What Your First Thirty Seconds Actually Communicate

The room decides before your content arrives

In the first half minute an audience makes three judgements: is this person prepared, does this person believe what they are saying, and is this going to be worth my attention. None of those are about your slides.

Enter before you speak

Stand, settle, look at one person, then begin. Speaking while still arranging yourself signals that you were not ready, and the audience adjusts their expectations accordingly.

Open with a claim, not a courtesy

'Thank you for having me, today I would like to briefly talk about...' spends your best thirty seconds on nothing. Open with the sentence you want quoted afterwards, then introduce yourself if you must.

In coaching we rewrite openings more often than any other part of a talk, because it is the cheapest change with the largest return.

Match energy to the room, then lead it

Start slightly above the room's current energy and pull it towards you. Start below it and you will spend the rest of the talk trying to recover attention you gave away in the first minute.