Tight throat, knotted stomach, sweaty hands, a racing heartbeat—many people can experience these symptoms before starting a public speech! Fear is natural. Actors, singers, musicians, dancers, candidates, men and women in politics, and sometimes even Seveners (the nickname for our facilitators) before beginning a Seven training session, face these kinds of situations. When we do not yet know our audience profile, do not know how they will react, and are experiencing something new, it is logical to feel apprehensive and imagine the worst possible scenarios (see Murphy’s law, which states that anything that can go wrong will necessarily go wrong)!

To a certain extent, apprehension can be a positive indicator. Indeed, when, before a training session, our facilitators tell us they have stage fright (some do not and perform perfectly), we tell them that their feeling shows their willingness to get involved and proves they are not resting on what they already know. So that their worry fades and gives way to the pleasure of speaking—and above all so the audience is won over—we invite our facilitators (and everyone preparing to speak in public) to pay special attention to their opening. Why? Because with a successful introduction, the audience will be more inclined to share their point of view, contribute to workshops, and stay attentive throughout.

The importance of the beginning can be seen through many everyday examples. If the first 10 seconds of a YouTube video appeal to you, you keep watching. If a shop window intrigues you, you are likely to go in right away or later. If a movie trailer grabs you, you make a note to see it then or later. First impressions are crucial—nothing new there. At Seven, as part of our training, we are aware of the impact of beginnings; that is why, when we coach our facilitators, we are very demanding about how they start. We even encourage them to spend as much time rehearsing their introduction as working on the rest of the training.

Because we want to give everyone the power to act and fulfill their potential, in this article we are sharing actions that, when combined, will make the beginnings of your speeches successful and, by extension, make your entire message memorable. With our seven tips, we are sharing the secret to successful public speaking: work on your beginnings.

———

1. Grab attention with a hook

The first impression is key, and even more so the opening sentence you deliver in public speaking. The very first words you say, the language level you choose, the tone you use, the posture you adopt, the warmth you project, the gaze you hold… all these elements will influence the image (good or bad) you project to others. Your communication as a whole (verbal, vocal, and visual) will significantly impact your audience. Depending on what you say and how you say it, your audience may be moved, think of a happy memory, smile, dig deeper into a topic that resonates with them… To choose your hook well, you should consider contextual elements (who are you addressing? on what occasion are you speaking? how much time do you have? etc.), define the form of your speech (argumentative, explanatory, descriptive, instructive, etc.), and determine the 2 or 3 core topics to convey (if the audience had to remember 2 things, what would they be?).

Concretely, to begin speaking in front of an audience, you should spark their curiosity so as to capture their attention and keep it (because the point is not to interest them for only 2 minutes).

Several options exist to engage people with a hook (non-exhaustive list):

• Start with a story or an anecdote

• Address your audience directly (“You,” “Ladies and Gentlemen”)

• Use figures of speech

• Quote an intriguing statistic, an unlikely but real fact

• Support your message with repetition

• Share a question everyone is asking

• Raise an issue many people face

2. Practice

Once you know your content, what will make your public speaking successful is your practice. Speaking is a bit like going on stage. It is better to practice again and again, until you no longer doubt what you are going to say and, when it is time to begin your speech, your words come out naturally and allow you to project what you want to convey—namely, the image of a confident person who believes in what they are saying.

Repeating the beginning of your speech starts above all with a “hello” delivered with the right intention. If it is said in a shaky voice, with low volume, an evasive gaze, and crossed arms, it will not put the sender of the message (the facilitator in a Seven training context) in good conditions for the rest of their speech. Indeed, their “hello” will project the image of someone lacking confidence. To deliver a “hello” full of confidence, they can imagine being in real conditions. It is up to them to say their message as if they were standing in front of their audience, using the diction, pace, volume, and articulation they would use in front of them, accompanying their message with appropriate gestures, daring to look their different interlocutors in the eyes, and using pauses when necessary.

With a “hello” said with a smile and flair, people will sense a motivated, passionate person, genuinely happy to be there, capable of passing on their dynamism to others. Moreover, at Seven, when we select our experts for corporate sessions, we make sure they are aligned with our convictions, that they share with us a taste for transmission, the desire to help people grow, and the deep belief that everyone can contribute to others. With this mindset, we know they will naturally be smiling, approachable, and enthusiastic.

3. Breathe deeply

This is advice that may seem simple, but too many of us still do not apply it correctly and consistently. In fact, for the purposes of this article, try it now: breathe deeply and mindfully, then observe the beneficial effects that occur.

When you rehearse your introduction, train yourself to focus on your breathing, to insert pauses—moments during which you will breathe in calmly through your nose, expand your stomach, hold your breath for a moment, then breathe out through your mouth to release the airflow you have just taken in. Try to breathe as slowly as possible, use your diaphragm as much as possible, and become aware of how you breathe. Naturally, you will feel relaxed.

The more you practice, the more you will be able, on the big day, to settle your breathing, even though at that moment you will likely go faster. But even so, by having worked on your breathing beforehand, you will be better able to control your non-verbal communication.

And during the few minutes before your intervention, do not hesitate to do short breathing exercises. Focusing on the air entering your nostrils and the air leaving them will help you clear your mind, create a feeling of calm, and lower your heart rate.

4. Offer icebreakers

“Hello and welcome, my name is Antoine. I’m asking you to stand up, close your eyes, put your hands on your stomach…”. Admit it: this training opening is more captivating than “Hello, my name is Antoine, I spent 5 years at such-and-such company, then I moved up, led more complex projects, and switched to a human-sized company.” What if, instead of dwelling on what we did, what we currently do, and what we want to do, we focused on our audience and had them do a simple, engaging action? The probability of creating better anchoring—and especially of capturing their attention for what follows—will be higher. That is the power of icebreakers.

These short exercises (5 to 15 minutes), which you can introduce into all kinds of speaking situations (conferences, interviews, training, etc.), will encourage the audience to speak up, share their viewpoints, and interact with each other. Taking the form of a “game,” icebreakers invite the audience to change posture: from passive to active. To make this work, the instruction must be clear enough, while not being too easy (so it remains stimulating) nor too complex (so the actions are doable).

If we take the example of training on image management, you could absolutely ask participants to pair up, do an online search on their partner, and present their partner based on publicly visible information. Another example for change-management training: blank sheets are handed out to participants, who are asked to write “I like change” on the front, and write the same sentence on the back, this time using their non-dominant hand. Through this exercise, participants experience a change—certainly simple to accept and adopt, but still a change nonetheless.

After these icebreaker exercises, the audience generally feels more comfortable and more ready to share their views. Starting with an icebreaker drastically increases your chances of developing/strengthening a climate of trust, increasing the probability that recipients remember what was done, and helping the speaker feel more at ease for the rest of the talk. And for even greater impact, you can play with proxemics with your audience. An icebreaker is an opportunity to physically move closer to the people you are addressing, to break the physical distance that creates the feeling of separation between the one speaking and the one listening.

5. Set the tone

Icebreakers also serve to set the tone, in other words to create a link with the overall theme of the training. In itself, these icebreaker exercises can be compared to literature, where incipits (= the beginnings of books) reveal several clues about the book’s general atmosphere, future themes, and main stakes. Take the beginning of the novel Bel Ami by Maupassant, published in 1885. Through the description of Georges Duroy, this clever character eager to succeed, money and women are immediately at stake, as shown by associated lexical fields: “money,” “hundred-sou coin,” “fixed price,” “three francs forty,” “expense,” “one franc twenty-two bocks,” “cashier,” “women,” “three little workers,” “a mistress,” “two bourgeois women.”

Working on your beginnings also means integrating what will be the common thread of your message. Whatever your speaking context, get straight to the heart of the matter and highlight the stakes of the message. If your audience is attending training to become more convincing, start by having them experience one of the six laws of influence defined by psychologist Robert Cialdini (cf. “I’m asking you all to stand up, close your eyes, put your hands on your stomach…”). This is exactly what we offer in Seven training, and participant feedback on this is positive. Many tell us they appreciated being immersed right away.

6. Evoke emotions in listeners

To capture an audience’s attention and persuade them during public speaking, there is a rhetorical triptych you can rely on, and that you may already know thanks to the philosopher Aristotle: Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. If Logos refers to the substance of your speech (in other words, your arguments, what you say), Ethos refers to what you project (that is, your non-verbal communication). Pathos, for its part, encompasses the emotions you want to evoke in your audience and how you intend to trigger them. This is the last point we will focus on: Pathos.

Depending on the feelings you want to trigger in others, you will choose different Logos and Ethos. Do you want your audience to feel irritation? Perhaps you will share certain information to fuel their anger? Will you find arguments capable of touching a sensitive chord? Would you rather your audience feel sadness? Would you emphasize the “disastrous” situation before them? Would you adopt a particularly descriptive discourse?

7. Accept that you cannot control everything

If you plan everything you are going to say before public speaking, the risk is that you will feel uncomfortable if an unforeseen situation occurs. Even if successful speaking means a high-quality, carefully prepared introduction, you should include moments in which you accept that new situations may emerge. You can try to anticipate your audience’s reactions to your message and instructions, but nothing says all your predictions will come true. Human beings are unpredictable. When communicating to an audience, try to loosen up (easier said than done, you might say), or at least accept that the content of your message may need to be adjusted at times, depending on your audience’s reactions.

You can always identify potential unexpected situations in advance and think through the actions you could take if each occurred. Planning backup options will reassure you on the one hand and allow you, on the other hand, to act faster and with more confidence if the unexpected happens. By observing potential risks, you will find that they do not all have the same level of criticality and that, depending on whether a risk is non-negligible, negligible, critical, or unacceptable (see the risk matrix), one action will be preferable to another. More advice on risk-taking here.

Finally, tell yourself that the recipients of your message are king. They can, as they see fit, make you change what you planned to share—and you must accept that. But you can also take the lead and directly give them the freedom to choose what will happen. “Which exercise would you like to do now? What duration seems most reasonable to complete it? Would you prefer I tell you this story or that one?” Because audiences are less used to being directly addressed this way, they will be surprised by your request and more motivated to share their preferences.

———

Before public speaking, it is natural to feel apprehensive, but the goal is not to let that apprehension settle in. It can turn into positive adrenaline, then give way to the pleasure of being “on stage” presenting your message. In our Seven training sessions, our facilitators practice public speaking. When the audience is new, and facilitation is still a recent exercise for them (what matters to us is their passion for sharing and their expertise in their subject), they may feel a moment of stage fright, but quickly they understand that everything is decided in the beginning. When we coach them, there are seven tips we share with them—and that we are sharing here with you—because they can be applied in different speaking contexts.

1. Grab attention with a hook: Capturing attention depends, on the one hand, on substance—the actual content of the message. Is it surprising, moving, related to a lived situation? On the other hand, sparking curiosity also depends on form. Does the speaker adopt the right posture? Is their non-verbal communication showing that they are at ease?

2. Practice: A “hello” delivered in a lively way will project the image of a confident person, delighted to share what they know with others. The best way to feel at ease is to rehearse a “hello” alone in front of a mirror. It may seem strange, of course, but it is considerable help that we can only advise you to try (promise, we won’t be there during your practice session!).

3. Breathe deeply: While rehearsing your introduction, train yourself to pause and take time to breathe deeply. Dare to do exercises in which you breathe in through the nose, hold your breath for a moment, then breathe out through the mouth.

4. Offer icebreakers: These short exercises invite participants to carry out a simple, engaging action and therefore move from a passive status to an active one. Their function: create a climate of trust, put the audience at ease so they themselves want to speak up.

5. Set the tone: During the introduction, as in books, films, or series, the goal is to make your audience understand what the main stakes of the message will be.

6. Evoke emotions in listeners: After logos (the substance of your message) and ethos (what you project, your non-verbal communication), comes pathos, which consists in provoking specific emotions in your audience. Everyone, depending on the message they have to deliver, should make sure to use the right arguments and the right attitude to trigger the emotions they want to evoke in their audience.

7. Accept that you cannot control everything: Working on your beginnings does not mean refusing the unexpected. Some will inevitably happen, so you might as well expect it. Ideally, identify potential situations you might face so you can imagine backup plans. However, you will not be able to predict everything. What you can do: take the opposite approach and directly ask your audience what they want. You will surprise them positively, and they will be more inclined to participate.