Speaker 1: Have you ever seen Law & Order or CSI? Well, if you have, you know how those shows start. They always start with a crime. Someone's running in Central Park, they come across the body, they call the police, the police are there, and then you're hooked, you're engaged, and you have to know what happened. Then, only then, do they play the theme song, the dun dun dun dun, and you see the credits. You might be wondering, what does this have to do with presentation skills? Well, just like you want to start off a show and hook the audience, you want to do the same in a presentation. And we know this in theory, but I'll tell you, about 9 out of 10 speakers I see start with their version of the theme song. It goes something like this, Hi, my name is Ann, I'm so excited to be here, thank you so much for coming, in a minute I'm going to tell you a story, and on and on and on, and the speaker could be one or two minutes in and they haven't said anything interesting. Guess what? Now your audience is on their phone. We can do better. My name is Ann Ricketts, I'm the founder of Lighthouse Communications, and for a living, I help people deliver more effective presentations. I strongly believe that introduction is the most crucial piece to your presentation. And in this video, I'm going to share with you a four-step formula for killer introduction. And if you follow this, not only will your audience be leaning in, wanting to hear more, but you will be bursting at the seams with confidence from giving such an amazing introduction. You ready for the formula? Step one is your hook. A story, an analogy, a metaphor, a shocking statistic, a question, or a combination of those things. Something interesting and vivid right away to pull them in. Step two is the transition to your topic. Bridge the gap between that hook and what you're going to talk about today. You can say something like, you might be wondering what CSI has to do with presentations. I tell that story because. This story illustrates. Step three is your self-introduction and a preview of your talk. If you don't know the audience yet, you can briefly introduce yourself. Just give them the most interesting things from your background that directly relate to your topic. And remember, you can establish credibility throughout your talk, so you don't have to give them a full bio. And then go ahead and preview. What are the goals of your talk? What will you be covering? Step four is the benefit for your audience. Tell the audience what they will gain from listening to your talk. Don't assume that they already know. You should be specific. Now that you know the four steps for giving a killer introduction, let's break it down and let's look at the introduction to this video. Have you ever seen Law and Order or CSI? Well, if you have, you know how those shows start. They always start with a crime. Someone's running. And so that was my hook. I asked the audience a question and then painted a picture of a common experience of watching these crime shows. You might be wondering what does this have to do with presentation skills? Well, just like you want to start off a show and hook the audience, you want to do the same in a presentation. That was my transition to the topic. I bridged the gap between my hook and what I'm going to cover in the video. My name is Ann Ricketts. I'm the founder of Lighthouse Communications. And for a living, I helped. That was my self-introduction and preview. I briefly introduced myself and established some credibility on the topic. And then I told the audience what we're going to cover in the video. And if you follow this, not only will your audience be leaning in, wanting to hear more, but you will be bursting. Finally, that was the benefit. I told the audience specifically what they will gain from watching the video. Now you know the four steps for giving a killer introduction. Try it out and let us know how it goes. Write a comment on Facebook or on our YouTube channel. And be sure to subscribe to the Lighthouse Communications YouTube channel.