I recently came across on an interesting article by Jon Thomas called “5 Ways to Start Your Presentation Off Strong,” that discusses how to engage an audience. This brought back fond memories of my public speaking courses from college, a requirement for all communication majors. I survived the intro course my freshman year and decided to challenge myself further by taking the “advanced” class during senior year.

I heard some pretty terrifying rumors about this course and they turned out to be true. Note cards were not allowed so the entire presentation had to be memorized! The speeches were recorded, which actually ended up being helpful because seeing yourself stutter and fiddle around during a presentation definitely made you change your ways.

One of our final projects was to give a humorous speech in one of the college’s common areas. I have to be funny? Not only in front of the class, but in front of my friends and random passers-by? Throughout the semester, we had learned that one of the most important parts of a presentation is your opening or “attention grabber.” I decided to do my final speech on relationships and would get my audience’s attention by playing Beyonce’s hit “Single Ladies.”

In Jon’s article, he offers some other ideas for starting off a presentation:

• A personal story
• A joke
• Video
• Thank your audience
• Ask a question/start a conversation

These are great tips– I would also suggest having a backup plan in case something goes wrong. Just before I went on stage, I was informed that the audio was not working and my catchy intro would not be heard. Luckily, I had something else planned in case this happened. I expected this experience to be one of the more embarrassing moments of my life, but the audience actually enjoyed it and it showed me the importance of starting a presentation on a strong note.