Starting Your Talk

Where do you start your talk? With selling. You’re almost repeating your sales pitch, because the start of the talk is when you have the opportunity to grab the audience’s attention.

It’s easy for people in audience to become distracted, after all we’re carrying phones and laptops. If a talk doesn’t grip the audience, it will happen. I’m sure everyone has sat in a talk, got a little way in, thought “actually, no,” and reached for the phone or laptop. People get distracted, that’s just how it is.

So when you’re starting your talk, explain to people why they’re here: what you’re going to talk about, why it might interest them, and what they’re going to get out of it.