Unless a speaker can interest his audience, his effort will fail. If his subject is not of extraordinary interest, his listeners are likely to say to themselves, so what? Who cares? A speaker can quickly lose an audience if he doesn’t use the introduction to get their attention, and clicking his interest to get your audience’s initial attention is often easy, even before he utters a single word. After you are introduced, address your audience and they will usually give you their attention. If they don’t, patiently face the audience without saying a word. In a few moments all conversation and physical commotion will cease. Your listeners will be attentive. You will be ready to start talking. Keeping your audience’s attention once you start speaking is more difficult. These are some of the most used methods to keep them Interested.
#1: Relate the topic to the audience-
People pay attention to things that affect them directly, if you can relate the topic to your listeners, they are much more likely to be interested in it.
#2: State the importance of your topic-
Presumably you think your speech is important, tell your audience why they should, too.
#3: Surprise the audience.
A surefire way to build interest quickly is to wow all of your listeners with an eye-catching or intriguing statement. This technique is highly effective and easy to use, just make sure the sterling introduction ties directly to the topic of your speech.
#4: Arouse the curiosity of the audience-
People are curious. One way to attract them to your speech is with a series of statements that will progressively arouse their curiosity about the topic of the speech.
#5: Question the audience-
Asking a rhetorical question is another way to get your listeners to think about your speech, sometimes even just one question is enough.
#6: Start with the quote-
Another way to pique the interest of your audience is to start with an attention-grabbing quote. You can choose a quote from Shakespeare or Confucius, from the Bible or the Talmud, from Shakespeare, a song or a movie.
#7: Tell a story-
We all like stories, especially if they are provocative, dramatic, or suspenseful. To work well as instructions, they must also be clearly relevant to the main point of the speech. Used in this way, stories are perhaps the most effective way to start a speech.
With this information, you should be on your way to writing some amazing introductions. Good luck with your speeches!