In your mind you have a wonderful message, packed with information, advice and humor, but what really counts is how you actually present your speech. Study how successful speakers approach and attack their subjects. Notice how they never start with anything low key or bland. They start with words that engage and captivate, whether they are in the form of statements or rhetorical questions that arouse interest. From that point on, they introduce one idea after the next so that their speech builds to a climax. Successful speakers do it well, because they know that every speech is a performance. It is a little, or a lot of theater. You have to play with the audience, charm them, and woo them.
Generally, most people find it hard to remember what they hear. Your speech must be constructed and presented in such a way that the points you want to convey are heard, remembered, and understood by your audience. This can be done by the way you use your voice, by repetition, the word pictures you present, and perhaps the addition of a few visuals. In any case, everything must be done in style.
Don't be fooled into thinking that you have the entire time allotted to you to capture and conquer your audience. On the contrary, you are lucky if you survive the first 60 seconds.
Sounds hard, doesn't it?
It's a tough, inescapable fact about presenting your speech and speaking in public: from the moment you stand up or walk onto a platform, your audience is sizing and summing you up. The importance of those vital seconds when you begin to speak cannot be overemphasized. If you stutter through your opening words, if your voice sounds weak or distant, if you tell a dirty joke, if you are obviously unprepared, if you start your speech with an old-fashioned phraseology, your audience will pick up these unfortunate vibes right away and may start to switch off. Even if you are able to successfully recover later, you still need to battle hard to overcome the early damaging seconds. Those first 60 seconds can be used to your advantage: to lift you up in your audience's opinion so that they want to listen more.
How do you do just that?
Make sure that you know exactly what your opening is going to be. Make your opening warm, give it vitality, and create an original theme for those first precious words that you utter. Rehearse your introduction. Speak it out loud, over and over and over again. Be so familiar with the words that you can say them in your sleep, each time making sure that it sounds like you at your best.