Would you read this if it didn’t draw you in? Then don’t expect your audience to listen to you if your talk doesn’t do the same.

When you open your speech with a bang, you get the attention of the audience. This is a very important stage in your speech. As you deliver what you have prepared, you need to have the attention of our audience.

How do you do that? There are numerous tips available, some are tested and proven while others are not yet common but may work for you. Here are four ideas for opening your next speech with a bang.
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In last week’s post I discussed how to open a presentation. This is where you gain your audience’s sympathy and convinced them that you know what you’re talking about. The next step, or narratio, is to tell them what you are going to tell them in your presentation.

In the narratio, you give the audience a brief outline of what you’re going to be telling them in the rest of the speech. To continue the dog-training analogy, you might say this next:

Dogs are pack animals, that is they live in packs or groups. There is a certain psychology that goes along with this way of living — a psychology that you can use to train your dog to behave in ways that promote peace and harmony in your relationship with him or her.
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Public oratory — what is now referred to as public speaking — was a valued skill to those to live in classical Greece and Rome. The classical techniques of rhetoric used by famed orators such as Socrates, Plato and Cicero still apply today. Over the next few posts, I’ll cover some of these techniques and how you can use them to improve your public speaking skills.

Exordium

The exordium, or the opening of a presentation, has two goals:

1. To gain the sympathy of the listeners — get your audience to like you before you try to persuade them to your way of thinking; and

2. To clearly establish your own credibility — show your audience that you are the right person to be speaking about your topic.

The Greeks and Romans felt that what you say first to a “captive” audience is much less important that what you leave them with at the end of the speech. Therefore the beginning is the best time to get the “niceties” out of the way.
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