What's up Explearners in this video we are talking about hooks as in attention
grabbers when you are giving a talk giving a presentation or a speech so
that's what's in store for you today so I hope you stay tuned because this is
really gonna help you with your public speaking skills where is the hook belong
the hook comes right in the beginning of your talk typically what it looks like
or the opener is hook connector and preview or roadmap so that is generally
the order of the opener but today we're focusing on hook because this is really
important if you want a hook and intrigue and grab your audience it is a
way of peeking their interest and so that'll allow them to want to listen to
you for the rest of the talk or to stay because if they are at free will then
they don't have to stay and then you get hecklers we want as good public speakers
to be able to retain the audience's attention and to have their focus
because we ultimately want to be able to convey our message to the audience right
that's the whole point of giving a talk all right so we're gonna look at
different ways to hook the audience and pique their interest so that you can
give a better presentation and leave the audience with something memorable and
that food-for-thought just sitting in their minds something that will make a
lasting impression the first one is using the word imagine visualization can
be a super powerful tool you can start by saying imagine a time when imagine
you're in the mountains and you see a beautiful view before you and then you
get into talk about the environment or something I'll leave that to you to
figure out another way to hook your audience is to tell a story or an
anecdote make sure that the anecdote is brief interesting compelling and
relevant if it seems like there's a disconnect between the story or telling
and then the topic of your talk then it's your job as the speaker to bridge
that gap of understanding and to make it clear as to why you're telling this
story to the audience otherwise they're gonna scratch their heads and think well
why should I care about this story about this person so
make sure that it is relevant hook type number three asking a series of
rhetorical questions when you ask a series of questions right so the
questions are back-to-back maybe in a group of three that's usually a good
number to go with three you get the audience pondering and they're thinking
and when they're thinking they're engaged
it becomes more interactive even if they're not saying anything right when
we talk about speeches being interactive it's not that it is interactive in the
way that a conversation is interactive that your interaction is interactive
right that is different in at up when we mean a talk is interactive the idea is
that your audience is doing something if you have your audience do a task talk to
the person sitting next to them think about something that engages them and
that is going to help them focus on your talk and also it's gonna make it more
memorable for them because they're gonna have more fun with it instead of just
sitting there listening to you another type of hook is arousing curiosity and
one of the ways to do that is with self-deprecating humor if this is
something that sort of fits in with your personality and your authentic speaking
self then I would suggest you use it if this does not sound like something you
would do if you're not into self-deprecating humor then don't don't
use this hook right we always want to be true to ourselves start with this I have
a confession 20 years ago I did something really crazy kind of
unthinkable duck Duck Duck I went to law school
great so before that pause that duck dot dot the audience is on the edge of their
seats they're like oh what is it what is it they're gonna give me a confession
they're gonna spill the beans here and then you you know add something funny
and it's self-deprecating you're poking fun at yourself but what that does is
hooks the audience it arouses their curiosity and they want to pay attention
so that's a really fun one to use again if you're into self-deprecating humor
number five use a what-if scenario but uh okay so a what-if scenario for
example you start with telling the audience something like what if you were
completely 100% debt free and then you segue into talking about financial
freedom or financial independence or fiscal responsibility right something
that is related to being debt-free or maybe student loans and why you
shouldn't take one out right so we go back to the idea of relevance make sure
that it is relevant to the topic at hand but why not start with a what-if
scenario that also engages the audience it makes them curious about your talk
and it also forces them to visualize a scenario or maybe it reminds them of
their own situation and these what-if scenarios as a hook are easily adaptable
to any presentation you can even start off a meeting with what if when we see
hooks these are also relevant to smaller communication types right like when
you're in a meeting or when you're at a cafe and you're chatting with your
friends so it doesn't always have to be for public speaking like on stage per se
but of course hooks really shine in a talk or in a speech so be sure to use
them then but I'm just saying if you don't have any occasion to practice a
speech you can try and practicing it on your friends and engage them in a way
that you are likely to hook their attention number six going for a
contrarian approach so taking something a thought that is widely accepted by the
majority of the people or society or culture or whatever and then taking the
opposite approach sometimes this can be a little bit controversial but the
reality is that if you have really strong claims to support and back up
what you say your statements then you can go with this and perhaps you're
trying to persuade your audience if this is the type of talk that you're giving
then you can try this contrarian approach my advice to you
would not to use anything too controversial you don't want to alienate
your audience you don't want to exclude people the idea of good public speaking
is that we're as inclusive as possible and a really important point er here as
to remember that you need to know your audience you need to figure out who they
are this is true of any time we give a talk to anyone no matter how big or
small the audience if you're going to use a hook you want to be mindful of the
population that you're speaking to you want to be mindful of the demographic
you want to be mindful about their socio-economic background about their
socio-cultural background what language they speak any information you have on
the audience should be taken into account and number 7 my last tip for you
for making a great hook you can choose a foreign proverb and share that with the
audience there's an expression in French which is put seats up to you as well
facing me which means little by little the bird makes its nest and if I'm
talking about building a youtube channel I might start with that hook and all of
a sudden people are wondering they're like okay why is she speaking in French
what's going on I thought I was in an English speaking talk but it'll start
you know getting them interested and curious and of course you translate the
idiom for them but this is great especially if you speak another language
and you want to share that with your audience why not use that as a great
hook and a way of peeking the audience's interest to get them involved engaged
and excited about your talk all right Explearners that's a wrap on this video I
hope you use some of these hooks and again if you are not gonna give a talk
anytime soon or a presentation then try to use these hooks when you're in
conversation maybe you have a great story you want to tell but you don't
know how to start it start with a hook that'll be a great way to see how well
the hook is working for you okay so if you haven't done so already please do
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when you do and I hope to see you right back here on Explearning communication
coaching so that we can get your communication skills better and better
Happy Explearning