Top Ten Best Ways to Start Off a Speech
Speeches can make enormous changes in the world. They can save or harm lives, change laws, overthrow corrupt governments, cause riots, and much more. These speeches can’t be the usual, dull, monotone you will probably think of when you hear the word. You need to start it off with something that immediately draws your audience in and keeps there attention, gets them thinking, and fully entraps them. So here are the top ten ways to start off a speech. Enjoy!Starting with a statistic is one of the smartest and best ways to begin a speech. For example, in a speech advocating for all cars to be electric by 2035, you could say, "By 2030, assuming we don't cut down on gas cars, tens of thousands of people will die every year due to poor air quality caused by gas cars." That will make the audience think, "Oh, really!" and engage them for the rest of your speech. It shows that you mean business.
This is perhaps the greatest way ever to start a speech. It makes people use their imagination more effectively than just telling them to imagine something. Saying something like "What if the world was just a million kilometers closer or further away from the sun? It would become uninhabitable." This gets right into your speech, right into what you're going to be talking about. After the "what if" is over and you continue through the speech, the listeners feel like they've been part of the speech for a while already.
Note that this doesn't mean you want them to answer out loud. It's just a way of getting into their minds and making them think. For example, "Have you ever lost a competition right when you thought the win was yours?" Assuming the question relates to your topic, asking a question will get everyone thinking about what you have to say. Since it's human nature to think about the answer when asked a question, they'll be more inclined to listen to what you have to say.
This can cause your speech to seem more meaningful to the people listening. It will immediately capture their attention, and if you fill the phrase with emotion and meaning, it will make the rest of your speech feel impactful. For example, if you were doing a speech on Martin Luther King Jr., you could say, "I had a dream. Those were the words of Martin Luther King Jr." It's to the point, relates to your speech, and it's something everyone knows.
Using a sloth speech as an example, you could say, "Imagine that you were one of the slowest animals in the world, dangling from the high trees of Costa Rica." This makes the listeners instantly know what you're talking about and gets them thinking about your speech, just as you want them to. It's a perfect way to draw them in before continuing by introducing yourself or stating a fact about sloths or whatever else you want to say next.
A great way to start a speech is by quoting somebody. It can get the audience thinking, make you seem knowledgeable, and introduce the topic of your speech intelligently. Some of the most famous speeches have started with a quote. Less famous speeches, directed at smaller audiences like a school or class, may also start with a quote. In conclusion, quotes are an intelligent way to hook the audience into the topic of your speech.
Saying something like "The COVID-19 pandemic is still causing tons of problems throughout the world" will get the audience hooked immediately because we all know how terrible the pandemic has been. Starting off with something you want to solve or theorize about throughout your presentation is a great way to start because the rest of the speech will relate to your first words.
Saying something like "Thank you all for being here" may make people criticize your speech later on, but if you're trying to address the audience directly, this is a good way of doing so. It gets them hooked on what you're saying and makes them believe you are a nice person. This will make them more inclined to believe you, which is always good when tackling a difficult or unbelievable subject.
Referring to something will make your next words easier to understand by letting the audience know what the rest of your speech will relate to. It will also capture their attention immediately.
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Addressing an event or person will make your speech seem more meaningful and important. It lets people know you mean business because you get straight to the point.
For example: COVID-19 has been released. We need to get the vaccines as soon as possible.
Have you heard the story of the person who did a speech on clumsiness and pretended to drop all their note cards at the beginning, then revealed the real cards in their pocket and said, "If you're going to be clumsy, it helps to be prepared"?