"If all my possessions were
taken from me with one
exception, I would chose to keep
the power for speech, for by it
I would soon regain all the
rest," said Daniel Webster.
First and
foremost, you must create a
great first impression. Creating a
great first impression is
extremely important because this is
the lens the audience will look at you
through afterwards.
Alternatively, you may wish to start
your speech with a
joke, like
Groucho Marx did: "Before I speak, I
have something important to say."
Inspire 'Aha!' Moments
The Aha! moment refers to
the common human experience of instantly understanding a message or
suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or
concept. The “Aha!” effect is a
result of synergized light-speed comprehension and gut feeling.
Stories
A way of
inspiring an "Aha!" effect is telling a
relevant
story, and following it up
with a question or series of
questions that draws your
listeners in.
Speakers who talk
self-ironically about what
life has taught them never fail
to keep the attention of their
audience.
Artistic story telling is a must-have skill of a
modern public speaker. Studies have shown that
telling a story makes information way
more memorable. Prospects are 20+ times
more likely to remember a
fact when it has been wrapped in a
story.
Stanford’s
Graduate School of Business found that when people
listened to pitches, either containing facts and
figures or a story, only 5% recalled a statistic,
but 63% remembered the stories.
