Power Openers

1. Power Openers “Look with favor on bold beginnings.” -Virgil

2. The Introduction must… • Gain the attention of the audience • Create rapport between the speaker and the audience • Provide reasons for the audience to listen to the speaker • Set the expectations of the audience.

3. Your goal is to… set the audience’s expectations…and then surpass them!

4. Answer Audience Questions The audience has several questions that they want answered within the first few minutes of your talk… • Who are you? (experience) • What are you going to talk about? • When will you be through? • Where is this talk going? • Why should I listen? • How are you going to make this interesting?

5. Avoid Common Mistakes • Avoid saying, “Before I begin…” • Avoid getting the names wrong. • Avoid admitting that you’d rather be anywhere else • Avoid admitting that you’re not prepared • Avoid admitting that you’ve given the identical speech a million times for other audiences. • Avoid using offensive humor. • Avoid announcing that you had a ghostwriter. • Don’t apologize.

6. Start with a quote from a famous person, inspirational source, or lyrics from a song. Keep it short but powerful. Pause briefly for effect when you are done.

7. Offer a proverb. Folk sayings, old wives' tales, or words of wisdom from your country or that relate to your experience with the project that people can relate to provide a meaningful bridge to your speech.

8. Ask a rhetorical question.. Make sure the question is an interesting or startling one to catch the attention of your audience. Perhaps even one that is the opposite of what the audience would expect.

9. Issue a challenge. Riddles, puzzles, case studies, and other problem solving activities grab hold of listeners' minds. Promise to deliver suggested options by the end of your presentation.

10. Create a word picture.. Using sensory imagery, describe a heart-tugging or mind-teasing scenario that immediately engages the audience. Bringing real or imaginary characters or a scene to life in a verbal sketch that takes just a minute or so can have a powerful effect on drawing in your listeners.

11. Quote STARTLING statistics and facts - hard evidence that cannot be debated because it is proven by logic and science. Audiences are apt to believe a speaker who uses credible facts as evidence. They tend to listen to a speaker who opens with this type of information, especially if it is unusual information.

12. Tell a story or anecdote- Everyone loves stories, especially if they’re real, personal, and relevant. Paint a picture, but keep the story fairly short and make it connect to your speech.

13. Using a historic event. Historical references make you look smart and put your topic in perspective. Make sure that the event connects to your speech and that you have your facts RIGHT!

14. Example of a Historical Event Opening • Julia Hughes Jones, former Auditor of Arkansas, started her speech about women and equality with this opening: “Why is a vote important? Many times, a single vote has changed the course of history. More than a 1,000 years ago in Greece, an entire meeting of the Church Synod was devoted to one question: Is a woman a human being or an animal? It was finally settled by one vote, and the consensus was that we do indeed belong to the human race. It passed, however, by just one vote. Other situations where one vote made a difference: In 1776, one vote gave America the English language instead of German. In 1845, one vote brought Texas and California into the Union. In 1868, one vote saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment. In 1923, one vote determined the leader of the new political party in Munich. His name was Adolf Hitler. In 1960, one vote change in each precinct in Illinois would have defeated John F. Kennedy.”

15. Avoid the pleasant but unoriginal… “It is a pleasure to speak to Middletown’s Kiwanis. I’ve always had great respect for your civic endeavors in the community…” “I’m so glad that you invited me here today…”

16. Booker T. Washington • In 1875, the former slave opened his talk to the business establishment of Atlanta with this line: “Gentlemen, one-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race.”

17. Frederick Douglass • On July 4, 1852, he opened an address in Ohio by saying: “Pardon me—why did you ever invite me? I and the people I represent have no reason to celebrate this day.”

18. Winston Churchill • On May 10, 1940, he opened his talk to members of Parliament (who had made fun of his warnings about Hitler) with: “I speak to you for the first time as Prime Minister in a solemn hour for the life of our country, of our Empire, of our allies and, above all, for the cause of freedom.”

19. Bernard Baruch • In his testimony to a commission on the atomic bomb in 1946, he said: “We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead.”

20. Senator Daniel Webster • He began his oration defending the Compromise of 1850: “I speak today not as a Massachusetts man, not as a Northern man, but as an American.”

21. Abraham Lincoln • Lincoln’s reply in one of the infamous debates with Stephen Douglas: “It is true what Mr. Douglas said, that I did run a grocery store and I did sell goods including whiskey. But I remember that in those days that Mr. Douglas was one of my best customers. Many a time have I stood on one side of the counter and sold whiskey to Mr. Douglas on the other side. But the difference is that I have left my side of the counter, but Mr. Douglas still sticks tenaciously to his.”

22. Harry S. Truman • Radio speech on August 6, 1945: “Sixteen hours ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima…”

23. Chief Seattle • He opened his address to a white audience in 1854 with these remarks: “There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea covered its shell-paved floor. Now that is a memory, a mournful memory.”

24. Martin Luther King, Jr. • August of 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial: “Fivescore years ago, a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation…”