking about next is very important and highly relevant for them personally.
Measure that time with an hourglass or a stopwatch, anything at all. If the first few minutes go sour, we might lose our audience very quickly.
There are many options to create a good, strong introduction: a question, statistics, audience activation or sharing a personal story that will recruit listeners emotionally and encourage them to act.
Remember, no matter what the great opening of your choice was, you must enhance and intensify from that moment on.
A small tip, when preparing for a presentation or a job interview, try not to think about what it is that you want to talk about, but what it is that your audience needs to hear. To me, that is the secret to succeeding in motivating action in our audience, stirring their emotions and reaching our goals.
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