If you’re working on your speaking skills and looking for a way to create a funny introduction about yourself for a presentation you should consider that your introduction is actually going to be made up of two parts. First of all, you’ll have your pre-introduction, and then you will have your introduction proper; this is something that I learned from the book Speech-Making and Presentations Made Easy by Dr. Max Atkinson.

The pre-introduction is the part of your speech where you use speaking skills to get your audience’s attention. This is the best place for you to have a funny introduction. There has been some debate as to whether or not you actually need to grab your audience’s attention immediately. I think that it truly depends on the situation.

However, by grabbing your audience’s attention from the get-go you’re able to start confidently and dynamically rather than fade in as I have seen some presenters do. Sometimes the presenter’s speaking skills are good enough to make it work, but sometimes, it’s like watching one of those old hand-cranked cars that takes forever to start.

Now, there are a few different ways for you to create a funny introduction, or more specifically, your pre-introduction. You can open with a relevant humorous story. I say relevant, as it’s best if relates directly to your topic or theme.

You could use humorous stories that you re-tell quite frequently that relate to your job (and are in good taste). With a little bit of tweaking these are absolutely viable to use in your presentation.

You could open with a humorous quote; a quote by a renowned wit such as Dorothy Parker, Winston Churchill or Oscar Wilde would work. Again, it’s best if it relates to your message.

You might also consider opening with a humorous image of some description, if you’re giving a presentation using some sort of slide presentation software like Impress or PowerPoint. Opening with a humorous prop that relates to your message either directly or indirectly could also work.

Essentially you have to make this decision yourself. It depends on your sense of humor, your level of speaking skills, and also what you feel comfortable doing. I go into more detail on using humor in my post about funny PowerPoint presentations.

When creating funny introductions, you should be sure to include the following, as well as humor:

Introduce yourself and say why you are speaking to the audience. If you’re speaking to your work colleagues this step might not be necessary, as they already know who you are.

You should also introduce your topic. This is a classic “tell them what you’re going to tell them” format. However, I would be careful about giving away any solutions or action steps that you want them to take in the beginning of your presentation.

Finally, you might also want to introduce any technical terms that your audience may be unfamiliar with. Again, if it’s your team or department that you’re speaking to this might be a step that you can skip.

I would write the speech first, with the introduction, and then once I’ve completed that, I would go back and add in a pre-introduction. The reason for doing that is that it can be difficult creating a funny introduction; however good your speaking skills, you might not find the right tool right away, or you might not be feeling that you’re “in the funny zone.”