Introductions and Conclusions

The Most Important Parts of the Speech

While the introductions and conclusions may only last for a minute or two, these elements are by far the most important parts of your speech. Your introduction is your first impression, and it sets the audience's view about whether the speech will be interesting, relevant, smart, and so on. The conclusion shapes the audience's memory of the speech. If you get a laugh, they will probably think it was funny. If you make a great insight, they will remember it as insightful. Nail the introduction and conclusion and your speech will be on its way to greatness.

Great Introductions are Interesting

There is no one way to create a great introduction, but if there is one common trait among effective introductions, it's that they are interesting. You may have a joke, quote, fact, story--there are a lot of options--but make sure your introduction starts off interesting.
In business settings, it's important to include the agenda of the speech in the introduction. Be succinct and simple so that everyone can easily know what you are going to cover. Make sure everyone has similar expectations and set the vibe you want to create in the first 30 seconds. It's also effective to use the old fashioned approach of: Tell them what you are going to tell them; tell them; and then tell them what you told them. To do this, you need to start with a brief summary.

Conclusions - Famous Last Words

Conclusions are a great opportunity to summarize key points of your speech. Let your audience know, out of all the things you talked about, what you want them to remember, and if relevant, what actions they should take with the information. Some of the most effective conclusions end with a story that ties together the whole speech and leaves people thinking about what you said. A good way to get some ideas for conclusions (and introductions) is to look at examples. Here are some websites with a good library of speeches and we've included a few examples below.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/ - Site with Top 100 American Speeches
http://www.historychannel.com/broadband/home/ - Speeches (some with video)