How to Start your Presentation: 4 Step Formula for a Killer Intro

Have you ever seen Law and Order or CSI? Well if you have, you know how the shows start. They always start with a crime.

Someone's running in Central Park. They come across a body. They call the police.

The police are there, and then you're hooked. You're engaged and you have to know what happened. Then, only then, do they play the theme song.

The "dun du du dun. " And you see the credits. You might be wondering, what does this have to do with presentation skills?

Well, just like you want to start off a show and hook the audience, you want to do the same in a presentation and we know this in theory, but I tell you about 9 out of 10 speakers I see start with their version of a theme song. It goes something like this, "Hi, my name's Anne. I'm so excited to be here.

Thank you so much for coming and in a minute I'm going to tell you a story and on and on and on and the speaker can be one or two minutes and they haven't said anything interesting. Guess what? Now your audience is on their phone.

We can do better. My name's Anne RIcketts, I'm the founder of Lighthouse Communications, and for a living I help people deliver more effective presentations. I strongly believe the introduction is most crucial piece of your presentation.

And in this video I'm going to share with you a four step formula for a killer introduction. And, if you follow this not only will your audience be leaning and wanting to hear more but you will be bursting at the seams with confidence from giving such an amazing introduction. You ready for the formula?

Step one is your hook. Or a combination of those things. Something interesting and vivid right away right away to pull them in.

Step 2 is the transition to your topic. Bridge the gap between that hook and what you're going to talk about today. You can say something like, Step three is your self-introduction and a preview of your talk.

If you don't know the audience yet, then you can briefly introduce yourself. Just give him the most interesting things from your background that directly relate to your topic and remember you can establish credibility throughout your talk so you don't have to give him the full bio and then go ahead and preview what are the goals of your talk what will you be covering. Step four is the benefit for your audience.

Tell the audience what they will gain from listening to your talk. Don't just assume that they already know you should be specific. Now that you know the four steps for giving a killer introduction let's break it down and listen to the introduction to this video.

Have you ever seen Law and Order or CSI? Well, if you have, you know how the shows start. They always start with a crime.

Someone's running in Central Park. . .

That was my hook. I asked my audience a question. And then painted a picture of a common experience of watching these these crime shows.

You might be wondering what does have to do with presentation skills? Well just like you want to start off the show and hook the audience you want to do the same in a presentation. .

. That was my transition to the topic. I bridge the gap between my hook and what I'm going to cover in the video.

My name's Anne Ricketts, I'm the founder of Lighthouse Communications, and for a living I help. . .

That with my self- introduction and preview. I briefly introduce myself and established some credibility on the topic and then I told the audience what we're going to cover in the video. If you follow this, not only will your audience be leaning in wanting to hear more but you will be bursting.

. . Finally that was the benefit I told the audience specifically what they will gain from watching the video.

Now you know the four steps for giving a killer introduction try it out and let us know how it goes write a comment on Facebook or on our YouTube channel and be sure to subscribe to the Lighthouse Communication YouTube channel.