April 27, 2026
Anytime that you give a presentation, you’ve got this: Your listeners’ full attention.
But then you do something like this: “Hi everyone. My name is Philipp. Thanks for having me. I work in marketing.”
And you lost them.
Who of you has ever started a presentation with either your name, your role, or anything similar? Most of us, right? Most of us start in the most average way possible.
Now, what’s the problem with that? Well, the moment that you start like this, you signal something to your listeners’ brain.
Their brains are like, “Hmm, think I know where this is going. Yeah, I’ve listened to 100 presentations like that. Why do I need to listen to the rest?”
They start zoning out in that moment. And so, what you want to do when you start a presentation, is to start with something that is a little bit more surprising.
There are five techniques that I use all the time in my presentations that I’m going to show today. But I don’t just want you to read them, I want you to mentally rank them.
And at the end, I want you to think about which one technique is used the most by professional speakers.Â
Let’s start with the first one. When you start your presentation, it’s very easy to lose your listeners’ attention. But this technique fixes that with one simple trick.
I could say something like this,
“1,100. The average coffee drinker in the US spends $1,100 on coffee per year. Today, ladies and gentlemen, we are here to talk about how to cut your expenses by half.”
That’s one example, right?
Or we could say,
“25. The average coffee drinker has a 25% lower chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease than anyone else. Today we will talk about how to protect your brain through a simple morning routine.”
Did you see what I did there? That is what I call a surprising statement.
And that can be anything that breaks the pattern. Anything that gets them thinking, “Ooh, what is happening? Oh, I haven’t heard of that.”
And so, that could be an interesting statistic, an interesting fact, anything that breaks that expectation of what is expected.
I know it sounds very simple, but there’s something that most people mess up all the time. And that is usually that they rush through it.
They say something like, “25. Well, the average coffee drinker has 25% less likely to have da da da.” And they rush through it. So, when you share the surprising statement, take your time to really own it.
Give it a try. First, think about a topic that you would like to talk about, right? Maybe it’s productivity, Bitcoin, content creation, whatever it is. Then, start with what could be a surprising statement. Â
Now, let’s talk about the second technique. The second technique is probably the one that I use the most in my presentations.
“Quick show of hands, who here drinks coffee once per day? Who of you is absolutely miserable without a single cup of coffee? And who of you absolutely hates coffee more than anything in this world?”
Now, did you see what I did there? That is called a show of hands. And it’s super easy, right? You just ask a question and you ask people for the response.
This one I love to use because it’s so simple, and it engages the audience. But there’s also some complexity around it.
Anytime that you share this show of hands, most people tend to rush through it. They’re like, “Okay, who likes coffee? Okay, who likes this?” But then they just do it for engagement purposes.
And so, what you want to do is acknowledge the audience. You can say, “Okay, who of you here drinks one coffee per day? Ah yes, you, you’re like me.”Â
You can play a little bit with the audience so that they feel listened to. Otherwise they’re like, “Ah, you’re just asking this for the sake of asking it.”
Now, show of hands is incredibly easy because it makes anything much more interesting, and much more engaging.
Let’s now talk about the third technique. This technique is wonderful if you want people to sympathize with a certain problem or really feel a solution that you’re suggesting. And it’s incredibly powerful.
Here’s how it works:
“Imagine you’re sitting in your favorite cafe. You hear the music playing in the background. You smell the coffee in the air. At one point, this guy walks in and immediately everyone looks around, smiles. And you look at this guy and he’s not even that well dressed, nor is he very handsome. You’re thinking, ‘What the hell? What does that person have that I don’t have?’ That, ladies and gentlemen, that is charisma. And today we’re going to talk about the three ways on how to be more charismatic.”
This technique is called imaginary world. Now, what is that? Imaginary world is anytime that you ask someone to imagine a certain situation.
So, you say, “Picture this.” Or, “Imagine this.” Those imaginary worlds work the best if you also use action verbs there.
So, don’t just summarize the event, but rather say something like,
“Imagine you walk into the office. You open the door, you sit down at your desk, you open the laptop, and then this notification comes up.”
You see, all those action verbs make it much more interesting. They pull us into the moment.
Imaginary world works extremely well if you want to raise the awareness to a certain problem or share a solution for your topic.
Now, let’s talk about the fourth technique. Anytime that you start your presentation, your listeners are wondering one thing, and that is what is in it for me? What will I gain from listening to you?
Unless you say this explicitly, well, people will just start zoning out. They’re like, “Okay, I don’t need to listen to that stuff.”
And so, you want to share something right at the start that is called the big promise. Here’s how that works. You can say something like,
“In the next 10 minutes, you’ll uncover how a simple change in your morning coffee ritual will affect your productivity by 40%.”
Or,
“In today’s talk, you’ll find out how the best performers in the world use coffee breaks to make the best decisions in the world.”
Did you see what I did there? It was a big promise. It is one sentence that tells my listeners what is in it for them. What they will gain from listening to you.
Not sure if you noticed the trick in that example, but when I said that, I framed it from your perspective. So, instead of saying, “Uh, today I will show you X, Y, and Z.” You say, “Today you will uncover. Today you will learn.”
The moment you make it about the other person, they feel much more involved. But you also want to make it about the benefits and not the features.
You don’t want to say, “Well, today I’m going to share my roadmap for 2026.”
Rather, say, “Today you’ll uncover how to save 3 hours of time every single day so that you can focus on what really matters to you.”
But then you have to come with some statistics and some facts, right? Yes, you do. You want to promise something that you can actually deliver as well.
At the end, you should always think about your presentations as solving some sort of problem. If they don’t solve a problem, you should not have a presentation, period.
That’s the big promise technique.
Let’s now talk about the last technique. A couple of years ago, this professor at Stanford University, Chip Heath, ran a fascinating experiment.
He asked part of the group to deliver a speech on nonviolent crimes in the US. The other part of the group were supposed to rate them based on persuasiveness and overall delivery.
And the students loved it. They all went to work. But he didn’t tell them one thing.
Once everyone was done, he said, “All right, put everything away. What I want you to do right now is to write down every single thing that you remember from those speeches.”
And immediately, everyone wrote everything down. He then collected the sheets of paper to find out what they had remembered.
Now, only 5% of the entire class remembered any statistics or facts. How many do you think remembered a story? All of them? Or a little less?
63% remembered a story. So, if you want to hook anyone’s attention right at the start, share a story.
And it doesn’t have to be a gigantic story, but sharing a personal story right at the start will make it so much more interesting.
Let’s use coffee as an example. How could I start my story with coffee? I could say,
“Just a couple of days ago, I went to my favorite coffee shop around the corner. Right when I got my credit card out, the owner looked at me and said, ‘All good, man.’
And I was like, ‘Why?’
‘You deserve it.’
And as I was sipping my free chai latte, I thought, ‘Wow, when do we proactively provide our customers with this type of support?’
Today, ladies and gentlemen, we’re here to talk about customer loyalty.”
Then I go to the rest. So, you see, stories also work beautifully at the start. It’s a wonderful way to grab anyone’s attention right at the beginning.
Now, you’ve listened to five different ways of how you can hook an audience right at the start. Which one do you think of all the five is the one that most professional speakers use the most?
Story. Yes, it is the story. I interviewed 34 of the best speakers on this planet, and 80% of them used stories to start the presentation.
Why? It is surprising, it is engaging, it is emotional, and it just does all of the above. If you start your presentation with a story, you turn your entire audience around.
But if you want to become an even more engaging communicator, you may want to check out this next article where I share some of my favorite speaking techniques.
See you there.
P.S. Want to become a stronger communicator?
Here are two ways I can support you:
👉 Want to tell more engaging stories? Join our next Storytelling Workshop.
👉 Want to speak with confidence and clarity? Check out our Communication Skills Training.
Both are fun, practical, and designed to help you grow fast.
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