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One of the first words you should say in a speech, and what are the last words you should say in a speech
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Now tomorrow, I don't know how many of you are speaking, but I guarantee if you go to conferences
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19 out of 20 speakers will start in one of these ways number one
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My name is Connor Neal. I'm from tango and this talk is about the latest trend in monitoring strategies
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Now all of you are sitting with a piece of paper in front of you. That says I'm Connor Neal
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I've come from Ireland, and I'm going to talk about tango 0-4 and this
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So by repeating what you already know? I'm giving a signal that it's a time to get your BlackBerry out
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I've just signals that this talk is
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Opportunity to reconnect with blackberry make sure the office is ok, maybe get some plans together for the weekend
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Another way to start
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The lights and some of the mics working and how much time have I got
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Ok right
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ok
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Is it is it plugged in?
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and
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You laugh, but I guarantee tomorrow. There's going to be some moments
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They get a little bit up
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And
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Why because this is for some of you the first time you see this individual. They're here as a leader in their industry and
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Your kid at school presenting on giraffes does a better job
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That's sad I
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Think there's only three ways of starting a speech
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And it's the same if you went into a bar
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and there's a group of people as a networking event much like you were at before you walked into this room and
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Maybe I came up to a group
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There's group of three people who are having a little conversation. I walk in and I say hi. I'm Connor
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I'm Irish 38 years old I have an interest in sailing. I like running
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And they've walked away
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How do you get people to engage with you when you're networking I
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Say in networking the best thing you can do is walk up. I think we know someone in common
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Try and walk away when someone comes up and says that to you
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Hopefully, you've done your research, so you do know that you've know someone in common, but with LinkedIn
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You can find out who knows who on anyone you want?
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So how to start a speech?
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first way
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With a question that matters to the audience
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How do you phrase a problem that the audience faces in a question
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So that'd be the third best way of starting a speech
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The second best way of starting a speech with a factoid that shocks
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There's more people alive today than have ever died
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More people alive today than have ever died
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There's a lot of speeches that can follow on from there
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Every two minutes
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The energy reaching the earth from the Sun is
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equivalent to the whole annual usage of humanity
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All the energy all the cars everything moving all the lighting all the air conditioning of the world in
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One year is equivalent to two minutes of Sun
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Does that change how you think about energy
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So what's a fact that shocks the audience into rethinking?
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and
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Google has transformed your ability to get at these facts
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Given two or three minutes you can find out one whether anything I've said is true
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But you trust me because I
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Look the part, and I'm from ESA
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those are in fact two true facts
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I Usually get someone come up to me and are you sure but how do they measure dead and alive
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But it's true, and it's not even close
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But the best way to
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Start a speech and the way that I hope all of you use from now forward
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is the same way
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We start a story to a child
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Now how do we start a story to a child?
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And I say oneth
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once upon a time
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And what happens when you say once upon a time I can tell you what happens when I say once upon a time my daughter
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leans forward
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gets ready to hear
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engages
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and
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We were all trained as kids
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to know when a story's coming
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We also know when a teacher is about to deliver a 40 minute boring lecture that has no impact on our lives
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But in business
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You don't hear him Jack Welsh saying once upon a time
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Steve Jobs doesn't heart start his speeches once upon a time, so there's a grown-up way of saying once upon a time and
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If you listen to the conversations that are interesting around you at a dinner table in
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A networking event if you listen to the people that are gathering the group of eight that are listening to them
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The way they're talking is different the way they start is different
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The way you tell stories as an adult is in
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October was the last time I was in this room there were a hundred and twenty people in the room
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And I was having a little conversation with one of the world experts on public speaking and he said something to me
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He said something to me
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This had me thinking ever since
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He said something to me that changed
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What I think about what's important in speaking?
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Now I can pause for about 30 seconds two or three minutes, and you want to know what he said
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So in
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Speaking in sales, we assume
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self-interest
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So if you can tell a story from your own life that
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Connects you to why this topic is important to you. Why you first joined the company when you first saw someone
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benefit
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And you saw how their life was changed, and I think here
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exploring what quality of life means for you in your business
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How do you affect quality of life for a customer?
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Because that's where the stories that will start to connect you to the audience will come from
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Because stories are about people
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They're not about objects they are not about things. It's about the people behind the things
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If you want to tell a good story about Tango don't talk about the software talk about the people who built the software
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What they do how they are what's important to them what they sacrifice?
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And in your own life
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What does quality of life mean? What sacrifices have you made to achieve something that was more important and
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If you can tell stories and the audience connect with those stories then
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They want to hear what you have to say
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And all the reasons and all the benefits. They're all written in the document and in the PowerPoint
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But they need to trust you
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And they need to care about you as a person to engage with you and then decide that they will act