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- Herausgeber: Books on Demand
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
There are endless possibilities to start a speech. This guide shows you 100 different ways to begin a speech effectively. Let yourself be inspired and get some suggestions. Each example should help you to find your own idea, where you say: Super, this is how I will start my speech. For it should become an uplifting moment when several hundred people decide to remain silent for a longer time to listen to a single person. So the speech must be convincing right from the start.
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Content
Foreword
Introduction
Wrong beginnings
Rearrange the audience
The structure or agenda
A fanfare
Entering the stage
Getting undressed
Asking for silence
Avoidable beginnings
Arranging the stage
Pulling up your pants
Drinking water
Bothering the sound technician
Testing everything
The universal beginning
1. The break
Improvable beginnings
2. Before I begin
3. Begin at the beginning
4. Request something
5. Use softener phrases
6. Excuse yourself
7. Pumping up the crowd
8. Giving commands
Classical beginnings
9. A warm welcome
10. A greeting
11. Introducing yourself
12. Feeling honoured
13. Asking for permission
14. Saying thank you
15. Guests of Honor
16. Being delighted
17. A foreign language
Content beginnings
18. A personal story
19. A story from others
20. A home-made fairy-tale
21. Looking behind the scenes
22. Giving a statement
23. A (scientific) cognition
24. Something surprising
25. Reveling a secret
26. Rhetorical questions
27. Reading something out loud
28. Looking into the future
Linguistic beginnings
29. A metaphor
30. A comparison
31. A slogan or saying
32. A rhyme
33. A play on words
34. A made up word
35. Quotes
36. Arranged quotes and sayings
37. Quotes from commercials
38. The news
39. Telegram style
40. A trick question
Personal beginnings
41. About the place
42. About the time
43. A personal thought
44. A personal feeling
45. The reason why you are here
46. Poke fun at yourself
47. Dialect
Audience oriented beginnings
48. Create sympathy
49. Reading the mind of your audience
50. Sentences of your target audience
51. Biggest problem of your audience
52. Emphasize commonalities
Event oriented beginnings
53. Explain the occasion
54. Something technical
55. Connect to the title
56. Link to the previous speaker
57. Connection to the date
58. Last year
Activating beginnings
59. Ask for a show of hands
60. Ask for an answer
61. A question to the audience
62. A play with numbers
63. An exercise
Dramatic beginnings
64. A conundrum
65. Humor
66. Contradiction
67. Do something
68. Build tension
69. Personalize objects
Courageous beginnings
70. Praise yourself
71. Talking about yourself in the 3rd person
72. A provocation
73. Fox the audience
74. Frighten the audience
75. Ignore the audience
76. The audience begins
77. Be quiet
Beginnings for actors
78. Role plays
79. A scene or a dialog
80. Sing
81. Produce noise with a microphone
82. Parody
83. Make a telephone call
84. Performe a mime
Technical beginnings
85. A photo
86. A film
87. Music
88. A caricature
89. A scrolling text
90. Draw something
91. A clock starts ticking
92. A slideshow
93. Video greeting
94. A collage of sounds
95. Use a prop
96. An electronical survey of the audience
Challenging beginnings
97. A mask
98. Dress yourself up
99. A puppet
100. A magic trick
More beginnings
Even more beginnings
My three favorite beginnings
Last preparations
The end
Mentioned books
Mentioned speaker and speeches
The author
“In every beginning lives a magic hold” Hermann Hesse
Foreword
This book shows you 100 different possibilities on how to begin a speech in a very impressive way. In real life there are not exactly 100 ways to begin a speech neither have I found, in years of research, the 100 ultimate beginnings. The reason for the title is that the capacity of the book is limited.
Just as there are endless ways to begin a conversation or to address someone, there are endless ways to start a speech. Let yourself be inspired and take a few suggestions. Every example should help you to find an idea of your own, so that you are able to say: Great! I will begin my speech just like that. My wife discovered her favorite beginning immediately, when she was correcting this book.
Additionally, I will present to you the eleven beginnings that I would avoid or at least would improve. Many beginnings are superfluous and boring.
When you have finished reading this book and you are able to give a thrilling, unconventional and just different speech, then the aim of the book has been achieved. Because audiences don’t love anything more than being stimulated, impressed or surprised. And they don’t hate anything more than being bored. Therefore, it won’t matter what you are talking about.
As soon as you stand in front of a group, you are stealing a large amount of people’s time. Be careful with it! Then people will come and listen to you a second time.
Imagine the following: The group in front of you is a living creature, a creature that consists of many small organisms. And these organisms can get their own dynamic very quickly, which you won’t be able to control any longer. Spectators are voluntarily quiet once they decide that you are allowed to present. However they can change their mind at any time. They can decide to heckle, to laugh sarcastically or stand up, leave the room and slam the door.
It is a very special moment when hundreds of people decide to be quiet from the beginning for a longer time and to listen to just one single person. This is an acknowledgment, this is an honor, and this is a little miracle. The thrill couldn’t be greater.
Everything which follows now shows the direction, it defines the tone and it fulfills the expectations – or perhaps not. Now is the moment of truth whether it was valuable to dress up elegantly, to jump into the next traffic jam and to pay the expensive babysitter.
Don’t let this special opportunity go to waste, make it a great moment.
Have fun!
Michael
Introduction
Many, many years ago a film in cinema or on TV began with long opening credits, where fitting music was played when the cast was presented.
On the first twenty pages of a book, the acting characters were presented before they had their first adventure together. At school the teacher explained, that a speech requires an introduction at the beginning.
In this book there are no tips for introductions, but for beginnings. It doesn’t matter whether it is a speech, a video clip, a podcast or a televised interview
Today we begin directly: we start, we fight for attention, we want attentiveness. When we get it, it is still possible that we have to announce a few technical things or that we say something essential that has to be said. But in modern films they show you the main characters too, but after you have already arrived in the story.
At the beginning it will be strange for you, that a human being should enter the stage and just begin. But we are living in a time where people have informed themselves exactly where they go and to whom they will listen to and about which subject.
Even though you don’t know this - when you took your seat, you decided to sit down for a while. Quiet please, the fun starts!
Wrong beginnings
Rearrange the audience
It can be very difficult to deliver a speech in a very big hall where are only a few people. The audience feels lost, the mood is bad and the speaker’s perspective is demotivating.
Block off the seats in the back rows, if you want to make a film for example and you want the room to look full. Hire an attendant who takes care that every seat is occupied in the first rows or give everyone a numbered seat.
But if the spectators are already sitting, it is too late. Someone who is forced to change their seat often only does it reluctantly. It should be an exception to ask people to change places who have taken their seats. No one likes to give up the seat they have already chosen. Even when the first row is empty you can’t remove the first row. Then people in the second row are suddenly sitting in the first row…
The structure or agenda
From my point of view this is a common mistake: Most speakers give a short overview for the audience what is to come at the beginning. Maybe it is a schedule, maybe the structure of their speech or the composition of their argumentation. Something like this:
First of all I’d like to have a short glance into the past, then we will discuss in detail the here and now so at the end in a very brave step we will take a look into the future…
It bores them to death, because the tension is completely gone. When we talk about our holidays, we don’t begin like: Let me give you a short overview over the different kind of watersports, then I will describe in a few sentences our hotel and at the end I will tell you about three excursions. In a good novel, things start right away.
Just as he came around the corner he knew that he would have not a single chance…
For a speech which should bring people to action, which should be exciting, which should make people interested in a subject or which introduces new scientific cognitions, an overview of the content of the speech is, from my prospective, a wrong beginning.
Structure, agenda, time table, overview… these are all valuable in a lesson. If you are holding lectures or you want to teach people something. Then your pupils love it when they can see exactly what you are intending to say. Pupils and students learn more easily with a structure and it is easier for them to connect to something they already know when they are very sure what will be discussed.
A fanfare
Some speakers love music for their appearance. At a fair for example, when there is no MC it can be very helpful to be announced with music. I am often asked what kind of music I would like at the beginning of my performance.
But be careful with too much emotionalism. If the melody of “Star Wars” can be heard or the trumpets of Jericho together with the Vienna philharmonic orchestra, then you have to fill the expectations. If something really extraordinary doesn’t follow, you as a speaker are the first disappointment of the evening. The more bombastic the music is, the bigger the anticipation is.
Be careful with the use of music if you don’t have the rights. You can’t just choose the music you like and use it for your presentation. In every electronic shop, you can get a CD with music which is allowed to be played without paying anything. But if you want to use something very special, you have to ask for permission
Entering the stage
There are actors and speakers who love the longest possible way to the stage, in order to have a big entry. American presidents love to walk with a waving hand through the audience.
Inexperienced speakers, who are afraid of entering a stage, begin to speak while they are walking towards the middle of the stage to avoid the embarrassment of the silence at the beginning.
The king and the queen of speech arrive in the middle of the stage and find their place and stand still for one moment – then he or she begins.
Getting undressed
Even when you put your hand on the button of your trousers and only the indication of getting undressed evokes a dead sure laughter in every comedy play. You also get this kind of laughter when using scatology and you swallow the word at the last moment or when you make sexist remarks.
They laugh because you dumbed it down, also people who find theses jokes disgusting laugh most of the time. Resist to those gimmicks and don’t look for the laughter at all costs.
Asking for silence
Sometimes it can be helpful to get announced. But I never would begin with the wish:
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention, please!
If someone is standing in front, it is clear for everyone that he wants to speak. When the audience doesn’t let him begin then there is something wrong and the spectators have a message for the speaker. Should the people simply be in good spirit and are talking to each other, then you should wait a short moment.
Avoidable beginnings
Don’t clear your throat before you present. Don’t think, whether or not you would prefer to rise or rest and don’t glance frightenedly towards your spouse. Too late – the fun has begun. Here are a few more things you should avoid if possible:
Arranging the stage
To furnish the stage is a very important process. The place of the speaker on the stage implies a lot of non-verbal signals. Place and direction of the lectern, the table for the projector and the rotation of the flip chart I define detail-orientedly before every speech. But always before - and not when I enter the stage to begin with my speech.
Pulling up your pants
You have already done this before. Adjusting your blouse, correcting your jacket or pulling up your pants is rather unfavorable as a first impression that the audience gets from you. Many speakers prefer to adjust their clothes. Don’t - at the moment everybody is looking at you, your time is running.
Drinking water
You have already experienced this before as well. And a glass of still water, which is already filled, is on the stage in case of emergency. Your mouth is only dry, when you are nervous. In a case of need bite your tongue very shortly and your mouth will fill with water, the feeling of dryness vanishes and you are not forced to drink because you have to speak.
Bothering the sound technician
The technician notices when you want to say something. You should neither speak an endless line of the word “test” nor knock on the microphone or ask whether this gadget works. Breathe in and begin.
You have the most difficulties when there is no technician at all and someone else has fixed the volume knob with tape in a position which was defined in advance. The acoustics of the room are different with spectators; speakers often speak louder when there is an audience in the room and sometimes they hold the microphone differently when the speech begins. If you want to be sure that everything is fine, someone should stay next to the sound mixer the whole time and supervise the volume of the sound if required.
