Collected articles and blog posts on Writing Introductions
WRITE A ROCK STAR INTRODUCTION! by Christine Cashen - September 2015 issue of “Speaker” magazine
Repeat after me: Yourbio is not your intro! Your bio is a compilation of your accomplishments and accolades.
Meanwhile, a good introduction can do more than just give the audience some background information about you. It can be the difference in how your audience receives your message.
In a study, a class learned they would have a guest lecturer. The students received a written bio about the lecturer and were asked to give their impressions of the speaker after class. Two bios were handed out;they were identical exceptfor two words. Half receivedthis line: "People who know him consider him to be very warm, industrious, critical, practical and determined." In the second bio, "very warm" was replaced with "cold."
Just two words, that's it. After the guest lecture, the students' opinions were so divided you would have thought they heard two different people. Those who received the "very warm" bio thought highly of the guest and gave glowing reviews, while those who received the "cold" bio felt he was humorless, self-centered, unpopular and worse. If one simple word can make the difference, imagine how important your introduction is.
The following formula will help you write an intro that anyone can read—and will have the audience waiting for a rock star to take the stage.
- Help the introducer get started: “Let me begin with a few questions”
- Ask three questions that get the audience to say "yes" and relate to the topic you are about
to address or the problem you will solve.
- Transition line: If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, you are in the right place.
- Three to four lines of credentials.
- Personal fact(s) to help the audience relate to you: When she/he is not…. she/he is….
- Please join me in welcoming from (location), (two titles and one twist, self-deprecation or
connector), (your name).
Let's say you have a speaker named Jaime Ballace who speaks to nail salon owners about employee training and retention. Here's a sample:
Jaime Ballace Intro:
“Let me begin with a few questions. Do you wish you had low employee turnover? Could you use great ideas to energize employees? Are you ready for tips to make your salon the best place to work?
If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, then you are in the right place! Our speaker today
owns five nail salons, has more than 50 employees and less than 10 percent turnover. She has opened a new salon each year for three consecutive years with plans for five future salons.
When not working, she can be found doing Zumba or receiving pedicures from her 4-year-old daughter.
Helping us today to Create a Stellar Culture, please join me in welcoming from Pinckney, Michigan, speaker, author and self-professed lover of Hallmark Movies—Jaime Ballace! “
Simple but powerful.
Here are a few additional things to keep in mind. First, keep it to one page only with 16- to 18-point font, and save your name until the end. Send a copy in advance, and always bring a hard copy with you. And lastly, when you arrive, make sure you meet and thank the introducer for reading the intro exactly as it is written.
Christine Cashen, CSI, CSP, is on a quest to rid the world of self-indulgent and boring intros. She is a speaker, author and average golfer. Learn more at .
The Bad Art of the Introduction By Dave Lieber (davelieber.org/how-not-to-introduce-somebody/)
Despite what you may have heard, often the worst part of my public speeches isn’t the part where I’m speaking.
It’s usually the introduction.
People can’t seem to get that part right. Actually, they almost always blow it. They say exactly what I asked them NOT to say a few minutes before. I know. They are not professional speakers. But all they have to do is read what’s on the page I handed to them.
So I grit my teeth, take a deep breath, smile and thank them for the wonderful introduction.
More often than not, even when I ask them to pretend they wrote it, they instead say, “He wrote this introduction about himself and just handed it to me and is making me read it. It’s kind of long, so anyway, here goes.”
My worst all-time introduction concluded when the introducer, reading off her index card, stated, “…. and Dave Lieber is an expert at handing out balony [sic] disguised as ‘food for thought.’ And may I present Dave Lieber.”
No, you may not.
After I was done with my baloney, I picked up the card and saved it. What could be more humbling?
Here it is:
Four months ago, a man in Weatherford, Texas said, “And here’s our guest. He’s a Jewish boy, and, in fact, he’s my favorite little Jewish boy.”
Then the other day, while preparing to speak at a Dallas church. I handed the printed introduction to the club president. I asked her not to say that I wrote it, but to pretend that it was hers. Then I pointed to the first line: “(Please ask them to turn off cell phones.”)
She said, “Our people don’t carry cell phones so I don’t need to say that.”
I said, “OK, you know your people better than I do. But everybody’s got a cell phone these days and people hate it when they go off. But do what you want. If one goes off during my talk, though, I’m going to include you in a story that I’m writing for my speaker colleagues called ‘The Bad Art of the Introduction.’ ”
She began the introduction by saying, “He warned me that I better remind you to turn off your cell phones off, so turn ’em off!” I watched as almost everyone in the room bent over to fetch their phones.
During the speech, a phone went off. Twice. (That’s why Marie gets her name in this story. Hi, Marie.)
As you can tell, I obsess a bit too much over my introductions. I have different ones for different speeches. Like me, they have evolved.
They started out as credibility builders. I won the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize and the People’s Choice Award, you name it. Then I heard the introduction used by Dallas speaker Christine Cashen (author of the new book The Good Stuff, Quips, and Tips on Life, Love and Happiness.) And I was never the same.
A few years ago, her intro included these lines: “Not only does she run to speaking engagements, she runs around the house as the mom to her 22 month old daughter, 3 ½ year old son and a new chocolate lab puppy. Our speaker may look familiar to you– you may have seen her on the Oprah show….she was in the 5th row of the audience on the left hand side.”
The audience is laughing even before Christine takes the stage.
Christine helped me for several weeks with my introduction. I ended up including lots of self-deprecating comments:
“Did you know a dog can help a man become a true Texan? Did you know that a stubborn native Texan dog has the right to tear the backside out of a foolish Yankee transplant?”
For another speech I give, I let the introducer tell the audience what a lunkhead I am:
Even though he’s the Star-Telegram’s Watchdog columnist, the introducer says, “he, too, has fallen for a few dumb scams. Don’t ask him about his roofer, or his cell phone bill, or what the electric company did to him.”
You can hear the titters. Then when I get up there, I use that as a lead-in to my subject matter.
But of course, they usually don’t bother to read the script. The other day, the introducer said this: “Well, everyone. I sent you an e-mail earlier this week telling you about our guest speaker today. If you read it, you know who he is. If you didn’t, you’re out of luck. Here, he is.”
Believe it or not, that didn’t bother me. I know the truth. It could have been so much worse.
Here are some tips:
– Today’s audiences expect a boring introduction so when it isn’t, they take notice.
– Always keep printed copies of your introduction with you. Hand it to the introducer the moment you enter the room.
– It’s OK to mention awards, but it’s better to say what you won them for.
– Include humour as often as possible.
– When you are being introduced, smile, begin making eye contact with the audience and act like it’s the first time you ever heard it. If the introducer ad libs a joke, make sure you react to it.
– Don’t come off like a name dropper (“Jack Canfield called him the second best writer ever!”) Don’t talk about your wealth or anything that might cause a barrier between you and your audience even before you open your mouth.
– Watch the eyes of your audience during the introduction. See which parts they pay attention to and which parts they don’t. Eliminate the parts where their eyes glaze over.
– Oh and whenever possible, mention your dog.
JEREMY NICHOLAS BLOG POST ON INTRODUCTIONS
I’d like to start with a short introduction.
“Our blogger today is a keynote speaker AND a compere. So he’s ideally placed to tell us what makes a good introduction at an event. With thirty years as a broadcaster he knows how to hold an audience’s attention, please welcome Jeremy Nicholas.”
(Applause as your blogger enters)
Hi, I’m Jeremy Nicholas and I’m going to tell you where speakers go wrong with their introductions. I’m talking about the laminated piece of card that you hand to the emcee at an event with your introduction printed on it in big font.
What do you mean you haven’t got a laminated introduction?
OK we’re going to have to go right back to basics.
You need a standard introduction and you need to insist that the emcee reads it exactly as you’ve written it. Lots of emcees like to ad-lib, which is great if they are good.
They often aren’t good. They are often awful. So that’s why your introduction needs to be short. The shorter it is, the less they can mess it up.
When you are on the stage you are in the shop window. You are laying out your wares, in this case your expertise and your credibility.
Who can sell your wares best? You of course! So get on that stage as soon as you can and don’t leave it in the hands of someone who might not be great at selling you.
(I should point out that there are some brilliant comperes in the world. I like to think that I’m one of them. But why risk it?
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BIOGRAPHY AND AN INTRODUCTION
The big mistake people make is giving the emcee a biography. This is far too detailed and to be honest, no use at all. A biography is fine for the website or brochure for the event, but not for the spoken introduction.
The introduction should be short and to the point and crucially it should be written by you in a language that anyone can easily read out loud. That means short sentences and no words that are hard to pronounce.
If you name is tricky to pronounce, spell it out phonetically.
‘Please welcome: John Hot-Ow-Ka’
This is especially effective if motivational speaker John Hotowka is the next on!
MY FORMULA FOR THE PERFECT INTRODUCTION There are four sentences in the ideal introduction.
THE FIRST SENTENCE
The first line should say who you are. It should make clear to every single person in the room, exactly who you are.
They should hear this one sentence and without any specialist or prior knowledge, know exactly who you are. That’s really important. You don’t want anyone to feel left out, because they aren’t as clued up as everyone else.
For example, I’ve introduced Sir Geoff Hurst many times at sporting dinners. He’s a legend and just about everyone in the room will know who he is.
But supposing there’s someone in the room who’s from overseas and doesn’t follow football? What about them? Do they want to spend the first half of his talk wondering who he is?
So I might say: ‘Our speaker is the only footballer to have scored a hat-trick in a World Cup Final.’
But even that supposes a level of knowledge about the game of football. So I’d say: “Our speaker is the only footballer to have scored a hat-trick (pause) three goals in a World Cup Final.”
Most people will assume the pause is me weighing up the enormity of scoring three goals in a World Cup Final. But the American baseball fan on table seven will be quietly grateful that I explained what a hat-trick is.
I once introduced Tony Blair at an event. Just about everyone in the audience will have known him.
But I still said: ‘Our special guest today is the Prime Minister…”
You might think that odd, but not only is it inclusive for the audience, but it also gives a build-up. For those that are only half-listening, it prepares them for the important bit of information that’s on the way. So when I finally say ‘please welcome Tony Blair’, they are ready with their cheers (or boos!).
THE SECOND SENTENCE
The second thing you need in your intro is what you are going to talk about. If you can’t get the meaning of your talk into one line, then it’s not a very good talk. That line should be focussed towards what the audience are going to take away from your talk.
So a good second line would be ‘he’s going to teach us how to write really good short introductions.’
It’s all about the audience and what value they are going to get from your talk. They don’t care about who you are. They only care about what they are going to get from you.
Sorry to be blunt, but that’s the way it is. So tear up that intro you’ve been using for the past few years and write a short, simple one that will appeal to the audience and not your ego.
THE THIRD SENTENCE
The third line should tell them WHY they should listen. It should establish your credibility. If you are going to show-off this is the sentence to do it in.
What is the thing about you that impresses people most? I know I said it’s not about your ego, but that was in sentence two. With sentence three it’s all about the ego.
A good third sentence would be: ‘he’s the voice of the announcer on the global best selling video game FIFA 14’
That’s me by the way. I’m also the voice of FIFA 14 and 13,12,11 …right back to FIFA 06.
I did mention that the third sentence is about showing off, didn’t I?
THE FOURTH SENTENCE
And then comes the last bit, which is ‘please welcome XXXXXXXX XXXXXXX’
(Don’t forget to fill your name in. Unless your name is XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX!)
A good fourth sentence would be: ‘Please welcome JEREMY NICHOLAS.’
I always write my name in block capitals, to make it easy for the emcee to find. Not because I’m shouting!
SUMMARY So that’s it. A simple four point formula, but it works every time.
1. Who you are, (without saying your name).
2. What you are going to talk about
3. Why you are THE person to listen to on this subject.
4. Please welcome ……your name.
And then go and laminate it. Use a different colour of paper to white, so it’s easy for the emcee to find on a clipboard.
Jeremy Nicholas is a writer and broadcaster who’s also a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association. He’s on a mission to rid Britain of Boring Speakers.
From John Kinde’s “Humor Power” Newsletter: (extract)
Written Introduction.Don't mis the opportunity to set a fun mood with your written introduction for the person who will introduce you.
First, give your introducer a funny line or two just for the purpose of making him or her look good.
Second, give the introducer a line which works as a set-up for one of your opening punch lines.
Third, give the introducer a line which pokes fun at you. Self-deprecation stimulates a fun mood.
The Ready Room. Before the introducer starts my introduction, I like to be standing, usually in back or side of the room. When the introducer zings a joke my direction, I'm aware that the audience is probably watching me to see how I react. I want to show them that I like the joke, maybe a little laugh, more likely a light smile to show I'm listening and enjoying the introduction. You won't appear to be having fun if you're lost in concentration rehearsing your opening lines. So know your opening lines so well that you don't have to worry about them just before you're introduced.