How to Hook Your Audience Before You’ve Even Started
“Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.”
- Maria, The Sound of Music
If only it were that simple.
For many people, finding the way into a presentation or a moment in the spotlight is as challenging as stepping on the stage itself. All too often, the pressure to conform in business leads people to play it safe and follow an imagined expectation of what ‘professional’ communication should sound like.
“Good morning. My name is Simon Muller, and I am here to talk to you today through the results for the last quarter and to outline our strategy moving forwards in the next quarter...’
Imagine if novelists or poets took the same approach:
“The clock struck a number that is actually not on a clock face but which I am going to use to describte to you how different the world of the future might, or might not, be.”
Or:
“I am going to describe to you a home, which is built into a hill, in which a creature which may not be similar to a human but which is definitely smaller than the average human and which has remarkably hairy feet.”
We can do better. Our audiences deserve better.
In a world where attention is increasingly hard to hold, the opening moments of a presentation matter. So here are five suggestions for openings, or ‘hooks’, that can grab your audience’s attention and provoke thought and engagement.
“Imagine...”
“Imagine” is a magic word. I call it an “activator” because it is a gentle instruction to an audience.
“Imagine a world in which no child goes hungry” is unlikely to provoke the reaction: “No! I absolutely refuse to imagine anything of the sort!”
Instead, your audience steps into a kind of contract with you as the speaker.
“Once upon a time…” is a similar activator. There are many more, but “Imagine” is a great place to start.
2. An image
“The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.” – William Gibson, Neuromancer
We are the only animals on the planet that can use words to make other members of our own species see, smell, taste and, yes, imagine things that are not there. And the main vehicle we have for this is imagery.
We can combine “Imagine” with imagery, too. Instead of simply giving your audience information, give them something they can see in their mind.
3. A quote
You will notice that this article began with a quote.
A quote can give weight or authority, create a sense of playfulness, signal the tone of a presentation or act as another “activator” to provoke thought.
However you use a quote, be sure to tell your audience who it is attributed to. Don’t assume everyone knows who Dolly Parton is.
For example:
“Dolly Parton - actor, activist and country music superstar - once said, ‘Find out who you are and do it on purpose.’”
The attribution is part of the story.
4. A provocative or challenging statement
Jamie Oliver famously began his award-winning TED Talk by saying “Sadly, in the next 18 minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead from the food that they eat."
The effect is immediate.
A provocative statement can make your audience sit up, challenge an assumption and start thinking before you've even begun to make your main argument.
The key is to make sure your statement has a purpose. It should open up the conversation rather than simply shock for the sake of it.
5. A question
What makes a question a good question?
In many respects, opening with a question is one of the trickier hooks. An open question can be much more helpful than a closed one – but not all open questions are created equal.
Consider the difference between these two:
A) How are you all doing?
B) What is the quality of the light in the room that we are in, right now?
One is general, and the answer doesn't require much engagement or activity.
The other is precise and designed to stimulate thought. It activates the audience.
The best questions don't simply ask for an answer. They make your audience think. The other is precise and designed to stimulate thought as an ‘activator’.
And there are plenty more...
There are lots more options: opening with a surprising fact, for example, or a moment of disclosure
“This is a day I have been looking forward to for two and a half years”
– Steve Jobs, iPhone keynote 2007.
But these five short, sharp hooks are a good place to begin if you want to grab your audience's attention and provoke thought and engagement.
And, if you can incorporate a callback to your hook in your Call to Action at the end of your presentation, then that really is the Sound of Music (did you see what I did there?)