The Hook
Prepare a 1 minute “hook”
A "Hook" is a personal introduction to your message with no slides, that will make your listeners engaged and curious to know more. It could for instance be:
Bring a physical prop that is relevant to your message and tell about an experience relevant to your message. It could be a your old calendar, a concert ticket, a diploma, a product, a flag…close your HOOK with a conclusive sentence that very clearly expresses your point.
Imagine … Share 3-4 scenarios using the word “Imagine”. Each situation should exhibit the behavior you would like to see. Include the place and the time in the first sentence, for example: “Imagine a Tuesday afternoon where someone is asking … and someone immediately replies … Imagine a Friday morning in the office, when … Imagine in six months time, when Robert is …” Be concrete enough that your scenarios could pass the “video test” – meaning that it is concrete enough that you would be able to use it as a storyboard and film it with a camera.
Create a moment of suspense. Draw or write something on a flip chart and say something like: “this is the key to advancing – at the end of my talk, you’ll understand what it means”.
Open with a provocative question or statement.
Share a horror-scenario – what happens if we do nothing?
Open with a sharp contrast between the situation now – and the future situation you envision. Show your contrasts with images, props or drawings.
Involvement: Involve your audience in a physical activity that can visualize your point, for example by asking a quiz-type question and asking your audience to answer by standing or walking to a particular spot or writing their answer on a postcard.
Open with a metaphor.
Demonstrate why your message is needed using props to visualize some data. It can be balls in a jar illustrating the costs going up or boxes on top of each other, representing the level of motivation, or shoes in different conditions demonstrating how hard you work. If you can visualize your data with props, we will never forget it.
We need to feel you as a person – not the glossy statements
No slides. You can draw. Or use props. Or sing :)
We need to remember you – even after a few days. So be brave and try out things, you might not normally do.
