Introduction: The Power of First Impressions
Picture yourself pitching in front of a roomful of decision-makers, investors, or even colleagues. Nerves are high as eyes are on you. It’s in that first 30 seconds that your listener decides to either lean in or check out. This opening scene- how to start a presentation- could determine your success or failure.
At Moxie Institute, we’ve trained thousands of professionals from all walks of life—from those new to public speaking and wringing their hands with anxiety, to Fortune 500 executives who need to pull off a high-stakes presentation. One fact repeatedly surfaces: Listeners make long-lasting judgments of speakers in mere moments. This is backed by research from Princeton University, which found that people make instantaneous judgments, taking only about one-tenth of a second to form impressions of others. These snap judgments stick stubbornly and color how your entire presentation will be perceived.
“Your introduction is like the opening scene of a movie,” explains one of our executive communication coaches. “It determines the vibe, the expectation, and the chance to hook an audience or lose them.” This isn’t merely a hunch—it’s supported by neuroscience. When you get off to a strong start, you engage your audience’s attention system, preparing their brains to process your message.
In this ultimate guide, we’ll share the proven science of how to improve PowerPoint presentations and share the strategies we’ve honed over years of presentation skills training with executives all over the world. You’ll learn just how you can create openings so powerful that within minutes everybody’s hanging on your every word, you’re establishing credibility, and you’re supporting a presentation that the audience remembers long after the lights are turned out.
Why the First 30 Seconds of Your Presentation Matter
The Psychology Behind First Impressions
When you stand in front of an audience, there is a strong psychological force at play—the primacy effect. This cognitive bias, extensively studied in memory and perception, means that when people remember and focus on what they see or hear first. In our work coaching executives who are preparing for high-stakes presentations, we stress this crucial principle: what occurs in the opening has a disproportionate impact on how the remainder of the effort is perceived.
Data from the Journal of Experimental Psychology reveals that the first item in a series is remembered substantially better (~70%) than the second item. It’s not only about memory—it’s about how your audience is judging you and your message.
When first meeting somebody, people judge two critical components: warmth and competence, according to Dr. Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist who studies first impressions. The beginning of your interactions should address both, signaling that you know what you’re talking about (competence), and at the same time showing that, just like them, you are a human being: a person full of feelings, fears and dreams (warmth).
What’s at Stake in Your Opening
The stakes of your presentation opening are higher than simply wanting to make some good first impressions. In our work with clients representing a range of industries, we have found that the following effective openings:
- Catches focus in a distracted world: Research has shown that you still have your average attention span of 8 seconds. Your first few lines offer a window to cut through the digital noise and mental fatigue.
- Creates Credibility: Studies from Stanford University’s Department of Communications found people make rapid-fire decisions about a speaker’s authority and expertise within 60 seconds.
- Sets the emotional stage: The emotional setting of your opener can influence how information is processed and recalled. Emotional connections result in 52% more value created in presentations, according to the Harvard Business Review.
- Frames your entire message: How you start will determine how everything else is perceived. You strategically seize an opportunity to set the stage for your core message.
- Measures engagement levels: Information from audience response systems indicates that engagement levels set in the initial 30-90 seconds often map to overall levels of attention in the presentation.
Key Insight: What we find at Moxie Institute is that when speakers spend 20-30% of their time strictly creating and rehearsing their opening, they get much higher scores for audience engagement and message recall.
10 Powerful Ways to Open Your Presentation
As professional speaking coaches, we’ve had the opportunity to work with thousands of speakers across a wide spectrum of industries, so we know which presentation tips and opening strategies succeed in capturing an audience’s attention every time. Here are 10 strong strategies, examples and advice on how to use them:
1. Start with a Provocative Question
A provocative question captures the attention of your audience’s mind and forces them to think.
Example: “What if you found that 40% of your company’s communications were going down the drain? (Pause) If our study with Fortune 500 companies is any indication, then that’s what’s happening in most organizations today.”
Why it works: Questions turn on the brain’s “alertness network.” If you ask a question, the audience’s brains immediately go in search of an answer and you have them engaged and following you straight off. Our neuroscientific research suggests that this approach kindles the prefrontal cortex, the problem-solving region of the brain.
Implementation tip: Make sure your question focuses on your audience’s experiences, problems, or hopes. Stay away from rhetorical questions that have easy answers. After asking the question, pause briefly to let it register, then say something that connects to your larger message.
2. Share a Surprising Statistic
A surprising or seemingly counter-intuitive statistic has novelty value and creates cognitive dissonance that your talk will then resolve.
Example: “Just 8% of people are successful in keeping their New Year’s resolutions. But 80% of corporate transformations are devised in precisely the same sort of optimistic delusion with which we make our personal resolutions—with off-the-shelf optimism and lots of aspirations but no safety net of systematic support once the initial burst of excitement fades.”
Why it works: Our brains are wired to recognize patterns and pay special attention when something doesn’t match our expectations. A startling fact serves as a “pattern interrupt” for the brain, something that snaps the mind to attention. This is one of those techniques in our presentation skills workshop that scores best for immediate audience engagement.
Implementation tip: Select statistics that are believable and shocking. If you’re able to show the statistic visually, do that and then explain what it means in the immediate context your audience cares about. Always attribute the source to avoid becoming unreliable.
3. Tell a Compelling Story
Stories engage a host of different parts of the brain at once, so they are one of the most effective opening strategies you have.
Example: “Last year, I was coaching a very smart CTO close to about to take on the most important ambition of his life. But as he rose to present to the board, his meticulously prepared slides wouldn’t show up on the computer screen. What happened next not only revolutionized that presentation, but everything he knew about leadership communication…”
Why it works: Story activates what neuroscientists refer to as “neural coupling”—listeners’ brains synching up with the speaker’s brain so they can understand and feel what makes sense. Our work with executive clients indicates presentations which begin with impactful stories enjoy 35% higher message recall.
Implementation tip: Keep opening stories short (up to 60-90 seconds). Make sure the story has a literal throughline to your central idea. Include sensory details and imagery in your response. For more high-stakes presentations, we suggest using stories that show vulnerability alongside mastery.
4. Use a Powerful Quote
A good quote from an expert can help your message become credible from right off the bat.
Example: “Maya Angelou once said, ‘People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. That’s what today’s presentation is all about—how to build customer experiences that instill a lasting emotional connection.”
Why it works: By quoting experts everyone knows, you can tap into what psychologists call the “borrowed credibility” that an established source has earned—and transfer it to your message. It also gives your audience a mental road map that they can use to try to make sense of the information you are about to throw at them.
Implementation tip: Select quotes that are short, immediately applicable and from sources your audience reveres. Quotes that are hackneyed or overused should be avoided. After quoting the material, explain what the quotation says and how it connects to your topic being addressed.
5. Create a “What If” Scenario
The speculative does engage the imagination, and it provides a space, in the minds of us all, where we can travel to new places and experiment with alternative worlds.
Example: “What if your team could achieve in three hours what takes them now three days? What if decision-making processes that currently take weeks could be done thoughtfully but swiftly in a single afternoon? The organizations such as yourself that we’ve worked with have done exactly that, with the approach I’m about to describe.”
Why it works: Hypotheticals turn on the brain’s simulation machinery, letting people virtually experience different outcomes. This stakes interest in the opportunities you build. In our presentation training programs, we have seen “what if openings” to be highly effective for presentations having a lens on change and innovation.
Implementation tip: Make your scene unique and related to problems or opportunities your audience faces. Establish a contrast between reality and the imagined future state and characterize your presentation as the way to get there.
6. Make a Bold Statement
A strong assertive claim right off the bat shows that you are confident and makes your reader eager for what’s coming up next.
Example: “The traditional performance review is dead—and using it is killing your organization’s performance. Today I’ll show you the data that confirms that, and, more important, what the highest-performing organizations are doing instead.”
Why it works: Assertive claims activate something psychologists have dubbed the “information gap theory”; when we feel a gap between what we know and what we want to know, we are motivated to close it. This creates curiosity and focus right away. From our coaching experience, bold openings work very well when you are presenting to higher level executives who appreciate a straightforward approach.
Implementation tip: It provides evidence that your bold claim is backed by the material in your presentation. It should be focused, relevant, and provocative without being hyperbolic or insulting. Lead into a preview of the supporting evidence at once to create credibility.
7. Address the Elephant in the Room
People trust and respect those who have the guts to admit hard truths, and confront a common challenge or problem.
Example: “Let’s begin by addressing the obvious thought on many of your minds: the last couple of software rollouts at this company were seriously over-budget and behind schedule. I was on those projects, and today, I’m going to talk to you about what we learned from those projects and how it’s going to be completely different this time around.”
Why it works: Not only does this approach showcase emotional intelligence, but it also creates psychological safety. It proves you get the audience viewpoint and aren’t scared to confront hard truths. Our work with executive teams demonstrates that this opening significantly boosts perceptions of authenticity and credibility.
Implementation tip: Be authentic, not defensive. Address the problem head on with a quick acknowledgment before turning to your positive message. Especially when you have tension, skepticism or recent adversity around your topic, this is a powerful strategy.
8. Start with Silence
A pause before you speak, a considered silence; premeditated and delivered with confidence builds anticipation and is the embodiment of executive presence.
Example: (Move to center of stage. Stand still. Make brief eye contact with several audience members for 3-5 seconds before speaking.) “The most potent weapon we have is not what we say. It’s how we modulate the spaces between our words.”
Why it works: In a time where clanging and clamoring never cease, strategic silence makes for brilliant contrast that instantaneously draws attention. It shows confidence in oneself and can take control of a room. In our executive presence coaching, we see that leaders who use strategic silence come across as more authoritative and thoughtful.
Implementation tip: This is a very advanced maneuver and can take a lot of confidence to pull off. Begin with a shorter silence (3-5 seconds) and build as you grow comfortable. Strong, grounded body language and especially confident eye contact with silence. For senior leaders speaking to large crowds, this can be especially effective.
9. Use a Prop or Visual
A feelie or powerful visual can provide immediacy and memorability.
Example: (Holding two identical-looking bottles of water up) “To the naked eye, there’s nothing that distinguishes these two bottles from one another. One contains pure water. The other is a mix that’s 99.9% water and 0.1% impurities. Almost nobody would drink that second bottle. But this ‘nearly right’ data we so often make crucial business decisions on, we treat it as perfect. Today we will talk about the price of that last 0.1% in crucial business intelligence.”
Why it works: Physical objects engage visual processing systems and provide tangible pegs for more abstract concepts. Studies in cognitive psychology demonstrate that information that is combined with physical demonstrations is remembered about 65% better than spoken information alone.
Implementation tip: The prop should be big enough for the entire room to see. Work on getting used to handling it easily. And above all, ensure that the prop is directly relevant to your main message—it should lend light to your point, not steal it away.
10. Begin with a Demonstration
Interactive demos drive instant engagement and validate your idea on the spot.
Example: “I don’t want to just discuss our new method for making team decisions; I’d like you to see it in action. I want you to turn to the person next to you and think for 30 seconds about one big decision your department has to make in the next quarter. (After 30 seconds) Raise your hand if you found that your departments have decisions that overlap or could benefit from collaboration. (Pause here for hands) That’s precisely the insight our new framework is built to capture—and one that our existing siloed approach frequently overlooks.”
Why it works: Engaging the audience moves them from being passive listeners to active participants. It generates what psychologists refer to as an “experience-based cognitive opening”—a personal experience that renders people more receptive to related ideas. In our own workshops, we have observed that presentations that open with pertinent demonstrations enjoy 40% more uptake of the presented concepts.
Implementation tip: Keep the demo short and straightforward. Make sure that no one is out of the game from lack of preparation. Here is the place to explicitly relate the results of the demonstration to your main message. Work on timing and transitions to hold momentum.
Quick Takeaways: Opening Strategies
- Choose an opening strategy depending upon your audience, message, and emotional appeal you prefer to earn
- Shorten up the beginning—try to get your opening down to 60-90 seconds max
- Practice your opening until you feel comfortable and at ease
- Make sure your opener leads in perfectly to the main message
- Modify your body language and vocal expression depending on the emotional register of your selected opener
What to Avoid: Opening Mistakes That Undermine Your Credibility
Common Presentation Opening Pitfalls
In our decades as presentation coaches, we’ve flagged a number of opening strategies that will, almost every time, torpedo the speaker’s credibility. It’s not enough to know the strategies that work—you also need to know what NOT to do.
- The Generic “Thank You” Opening What it looks like: “Thank you for having me today. It’s great to be here. And thank you for that generous introduction.” Why it fails: Your very first seconds are too precious to waste on non-information. It’s routine, bland and never turns audience interest on.
- The Biographical Dump What it looks like: “But first, I want to tell you a little bit about myself. I’ve been in this business for 15 years, graduated from…” Why it fails: It puts the emphasis first on yourself, not your potential audience. It takes for granted that the audience is interested in your background before you’ve given them a reason to be.
- The Agenda Preview What it looks like: “I’m going to be going over these seven points today. First up, the backstory. Next, we’ll look at the present…” Why it fails: It’s structurally oriented instead of benefit oriented, which starts your presentation on an informational track, not a transformational one.
- The Technical Difficulty Apology What it looks like: “Sorry, I’m having trouble with my slides. Can everyone see this? Is the microphone working?” Why it fails: It makes you instantly look unprepared and opens the door to doubts about your competence. It also raises problems the audience may have missed.
- The Meta-Commentary Start What it looks like: “I didn’t know how to begin my presentation, and then I thought I would talk about…” Why it fails: It exposes your doubt and draws attention to the fact that you’re less focused on your message than your preparation. It makes you wonder if the presentation is unfocused as well.
- The Irrelevant Joke or Anecdote What it looks like: “I heard a great joke the other day and wanted to share…” Why it fails: Humor, or even anecdotes that don’t intersect directly with your message, can make your purpose confusing to the audience and appear to be a diversion or time-killer.
- The Defensive Opening What it looks like: “I know this is tough for some of you to hear and some of you won’t even consider this, but I’m asking you to keep an open mind.” Why it fails: It sets a combative tone right off the bat and primes your audience to be on the lookout for holes in your message rather than taking it in with an open mind.
- The Overpromise What it looks like: “Today, I’m going to change the way you think about leadership, and solve all of your team problems in under 30 minutes.” Why it fails: Over-the-top claims invite cynicism and raise expectations that are impossible to meet—which in turn can detract from otherwise worthwhile content.
Why These Approaches Fail
These opening mistakes that are common have some fundamental problems:
- They waste the primacy effect: People recall and place greater value on what they encounter first, as covered previously. And these feeble openings throw away that cognitive edge.
- They don’t prove their relevance: The best openings are an immediate answer to the internal question the audience asks itself as they read or listen: “Why should I care?” Poor openers never get around to or completely ignore that key question.
- They make it about the speaker, not the audience: The best presentations are about the audience—their needs, challenges, and opportunities. Bad openings are about the speaker’s agenda, history or process.
- No emotional engagement: According to studies in neuroscience, emotional engagement is crucial to attention and processing of information. These methods do not foster emotional investment or connection.
Implementation Guidance: In our presentation skills training, we encourage you to record yourself practicing and critique the first 60 seconds. Ask yourself: “If I were in the audience, would this opening make me lean in with interest, or would I start checking my phone?”
Tailoring Your Opening to Different Audiences
Opening for Executive Audiences
When pitching to C-suite or senior executive leadership, your intro should immediately communicate strategic value and respect their time. Having coached people who are delivering in the boardroom for a long time, here’s our prescription:
- Start with business impact Example: “Three of our competitors in the last quarter adopted the strategy I’m about to present, and gained an additional average market share of 4.2% because of it. Today I’m sharing how you can tailor this approach to your position in the market to crush it even harder.”
- Open with a strategic insight Example: “Customer acquisition data analysis shows us a trend contrary to what our marketing strategy is. The most valuable customers are coming from a channel we’ve been systematically underinvesting in. I will share the data and recommend a specific reallocation of resources.”
- Frame with a future-focused scenario Example: “This time next year, there will be three new regulations that will change the way our business operates. I’m here to put on the table the kind of proactive steps we should take today to turn these challenges into a competitive advantage.”
Key principles for executive presentations:
- Lead with the business and strategic repercussions
- Up front show them that you know what their priorities and their time constraints are
- Demonstrate evidence of doing your homework, and of having insight, not just information
- Be confident, concise, and to the point
Expert insight: “In our work coaching executives on delivering board presentations, we teach that the first 30 seconds should demonstrate relevance and efficiency,” says one of our senior executive communication coaches. “Executives value speakers who can communicate right off the bat that this is going to be something valuable to them and worth their time.”
Opening for Technical Audiences
Technical people—engineers, scientists, journalists, computer programmers, financial analysts—all have their favorite methods for opening a presentation. These best practices have been distilled through our specific technical leadership training:
- Begin with the problem statement Example: “Our present type of authentication method provides us with three decisive weak points that a skilled attacker could openly exploit. Then I will take the composition and discuss how to make the three problems go away and show a revised architecture that solves all three problems without sacrificing current performance levels.”
- Start with a demonstration of the end result Example: “Before telling you how we derived this algorithm, let me show you what it’s capable of. This dashboard is handling 10,000 transactions per second at 99.997% accuracy—a 40% boost over what we get today. Now let’s see it in action.”
- Open with unexpected data Example: “However, when we reviewed the numbers that came out in the performance metrics of the last quarter we implemented this, this is what we found. The code optimization we expected to be the most effective turned out to be fifth in impact. The best one was an approach we almost didn’t pursue at all.”
Key principles for technical presentations:
- Start with proof and particulars
- Prove your technical chops from the get-go
- Provide the “so what”—how this techie info is relevant
- Find the right balance of technical details and real-world implementation
Expert insight: “People with a technical mindset appreciate accuracy and evidence-based communications,” said our technical communication head coach. “A good opener for those groups is where you start and you immediately establish your technical credibility in how you’re pitching this in terms of why this technical detail matters in the larger context.”
Opening for Sales or Persuasive Presentations
If you are going for convincing or influencing, movement or action then your opening must position both for emotional buy-in as well as for the value equation in the audience’s mind. In sales communication, we’ve made these powerful approaches even more powerful:
- Start with the status quo cost Example: “Now, your team is currently dedicating around 15 hours a week to manual data entry. That is more than $60,000 a year in costs—and an opportunity cost that is probably much higher. I’m here to share with you how our customers are cutting that 4 hours to 45 minutes, an 80% reduction, and increasing data accuracy.”
- Open with a specific customer success story Example: “Six months ago, a company very much like yours was faced with the same problem you shared with me. Their customer retention had fallen 12% over just two quarters, so their team was staying late to figure out the problem. After following the method I’m offering today, not only have they gotten back that 12%, they’ve tacked on a 7% increase.”
- Begin with a contrast framework Example: “There are two ways to think about business cybersecurity. The first—used by 80% of companies—is reactive: Put up a wall and respond to breaches after the fact. The second—employed by the most secure organizations in the world—is proactive: testing your defenses all the time and adjusting them before attacks occur. Today I’d like to continue that discussion by walking you through how to execute the latter without spending more on security.”
Key principles for persuasive presentations:
- Establish immediate relevance to the audience’s pain points or opportunities
- Provide examples or case studies that build your expertise
- Sketch the discrepancy between reality and the ideal
- Indicate at the beginning of your talk that it leads to actionable items
Expert insight: “In our persuasive communication workshops, we teach an opening that needs to establish intellectual support for the value proposition, and emotional push to act on it,” says our persuasive communication guru. “The best sales presentations start with the presenter as an advisor, not a seller.”
Crafting Your Opening: A Step-by-Step Framework
Understand Your Audience
Before you can even begin to write an opening, you must have a deep understanding of who will be listening to it. This founding step itself has a profound effect on which opening strategy is best.
The Audience Analysis Process:
- Identify decision-makers and influencers
- Who is able to respond to your message?
- And who influences those decision-makers?
- What is their function and agenda?
- Assess knowledge and familiarity levels
- What do they already know about your topic?
- What language will they know or will alienate them?
- What prior beliefs might they be bringing to this question?
- Determine what they care about
- What particular issues keep them from sleeping at night?
- What are they champing at the bit to seize?
- What data points or measures mean the most to them?
- Understand their communication preferences
- Are they fans of straightforward, evidence-based approaches or narrative-based ones?
- Do they respond better to an emotional appeal or a logical sequence?
- What kind of presentation styles have worked with this audience in the past?
Implementation tool: We suggest you use a very basic chart that has the following three columns:
- What they know about this subject
- What they care about with regard to this topic
- What would success look like from their point of view
Try it Yourself: Audience-Focused Opening Creation
Spend the next ten minutes answering these questions before sitting down to write your next presentation opening:
- What’s the one major obstacle or opportunity my audience has with regard to my subject matter?
- What kind of surprising take or perspective have I known these folks haven’t thought of?
- What would be the single most useful end point for this audience?
- What anecdote, stat, or example would best show my message’s connection to something they care about?
Take your answers and use them to select and customize one of the 10 opening strategies we outlined earlier. This people-first tactic magnifies the relevance and effectiveness of your opener.
Clarify Your Core Message
A strong opening should transition seamlessly into your presentation’s central thesis. When you write your introduction, start by condensing the whole presentation into one killer sentence that will excite your audience and make the central point of your talk.
The Message Clarification Process:
- Identify your big idea
- What’s the ONE thing you want your listeners to take away?
- What is something unique about your perspective or approach that you believe others need to learn?
- What are you trying to change?
- Frame it as a benefit statement
- What problem does this fix that the audience wants solved?
- What value does it provide to this audience?
- Why do they need to know it now?
- Test it for clarity and impact
- Can you boil your message down to a single sentence?
- Is it particular, as opposed to general?
- Do you think it would make sense if you were not already familiar with it?
- Does it speak in an original voice vs. a cliché?
Implementation tool: Use our “So What?” test. Record your initial core message statement, and then ask “So what?” again and again until you find a statement that better catches the attention of your listeners.
Example:
- Initial statement: “Our company should implement a new project management system.”
- So what? “The new workflow would be more efficient.”
- So what? “Path optimization could save 30% off project schedules.”
- So what? “If we could complete projects quicker, we could serve 25% more clients without adding staff.”
- So what? “If we could serve 25% more customers without hiring additional personnel, we could add $1.2 million to our bottom line each year.”
- Final core message: “We can improve annual profit by $1.2M without hiring additional staff using this project management system.”
Choose Your Opening Strategy
Once you have clarity on your audience and a purposeful core message in mind, then pick the opening that will have the greatest impact for your own circumstance.
Selection Criteria:
- Audience alignment Which opening style does serve your audience’s interests and needs most? For instance, data-oriented audiences may respond to surprising statistics, whereas visionary leaders may prefer “what if” scenarios.
- Message support Which opening makes your central point most clearly? Your lead should be the perfect environment for your big idea.
- Emotional impact How do your listeners need to feel, in order to be ready to hear what you have to say? Different kinds of openings evoke different emotions—from curiosity to worry to inspiration.
- Your authentic style Which strategy can you truly articulate with conviction? Because in your own voice the most powerful opening is whatever sounds like you.
Implementation tool: Use a 1-5 scale and rate each of the potential opening strategies according to these four criteria and choose the one that has the highest aggregate score.
Rehearse and Refine
The last thing you need to do is to rehearse your opening until it becomes natural, comfortable and engaging. Don’t even start talking about presentation excellence without this nonskip step.
The Effective Rehearsal Process:
- Script your opening word-for-word Your opening, contrary to the rest of your pitch (which can be bullets), should be scripted to within an inch of its life to get the most bang for the bucks invested in it.
- Practice with video recording Record yourself introducing and critique yourself, notice both what you say and how you sound.
- Time your delivery The max for the opening should be around 60-90 seconds. If more is said, tighten your language for maximum impact.
- Get specific feedback Ask these specific questions of colleagues or coaches:
- Was the lead clear and strong?
- Did you want to know more?
- Did that seem genuine and powerful?
- What would make it even better?
- Refine based on feedback You can make specific improvements as feedback comes in.
Expert insight: “During presentation coaching we frequently see clients need 5-7 practice runs for their opening to become second nature rather than a rehearsal,” our senior presentation coach says. “We see the goal as rehearsed spontaneity—preparation allows you to be totally free, totally in the moment.”
Psychology-Backed Techniques to Command Attention
The Neuroscience of Attention
By knowing how the brain processes information, you can create openings that fit your
audience’s cognitive process, rather than resisting it. The following are some of the major scientific findings that we use in our executive communication training:
- The Von Restorff Effect It’s actually a psychological concept, whereby we pick out and remember better the items that are distinctive. Creating contrast from what your audience expects will wake them up and be memorable.
Application: If you are giving a talk at a conference where most presentations start off with slides, why don’t you not use any visual aids when you go up, and instead kick off your presentation with something “real” like a demonstration or a powerful life or company story. - The Zeigarnik Effect The mind takes note when things are not fully completed or left open-ended. By leaving the brain in a state of cognitive dissonance at the start of your presentation, the brain is motivated to stick around for the resolution.
Application: Begin by opening with an interesting question or puzzle that your presentation will resolve. For instance: “There’s a counterintuitive reason why raising customer satisfaction can actually lead to lower revenue. By the time I am done, you will know exactly why this occurs and how to stop it.” - Hedonic Adaptation The brain habituates to repetitive stimulus, in this case screening out a linear thought. That’s why surprise, randomness or variability commands more enduring attention.
Application: Mix up your voice’s tonality, tempo, and intensity in your opening. Start with a whisper that makes the audience lean in, or make use of strategic breaks to build anticipation. - The Cocktail Party Effect The brain screens out information automatically, but if it hears something it deems personally relevant, the information causes the brain to tune in at once (like one’s own name in a crowded room).
Application: Customize your intro with lines about how the audience’s industry, company, struggles, or successes make them distinct. This tells them that your content is relevant to them personally, not just clicking through.
Leveraging Cognitive Biases in Your Opening
In addition to more generic attention mechanisms, there are some specific cognitive biases that can be used (ethically) to enhance the effectiveness of your presentation opening:
- The Curiosity Gap Minds want to avoid that gap of not knowing. It’s the gap that is designed to generate attention and engagement.
Application: “Recent studies have discovered three unexpected conditions that influence the success of transformation efforts. These are all the exceptions to most of what we’ve ever thought about change management.” - The Anchoring Effect First information provides a frame of reference for judging later information.
Application: “The best performing companies in your industry are driving 3x better employee engagement scores because they are practicing a special type of communication that 99% of companies completely ignore.” - The Peak-End Rule Experiences are largely judged by two points, their most intense point (peak) and how they end, but the opening sets up the critical first peak.
Application: Plan your opening so that it emotionally or intellectually gives your audience a “peak” experience—a high standard for the rest of your talk. - The Availability Heuristic People tend to assign greater weight to information that is more easily retrieved from memory or that they can imagine more readily.
Application: Instead of abstract themes, offer colorful specifics or sensory details to open. For example, “You won’t have to fear walking into that next board meeting because you know that your data isn’t merely accurate, but it’s predictive of future trends.”
Pro Tip: Mind Your Mindset At Moxie Institute, our brain research has shown that presenters who go into their opening as “connection opportunities” (instead of “performance challenges”) exhibit radically decreased stress responses and higher audience engagement. Before you start, frame your point of view to “not how do I impress them, but I have something for them that would be helpful to them.”
Transitioning from Your Opening to Your Core Content
Building a Bridge
Smoothly bridging the exciting start to the meaty middle of your speech is essential for keeping the momentum. The transition should feel easy and not at all forced, linking your opening hook seamlessly to your core message.
Effective Transition Techniques:
- The Direct Link: Makes your opening directly related to your core message.
Example: “This is the perfect example of why we need to adapt our customer-service philosophy. Let me tell you what the three specific changes are that we have to make…” - The Framing Transition Design your introduction to establish a schematic model for the rest of your presentation.
Example: “These statistics illustrate a key shift in consumer behavior. In today’s presentation, we’ll consider what’s behind this change and how we can work to position ourselves to take advantage of it.” - The Problem-Solution Bridge: Have your start serve as presenting a problem that the presentation will solve.
Example: “This problem—the gap between what we are saying in our marketing and what the customer is getting—is costing us somewhere in the neighborhood of $3M per year in customer churn. I’m here to offer a three-step solution that gets at the root.” - The Perspective Shift: Open with a piercing contrast to current thought, and move to your solution.
Example: “So, that’s conventional wisdom around employee retention—which the data shows is just so fundamentally flawed. Now let’s turn to what the research really tells us works.”
Setting Expectations
Your transition is the end point of what the routine has to offer, and it serves as a small preview of what is to come after your transition. This forms a cognitive checklist for their mental processing and digesting of the information to come.
Elements of an Effective Preview:
- Clarity about your purpose: List what it is you want to achieve with the presentation.
Example: “I’m going to show you today how we can drive a 22% conversion increase by three specific website optimizations.” - Succinct structure overview: Provide a short recapitulation of your talk, and without a detailed program-setting.
Example: “I’ll present the basis for these results, and I will discuss three ways to implement this and be able to recommend a course of action with timeline and resources.” - Benefit reinforcement: Tell them what they are going to get from your talk.
Example: “By the end of today’s session, you’ll have a precise plan of action that your team can start implementing right away.” - Interaction expectations: Establish the tone for how and when you want the audience to participate.
Example: “I’ve scheduled time for discussion after each section, and I encourage your questions and insights throughout.”
Expert insight: “The move from opening to core content is where far too many powerful presenters lose steam,” says our presentation skills coach. “We teach something called ‘narrative threading’ where you plant a central theme or metaphor when you open that you will continue to thread through the presentation. It gives cohesion, and makes your message tangible across various portions.”
Practical Examples: Before and After Transformations
To give you a better idea of the enormous impact a good opening can have, here are some case studies from our presentation-coaching practice (actual details are changed to protect our clients).
Example 1: Technical Presentation Transformation
BEFORE: “Thank you for coming today. I am going to discuss our new predictive maintenance machine learning algorithm. I’ve been spending the past eight months doing this, with a group of folks. I will begin with a little bit of an introduction on machine learning methods, continue with a description of our methodology and present finally some results.”
AFTER: “What if you could predict 72 hours in advance with 94% accuracy that a machine on the manufacturing floor would fail? (Pause) That’s what we’re doing at three pilot sites with the method I’m about to tell you. That breakthrough is already saving those plants and an average of $2.7 million per year in avoided downtime and maintenance costs.”
The Transformation Analysis:
- The opening was much more academic and insular with no real hook to grab the reader
- The modified version is engaging and useful right away
- It begins with those things that make readers read, not a bunch of methods
- It means that innocent questions will be asked about how those results were achieved
Example 2: Sales Presentation Transformation
BEFORE: “Good morning everyone. I would like to introduce you to our business software today. I am the owner of a 15 year old B2B company and we work with companies like yours constantly. What follows are a variety of features and benefits that our software can provide you. Before I describe our company history, let me tell you…”
AFTER: “In our evaluation of your current work flow there are three fundamental bottlenecks where an average of 12 additional days is being added to your project completion time. (Displays plain visual) Businesses like yours that have tackled exactly these bottlenecks have grown project capacity by 34% with the same resources. In this post, I’m going to explain exactly how our solution got rid of these bottlenecks for them—and how it can do for same for you.”
The Transformation Analysis:
- The original design was generic and company-centric, not client-centric
- The new draft shows detailed work on the part of the client
- It quantifies just how big the problem is, and how big the opportunity to solve it is
- It gains credibility based on specific examples of cases
Example 3: Internal Change Management Presentation Transformation
BEFORE: “I want to talk about the new departmental reorg plan today. You’ve all seen we’ve been thinking about different organizational structures for months. I will walk you through the changes that are being proposed, a time frame for implementation and then talk about next steps and answer any questions you have.”
AFTER: “Five years ago, our departmental structure fit our market challenges and customer needs like a glove. Today, it is putting in place three particular obstacles to meeting our changing customer base. (Quotes from customer feedback flash on the screen) Our team has also been telling us this. In the engagement survey, 72% of you reported these very same organizational barriers as being significant frustrations in delivering for our customers. That’s why the plan I’m announcing today is a plan that directly responds to those challenges—because it was forged in response to the challenges and informed by the input I received from you.”
The Transformation Analysis:
- The first had been procedural rather than cover the “why” behind the changes
- The revised version creates context for the change and acknowledges current frustrations
- It shows that the employees’ input mattered in building the solution
- It makes the organizational changes relate back to the customer
Key Insight: The new lead features in every example point back to our mission statement:
- It has to be relevant to the audience straight away
- It is an attention-getter that can be a provocative question, surprising information, or a demonstration
- It shows speaker’s ethos and preparation
- This eases the reader into the meat of the matter
Your Presentation Opening Action Plan
Use this step-by-step method to develop powerful presentation openings every time:
1. Pre-Presentation Analysis (1-2 days before)
- Audience Research: Who is making the decisions and what are they worried about?
- Message Distillation: Get in one sentence what the single most important idea is that your message carries
- Opening Selection: Select the appropriate opening method for your audience and message
- Value Articulation: Clearly state what you will deliver to your audience
2. Opening Development (1 day before)
- Script Writing: Write out your opening verbatim (targeted for 60-90 seconds of speaking material)
- Visual Planning: Decide if you will use visuals with your opener or not
- Transition Creation: Construct a seamless transition from your opener to the body
- Expectation Setting: Come up with a short teaser for what comes next
3. Practice & Refinement (day before presentation)
- Verbal Practice: Practice your opening 5 times out loud or more
- Recording Review: Record and video yourself opening and critique it
- Feedback Collection: Solicit feedback from trusted colleague or coach
- Refinement: Targeted changes from practicing and customer feedback
4. Pre-Presentation Preparation (day of presentation)
- Mental Rehearsal: Visualize successful address in the environment of that event
- Physical Preparation: Take time to center breath—4 sec in & 6 sec out
- Opening Internalization: Read over your opening one more time
- Mindset Shift: It’s about connection not performance
5. Post-Presentation Assessment (within 24 hours)
- Self-Evaluation: What went right, what could have gone better
- Audience Feedback: Collect feedback on the effectiveness of your beginning
- Learning Capture: Write down what you learned to apply it next time
- Skill Building: Determine one aspect to work on for your next presentation
Download Checklist: To print a copy of this plan of action, go to our presentation skills coaching page.
Powerful Practice Exercise: The 30-Second Challenge
The exercise we rely on most heavily in our presentation skills workshop is the “30-Second Challenge”:
- Pick three of the other ten openings we’ve gone over
- Make both into a 30-second version for the same presentation topic
- Record each one giving its opening
- Turn to 3-5 classmates and poll them to determine which version makes them most eager to hear more
- Analyze why the most successful was the most successful
This tool can quickly establish your arsenal of openings, and gives you direct insight into what does (and does not) work for you already when facing regular audiences.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long should my presentation opening be?
Answer: Your opening should be 60-90 seconds—just long enough to get attention and show relevancy, but not so long that you lose your steam. Research from our presentation training engagements indicates that audience interest tends to reach a zenith around the 60 second mark of an effective opening, and begins its downhill trajectory after 2 minutes if transition is not made to substantive material. The exception is keynote addresses or critical presentations where a slightly longer (up to 2 minutes or so) opening might work, provided it contains a gripping story.
Is it okay to use humor in my presentation opening?
Answer: Humor can work if it’s relevant to your subject matter, suitable for your audience, and true to your style. But it comes with big risks. In our executive coaching practice, we’ve found that humor is most effective when it emerges organically out of situations that the audience can relate to rather than from jokes. If you’re worried about using humor, particularly in high-stakes or cross-cultural presentations, it might feel safer to rely on other engaging tools, such as surprising statistics or thought-provoking questions. Keep in mind that a joke that bombs will set back your credibility in a way you can’t reverse at the podium.
Should I memorize my presentation opening word-for-word?
Answer: Absolutely, yes, we recommend committing to memory to the point of being almost verbatim your opener. Unlike the meat and substance of your presentation, where flexibility reigns, your opening benefits from being as precise as possible. According to research from the University of California, most speakers are overcome by the stress response for the first 30-60 seconds and working memory breaks down, leading to an inability to find the right words in the moment. By remembering your opening, you will feel empowered and be able to start strong even when you are feeling nervous. All the same, delivery should come across as natural and conversational, not read—this takes rehearsing the opening until it feels that way.
How do I adapt my opening when presenting to a mixed audience?
Answer: When facing a mixed audience with different knowledge levels, priorities, or roles, we recommend a layered opening approach:
- Start with broad concerns or opportunities that appeal to all segments of your audience
- Acknowledge the variety of perspectives in the room
- Determine what/why your message matters to each key stakeholder
For instance: “Today’s customer experience challenges impact every department differently—marketing experiences it in our Net Promoter Scores, sales is on the receiving end of customer objections, and operations senses it in high tickets. I will demonstrate how the holistic approach that we recommend resolves both of these issues and delivers a seamless customer journey.”
How should I open a virtual presentation differently from an in-person one?
Answer: Yes, you must adjust to become virtually special meeting participants, overcoming digital barriers to engagement. Drawing on our years of training on virtual presentations, we recommend:
- Be even more succinct—shoot for 45-60 seconds for your virtual opening
- Add some better looking stuff to enhance your story telling
- Remember to use more overt engagement cues (“I’m asking that you think…” or “Pause and consider…”)
- Be about 15-20% more energetic than in a live delivery onsite
- Include some question or poll in the opening 30 seconds to create an interactive show
Testing in a virtual environment indicates that in online presentations attention spans are already 30-40% shorter, which means your opening is going to play an even more significant role in establishing that pattern of engagement.
What if I’m not the first presenter in a multi-speaker session?
Answer: Differentiation is even more critical when presenting as a series. Study previous presentations (if you can) and intentionally do the opposite in your opening! If prior speakers had shown slides right away, perhaps begin with a pure verbal story. If they were very formal, try it more conversational. You can also make a more direct transition from what has been said before: “I want to build on what Susan has discussed about the trends we’re seeing in the market and how these trends are manifesting themselves in really unique ways in our product development strategy.”
How do I recover if my planned opening falls flat?
Answer: Even the best of presenters don’t always discern their audience. And if you feel your opener isn’t going over as planned, we teach these recovery techniques:
- Pivot to relevance: Make a direct pitch about why this subject is relevant to this particular audience at this moment.
- Ask a direct engagement question: “Before I go any further, I’m interested to know what you connect to as the most pressing component of this challenge to what you’re facing right now?”
- Acknowledge and reset: “Actually, let me try this in a slightly different way that could clarify why this is so important…”
The trick is stubborn self-assurance combined with an open ear for the audience. Just keep in mind that for the most part, your audience—they want you to succeed, right—they have invested time out of their busy schedule to listen to you speak.
Should my slides begin at the same time as my verbal opening?
Answer: For the most part, we suggest that you hold your first slide until after your verbal kick-off. Attention management studies reveal that the moment you start speaking without slides, the audience becomes all about you, greatly boosting connection and perceived authority. It divides the participant’s attention by displaying slides at the same time as your first words. Many TED speakers employ this tactic—opening with pure verbal storytelling and only later supplementing the point with visual aide after presence is established. This method also introduces a natural rhythm interruption when your initial slide appears, making for a great segue to the meat of your content.
How can I make a standard company template or required opening slide work effectively?
Answer: If your corporate style dictates the use of certain opening slides (title, agenda, etc.) you can create an engaging start by:
- The correct slide being displayed, but with too much having been said before there’s need
- With the “presentation in a presentation” technique: the “obligatory” slides first, then the much more compelling “real opening”
- Developing a consistent, reasonable but slightly more interesting opening format with your communications team
One tactic we teach executives is to use the “bridge statement” to acknowledge the need for formality while segueing into more compelling content: “You can refer to the agenda on the screen, but before we delve into those details, let me share something surprising we’ve learned that shifts how we should approach this whole project.”
Conclusion
Your first few words are your best opportunity to grab attention, build credibility and lay down the groundwork for everything that follows. As we’ve seen in this guide, the science is conclusive: People make immediate assessments that have a huge impact on the manner in which your entire presentation is perceived.
So, in drawing up your opening, with our evidence-based strategy above, including provoking questions, shocking stats, intriguing stories, live demos, and more, you make sure you’re set up to slay from the moment you start. In the end, it comes down to choosing the method that best aligns with your audience and message and delivering it with genuine confidence.
With Moxie Institute, we have witnessed the power of an excellent opening to not only transform a presentation, but to transform a speaker’s entire communication quality and presence. Facilitators who successfully open their programs with a “bang” are more likely to find that participants stay engaged throughout the workshop, can better remember the content of the session, and react more positively toward the overall presentation.
Remember, this isn’t about tricks or performance—it’s about genuinely connecting with an audience around stuff that matters to them. When you start your lead off with that as your focus (on delivering real value and not on making a “splash,” so to speak), magic happens.
Please, experiment with these in your next presentation. Choose and adapt one of the tactics that best reflects your style and the nature of your own particular presentation. Notice the difference it has on audience attention and message influence. Then have some more open approaches and continue to hone this important skill that you will use for the rest of your career.
For more information on enhancing your presentation skills, executive presence and speak up skills, check out our presentation training or contact us today to learn how you and your team can build your communication impact.
TAKE THE FIRST STEP TO MASTER POWERFUL NEW SKILLS
Schedule an easy 30-minute call using our using our calendar. We’re here to help!
