[MUSIC]
Hi, everybody.
My name's Ilana Walder-Biesanz, and I'm a student in Stanford GSB's MBA program.
And I'm actually in this class called Strategic Communications, and
we're doing final projects.
And this is actually my final presentation.
We're going to talk about how to start a speech.
And it's a group presentation, so I want to introduce everyone.
This is Tomek, this is Chyngyz, this is Jason.
>> Whoa, whoa, whoa, Ilana, stop.
I need you to stop right there.
That is not how you want to start a presentation.
That was rough.
>> I'm sorry.
>> Actually, the opener to a presentation is, well, the most important part.
So why don't you sit down, take a look, and
we'll teach you the right way to start a presentation.
>> [LAUGH] >> How
many of you can remember being at a speech and
giving up on the speaker within the first 30 seconds of them talking.
Now keep your hand up if you're sure you've never been that speaker and
never will be.
>> [LAUGH] >> That's why we're here,
to teach you the formula for a great first 90 seconds to any presentation.
Get it right, and you have the perfect setup for a winning presentation.
Get it wrong, and it's almost impossible to win your audience.
>> [LAUGH] >> That formula starts with something
called an opening gambit.
Like my question, or even better, a compelling story.
When Steve Jobs walked on the stage on the Macworld Conference 12 years ago,
everyone was expecting something special.
The room was packed with thousands of Apple enthusiasts, and the lights were
dimmed, and all you could see was the giant Apple logo on the main screen.
So Steve walked slowly to the middle of the stage,
his black turtleneck, and he started strong.
He said, every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along
that changes everything.
And the audience was absolutely magnetized.
Few minutes later, they learned that the product is the new Apple iPhone,
the first Apple iPhone.
The anecdote like this is a great way to start your story and
capture your audience immediately.
The book, Presenting to Win, by Jerry Weissman,
gives you as much as seven opening gambits like this, opening strategies.
Today, we'll give you three of them.
The anecdote, as I just started, is the first one.
It's a short story with a human angle, and it's effective because we have
a natural tendency to relate to other people, to care about other people.
And you can make a potentially boring topic come to life with a vivid story.
Second one is a question directed at the members of your audience,
just as Sam did a couple of minutes ago.
It evokes immediate response, and it captures your audience attention,
makes them think how your message relates to them.
The third one is a factoid, so it's a simple statistic or
a factual statement, like a new market trend, demographic trend.
For example,
it takes JD as much as 60 minutes to grade each student's presentation.
This has to be related directly to your speech,
and the more unusual, striking and surprising it is, the better.
>> Well, but
an opening gambit is not all that you need in order to get your presentation started.
You've already started strong, you've gotten the audience's attention.
And you've also given them a reason to keep their mobile devices stored for
the duration of the flight.
So like any pilot, now you need to tell them where your flight is headed to and
why they shouldn't be heading for the exits.
And you can do this in two ways.
So the first way is this idea of a unique selling proposition, or USP for short.
We're in business school, I think that's relatively intuitive,
but in the context of a speech, a USP is kind of like the elevator pitch.
It tells your audience what you're going to say and
why what you're going to say is going to be valuable to them.
It's an elevator pitch, and so therefore it should be short, and
we're thinking one to two sentences rather than like a full-length novel.
More like an executive summary.
And we kind of demonstrated this to you earlier,
when Sam took the stage from Ilana.
And said that we were going to spend the rest of this presentation teaching you,
sharing with you the formula for how you can start your presentations well.
If you go back to Steve Jobs, he also had a USP when he opened his presentation.
And he said that at Macworld 2007, they were going to
announce a product that was going to revolutionize the mobile industry.
And if you were sitting in the audience that day, that immediately draws you in,
because there was a lot of anticipation building up.
Macworld is that marquee event that Apple always holds, and
there had been a lot of hype building up to that particular event.
So okay, we've got the USP out of the way.
The second thing I want to share is this idea of a proof of concept.
And if you think of the USP as that thing that makes the audience
want to listen to you, the proof of concept speaks to your credibility.
Why should the audience listen to you?
What's so special about you that gives you that authority,
that credibility to talk about the subject that you intend to present on?
I can give you a few examples of what a PoC might look like, proof of concept.
So first example is you could talk about your historical success,
your track record.
Last year, we sold 15 million copies of our product.
We expect to do the same this year.
Second example could be a reference to a reputable source or credible authority.
Our restaurant earned two stars in last year's Michelin catalog and guide.
Last example I have would be [COUGH] to look at, [COUGH] to look at or
to deliver a progress update on something that you've been working on.
So how many of you guys have been following the news on autonomous vehicles,
self-driving trucks?
Okay, so I could say,
last month we successfully concluded a pilot round with the US Postal Service
using our autonomous self-driving trucks to travel between Utah and Michigan, okay?
So those are some examples.
And if you use both a USP as well as a PoC effectively,
I think you're going to find that you're going to be able to draw your audience in.
Starting from an opening gambit and moving into the bulk of your presentation.
And that's going to keep them engaged for the duration of your flight and also for
the duration of your presentation.
>> So these are all great advice.
Now we'll learn how we should start the presentation.
I'm going to touch on the topics we shouldn't do.
So first, we should never start by introducing ourselves or
describing the company we work for.
You remember Ilana?
It was deadly boring how she started this presentation by introducing herself.
And recall Sam, who started with opening gambit question.
So he managed to capture your interest and could engage with you immediately.
Second, don't start with a joke.
Everyone likes good jokes, and we're not an exception.
But to predict a success or failure of a joke is almost impossible.
Even if your joke creates a laugh and it's successful,
it will rather distract your audience from your persuasive message.
Third, don't used banal, overused quotations.
Quotes, I mean quotes by William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, or
by other famous people.
But I would add a small caveat here.
You can use them only if they're very specifically related to your company.
So for example, if I were the CEO of a voice-to-text company, I would say,
easier said than done, it would be very effective.
So Ilana, you heard all the tips we shared with you now,
do you want to give another shot?
>> Sure. >> [LAUGH]
>> Thank you.
>> Can you all please do something with me?
I want you to help me count to 15.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 11,
12, 13, 14, 15.
15 seconds, it's not very long.
That's how long you have to make a first impression on your audience.
And that's why it is really important that you open your speech strong.
If you don't capture your audience's attention
with the beginning of your speech, you're probably never going to get it.
And that's a shame,
because everybody in this room has ideas that are worth listening to.
So some people are intimidated by the idea of starting a speech and
coming up with that really good opening.
But it doesn't have to be that hard.
We're going to give you a simple formula for
acing the first 90 seconds of any speech you give.
It starts with an opening gambit that really captures your audience's attention,
like a good story or an interesting fact that surprises them.
It then moves into a unique selling proposition, where you tell your audience
why they should listen to you, what benefits you promise to deliver to them.
Optionally, you can then include a proof of concept,
which is a demonstration that you're actually going to
be able to provide those benefits that you just promised.
And we have already seen this formula work really well.
If you think back to Wednesday,
when Casey came storming in here with the start of that D-Day speech.
I think everyone sat up at attention a little bit more there.
And he quickly moved into tying it to the actual topic of the presentation.
And telling us why we should care about what his team had to say about small talk.
He both engaged our interest and set up an overarching metaphor for
his entire speech.
So what we urge you to do is this.
The next time you have a presentation to make, whether it's for work or for
school, pay special attention to how you start, and follow this formula.
If you do, your audience will listen to your great ideas.
>> Well, that was a much better job, Ilana.
>> Thanks. >> I'm really glad you
listened to our presentation before trying that again.
Don't worry, we're not going to now do our entire presentation again.
Instead, we'd love to take this time to open it up for your questions.
We'd love to hear more.
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