I am still decompressing from a week of seminars and corporate presentations. During the past few weeks I have noticed a disturbing trend, not many people really know what an introduction is. When I took over the emceeing of an event a week ago at the last minute, I had nothing. The organizer of the event had not given me the speaker’s written introductions, because he had not asked them for one. To be fair to the organizer, the speakers did not provide them either.

Why is this important?

Introductions set the mood for the speaker. It gives the audience a chance to absorb some general information that might set up the speaker’s speech. Most importantly it establishes social proof of the credibility of the speaker. It might be enough to be up there speaking, but there is something psychological about someone else talking about why you are qualified to be up there. It is even more powerful if the audience knows and trusts the person giving the introduction.

So that establishes why, now we need to know what an introduction needs.

1. Establish your expertise on the topic.

When I am talking about my area of expertise, I mention my education, years of experience, articles or books written, and my involvement with professional organizations in the field.

2. Capture the audiences attention

This is the toughest part of the introduction. You need to get the audience interested in hearing you, but you don’t want the introduction to give away the punch line. Ed Tate , the 2000 World Champion of pubic speaking does this well. In the introduction he used last week, his introduction mentioned snow skiing in Dubai. This got people thinking and he linked the attention grabbing introduction in his speech by showing pictures of snow skiing in Dubai. Make sure if you are getting attention and creating questions in the mind of the audience, that you then answer those questions in your speech.

3. Be relevant to the topic you are presenting

This one is important. You can only keep an audience’s attention intact for a few moments, so don’t fill your introduction with information that doesn’t establish your credibility, build attention, or moves into your speech with style. An example would be talking about past speeches given that are not relevant to the audience or the speech at hand.

4. Exchange control of the presenting area with style

This is important for building expectation. Spend a lot of time coming up with a sound bite that captures the essence of you and your speech. For example, “It is my great pleasure to introduce the speaker who Connects People and Changes Lives, Chris Elliott.”

Let them know why you deserve to be there, capture their attention, be relevant, and exchange control with style.

Good luck and happy speaking,
Chris

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