Monroe: Engage the audience

1. Engage the audience

There are more things that you need to do in the first part of your public speech. First of all, you need to introduce yourself. This is a moment where some speakers also like to establish their credibility. If you have strong connections to the topic you will approach, or ways in which you can describe yourself as an expert, this is the time when you can briefly (very briefly!) let the audience know what makes you an expert. Don’t tell them a personal story to illustrate your connection to the topic, this will come later. Simply state the basis of your expertise, if you have it.

You also need to announce to your audience what the topic of your speech is, or, in other words, you need to let them know something about what they can expect. Do not reveal all your secret weapons at this stage, but it is important to give your audience a general clue about what it is that they will spend the next five minutes of their lives on.

However, the most important thing you should do during this first couple of minutes with your audience is to get their attention. The most common ways to do this in a public speech are:

• tell a story,
• use humour,
• share a shocking statistic,
• use a rethorical question.

In the terms of Dominic Spencer, who rephrased Monroe’s model, this is where you tell your audience: Hey, listen to me, there is a problem!