🎁 The 31-second keynote opener you need to steal

I passed Cindy Gallop on the stairs at a hotel during Ideas Fest last week. It must have been Fate’s way of telling me to publish my newsletter about her extraordinary talk at SXSW London this year.

She opened her keynote in a way that was so, so refreshing that I had to share it with you all. Her secret?

Let me explain…

Most speakers instinctively feel the need to justify why they’re on stage in the first place. So they…

1. Spell out the problem 🔠

2. Pull out the data, headlines, stats 📰 

3. They recap everything the audience has already seen in the news, on LinkedIn or in their own workplace. ♻️

The consequence? Lost attention.

By the 3rd slide or the fifth example, everyone’s thinking: “We already get it!” and when they finally arrive at the good stuff, the energy in the room has dipped, phones are out, eyes are glazed and you best ideas land on a distracted audience.

Cindy’s 31 second opener is a masterclass just in how to get straight to the good stuff (and perhaps more importantly, how not to patronise your audience. Enjoy…🍿

Three things you can take away from Cindy Gallop’s opener:

1. The Script 📜: Problems and Promises
   “I'm not going to talk to you about the problems I'm addressing.
   
   You know the problems, they're all around you in the media, the stats and data are out there, they're around you in your personal lives.

   
   I'm guessing most of you have watched 'Adolescence' on Netflix.
   
   So, I'm going to talk to you today about SOLUTIONS.
   
   Eight solutions, that every single one of you in the audience today can implement."
   

2. The Mindset 🤯: Treat your audience as equals
   Cindy assumes her audience is smart, informed, and engaged with the world.
   
   Her opener is saying: “I know you’re already sharp. I respect your time. Let’s get to the good stuff!
   
   When you treat people as intelligent, they rise to meet that expectation.
   

3. The Focus 🎯: Solutions > Problems

   Anyone can stand on stage and describe what’s broken - especially when the subject itself carries a heavy emotional weight.

   
   So Cindy framed her talk around solutions. But that doesn’t mean she ignored the problems completely. She used a “Listicle” talk structure, and used each point in the list to weave the problem in in smaller doses. This way the problems serve the solutions, instead of overwhelming them.

   
   But problem-heavy talks leave audiences burdened. Solution-focused talks leave them mobilised.

If you’re giving a talk this week, you could do far worse than open this way.

Go get ‘em!

Alex

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