You have about 2 seconds to earn someone’s attention before they move on.

In a conference room, that’s the moment before minds start wandering. On LinkedIn, it’s the words before “see more.” In a pitch meeting, it’s before they check their phone.

The hook is everything.

What a hook does

A hook creates a gap. It makes the audience feel like they’re missing something they need to know. It raises a question they want answered. It challenges an assumption they hold. It creates just enough tension to make them lean in.

Types of hooks that work

The counterintuitive statement “The biggest risk to your organisation’s growth isn’t your competitors. It’s…”

The specific question “When was the last time a support coordinator called you to…”

The bold claim “Most NDIS providers will be invisible in five years. Here’s what separates the …”

The story opener “In 2019, I watched a provider lose a $2 million contract because …”

The uncomfortable truth “Your brand isn’t bad because you can’t afford better. It’s bad because …”

A statistic “There are over 100,000 providers in Australia servicing …”

Keeping it lean

Once you’ve hooked them, the temptation is to tell them everything. Resist.

Every sentence that doesn’t add something like tension, information, emotion, momentum need to be cut.

The rule: if you took it out and the story still worked, cut it.

This applies to presentations, pitches, LinkedIn posts and conversations. Lean stories are more powerful than complete stories.. and people will like it about you. Being known for long rambling stories can’t be a good thing. 

The engagement loop

Great storytellers maintain engagement by creating and resolving small tensions throughout. Each paragraph, each slide, each beat is a chance to raise a question, create a little tension, then resolve it and create the next one.

Exercise

Write three different hooks for the story you’ve been developing. Test them on someone. Which one makes them want to hear the rest?