Fifty ways to open (hooks that work)

By Alastair Greener, presenter of Present Yourself in a Minute · Updated 5 November 2026

The first thirty seconds go a long way towards deciding whether people lean in or reach for their phones. A hook is the opening that makes them lean in, and it needs to be short, relevant and tied to your message. This page explains how to choose one, then gives you fifty openings to adapt. Take a few, try them out loud and keep the one that sounds like you.

Why the opening matters so much

Audiences remember the beginning and the end of a talk better than the middle. These are the primacy and recency effects, and the practical consequence is simple: spend more of your preparation time on the opener and the closer than on anything else.

Learn the opening line and the closing line word for word. Not the whole talk, just those two lines. A memorised first sentence calms the nerves that hit hardest in the first ten seconds, and it stops you drifting into "Thanks for having me, I'm delighted to be here, I'd like to share with you..." That kind of preamble spends your best moment on nothing. Drop it. Begin.

Choosing a hook

Six types of hook come up again and again: a question, a dramatic statement, a startling statistic, a story, a testimonial and a sneak preview. A topical hook is a seventh, drawn from the venue, the audience or the news. Pick by asking three things:

1. Does it lead to my message? A clever opener that goes nowhere makes the next minute harder.
2. Is it for these people? Check what is in it for them and aim the hook there.
3. Can I say it well? If you cannot deliver it naturally out loud, change it.

Two practical rules help. If you open with a story, begin at the most exciting moment and fill in the background afterwards. And if you refer to something topical, keep it non-controversial. The fastest way to lose half a room is to start with something divisive.

Fifty openings to adapt

Replace the words in capitals with your own. Each is a starting point, not a script.

Questions

1. What would you do if you arrived tomorrow morning and SITUATION had happened?
2. How many of you have ever PROBLEM?
3. Who here has ever wished they could OUTCOME?
4. What is the one thing stopping you from OUTCOME?
5. When did you last FEEL SOMETHING at work?
6. If you could change one thing about TOPIC, what would it be?
7. What happens if we do nothing about PROBLEM?

Dramatic statements

1. Most advice about TOPIC is wrong.
2. PROBLEM will cost this room more than it admits.
3. I nearly gave up on TOPIC. Here is why I did not.
4. There are two kinds of people when it comes to TOPIC.
5. Everything you have been told about TOPIC is out of date.
6. In the next ten minutes you will hear a different way to think about TOPIC.

Figures

1. NUMBER of people in this room will experience PROBLEM this year.
2. One number explains why TOPIC matters: NUMBER.
3. We lose NUMBER every week to PROBLEM.
4. Here is a number that surprised me: NUMBER.
5. Compare NUMBER with NUMBER. That gap is why I am here.
6. If you remember one figure from today, make it NUMBER.

Check every figure you use and be ready to name your source. A wrong number in the first line costs you the room.

Stories

1. The day I realised TOPIC was the day I FOUND OUT SOMETHING.
2. It was 6 am, and I was standing in PLACE when SOMETHING HAPPENED.
3. She looked at me and said, QUOTED LINE.
4. I made a mistake that cost us MISTAKE. This is what I learned.
5. Three years ago I sat exactly where you are sitting.
6. The phone rang. It was someone I had not heard from in years.
7. Let me take you to PLACE, where it began.

Stories land best when you use dialogue rather than description and pick vivid detail. Start in the middle of the action.

Testimonials and voices

1. A customer wrote to me last month: QUOTED LINE.
2. One client put it best: QUOTED LINE.
3. My colleague NAME told me something I have not forgotten: QUOTED LINE.
4. After the last event, someone in the audience told me QUOTED LINE.
5. Here is what NAME said when I asked her about TOPIC.

Sneak previews

1. By the end of this talk, you will have three ways to OUTCOME. I will start with the simplest.
2. There is a way to solve PROBLEM in ten minutes. First, let me show you what it looks like.
3. I am going to tell you how we went from BEFORE to AFTER.
4. Hold on to the last slide. It answers the question I am about to ask you.
5. In a moment I will ask you to do ACTION. First, a little context.

Topical openers

1. I was reading this morning that NEWS ITEM, and it made me think of TOPIC.
2. This is my first time at VENUE, and I noticed something on the way in.
3. Yesterday, speaker NAME made a great point about TOPIC. I want to take it one step further.
4. Look around this room. Most of you came because of TOPIC.
5. It is SEASON, and every one of us is thinking about THING.
6. Your organiser told me you are the people who ACTIVITY. Tell me if I have that wrong.

Other ways in

1. Hold up a prop everyone can see, say nothing for three seconds, then explain it.
2. Ask for a show of hands, then comment on what you see.
3. Start with a single slide of one strong image and no words.
4. Open a loop: "I will come back to the red door in a moment," and close it in your final line.
5. Begin with silence and a smile, count to three, then speak.
6. Compare two things the audience would never put together.
7. Use a well-known saying and then turn it upside down.
8. Admit a failure, briefly, and say what it taught you.

Mistakes to avoid

• The preamble. Thank-yous, apologies and "I'm going to tell you a story" all delay the point. Tell the story.
• The borrowed opener. If you found it on a list and it does not sound like you, the room will notice. Change the wording.
• The long wind-up. A hook is a sentence or two, not a paragraph.
• The unprepared first line. If you have not said it aloud, you do not know it yet.

Pair your opening with a strong ending. How to end shows how to bring the end back round to the start, and the hook, message, recap and call to action frame puts the opener in context. Because you will say these words aloud, write them for the ear: see writing for the ear.

If you would like to hear how your opening lands before the real audience does, a media training day lets you try it on camera and review it straight away.

Related guides

• Hook, Message, Recap, Call to action: the HMRC structure
• How to end: bookends, loops, last lines
• Writing for the ear: short sentences, short words
• Words that cost you credibility: fluff, superlatives, -ly words, jargon
• WIIFM: why should anyone watch your talk or video?
• All guides and tools

The picture at the top of this page is an illustration, not a photograph of a client or a real job.