How to Grab Attention in a Speech
- 1). Memorize the opening of your speech, and avoid starting out by simply looking down and reading. Confidently launching into your speech immediately conveys to the audience that you are prepared and knowledgeable and someone worth listening to.
- 2). Entice or entertain the audience from the beginning to spur audience members to sit up and take notice of what you're saying. Open with a startling fact about your speech's subject matter, or lead in with a compelling question that you intend to answer later in your speech.
- 3). Use persuasive questions and impressive facts throughout the speech. Utilize any unusual or little-known facts that go against conventional wisdom, which you uncovered during your speech's preparation and research. For example, ask a question on a subject that the audience is familiar with, but whose actual answer is less-publicized and shocking. For example, an audience may know that football players are susceptible to concussions, and that extra attention is now focused on the topic. Give the audience choices of the number of former players who suffer lingering damage from their playing days, and the actual answer might surprise them.
- 4). Speak with enthusiasm and passion. Even if your topic is serious and does not allow you much opportunity to inject your own humor or thoughts, speak as if it is important to you. Enthusiasm and passion are contagious, and your audience will be inspired by those traits.
- 5). Speak directly to certain audience members. Look audience members in the eyes and involve the audience in the moment. Visualize the speech as a conversation. Seek out the audience's emotional and intellectual responses, even if you don't expect the audience to respond verbally.
- 6). Surprise the audience with a prop. For example, if you are speaking to employees about the correct way a finished product should look, compared to the products they have been putting out, whip out an example of each. Allow the audience to actually see for themselves what your speech verbally tells them.
