You might know or work with certain individuals who approach the delivery of presentations with unbelievable gusto – we all do.  Never fear that you are some sort lost cause if you, on the contrary, are totally daunted and flawed at the prospect.  In fact, they are in the minority and you are in the majority, as public speaking ranks highly as a universal worst case scenario, striking untold terror in to millions of people worldwide.

However, like or not – and let’s be honest, in most cases we are definitely talking about like it not – you are more than likely to be called upon to give a number of presentations throughout your personal and professional life.  Confident and proficient public speaking is realistically within your grasp when you learn to believe in yourself and aim to master your craft.  Just like any other skill, it comes naturally to a gifted few, yet requires fine honing for most mere mortals.

You can and you will beat the palpitations caused by looming presentations.  Those ‘in the know’ have done so by learning about what are known as the five Ps of public speaking and by incorporating the wisdom of these simple lessons in to their codes of conduct and plans of action.

1)    Passion
It is imperatively important that you are passionate about the subject matter of your presentations.  If you are not fired up about it, why on earth would anyone else be?  Think about the know-like-trust theory.  The more you know about the topic at hand, the more you will hopefully like it.  Consequently, the more you know and like it, the more you will not only trust it, but you will also trust yourself to share your views about it, cojently and enthusiastically, with your audiences.

2)    Persistence
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again”.  Have a little mettle and do not get too down in the mouth if your first few presentations fall slightly short of the triumphs you had envisaged.  Keep your chin up and aim to deliver your presentations repeatedly if you can, noting the vast improvements you make each time.

3)    Positivity
Just before the delivery of your presentations, focus in on your ‘can do’ rather than your ‘can’t do’ mindset. Tell yourself that you can and you will knock your audience’s socks off with your dynamic presentations and deft delivery skills.  Glasses half full are infinitely more appealing than glasses half empty, so inspire yourself to go for it and spread some joy.

4)    Practice
Going overboard with the practicing of your presentations simply does not exist, as practice makes perfect.  Go through your presentations out loud to yourself, and also in front of trusted colleagues, family members or friends who will offer you firm yet fair feedback.  Then go back to the drawing board to redress any issues with your flow and wording.  If at all possible, it is also a great nerve soother to have a practice in the actual rooms in which your presentations will be delivered.  The environments will feel less hostile and more familiar to you.

5)    Preparation
Comprehensive preparation offsets a multitude of sins.  Once your subject matter has been agreed upon, your first port of call should be your own experience, backed up by copious research.  The coupling of what you know and what you have learnt will make preparing for your presentations much easier, free flowing and logical.  Your preparation also extends to a pre-understanding of your audiences.  Knowing about their age groups and levels of proficiency in the topics under the microscope gives you the competitive edge to pitch your content and style just so.

Even the most competent and experienced of professional presenters admit that their nerves, at times, emerge to the forefront and threaten to get the better of them.  So, if presentations are new to you, or something that you are just tentatively starting to get used to, your public speaking fears are far from irrational.  Yet they are something that you need to learn to control.  Otherwise, you might find that your pre-presentation jitters gather insidious momentum and manifest themselves in unnecessary stress levels that can ultimately impede your performances.

Agreed that words can come easily and that the conquering of public speaking fears can be easier said then done.  Yet you can wave your worries permanent farewells by talking yourself in to a more positive mindset and adopting optimistic behavioral patterns.

1)    Convince Yourself That Presentations Are Nothing Stressful
Give yourself a talking to from the head rather than the heart.  It is estimated that an average human being speaks anywhere between 7,000 to 20,000 words per day, so talking is no more a new phenomenon to you that breathing and eating.  Putting it in to logical perspective, there is no reason why presentations should pose more problems that the conducting of everyday conversations.  The major differences, of course, are that presentations are organised, not spontaneous and delivered to audiences rather a few familiar faces.  The shifting of your mindset from stressed to unstressed cannot be expected to happen overnight.  You can, however, expect to ease yourself from one extreme to the other by concentrating on your messages, rather than getting fraught about how you are going to send them.  This will help to make your style increasingly more conversational and relaxed.

2)    Forget About Public Speaking Perfection
Try not to bog yourself down with preconceptions about what makes presentations perfect.  Is there actually such a thing as perfection, or is it simply in the eyes of the beholders?  You are understandably anxious about not wanting to make a fool of yourself in front on an audience.  Offer yourself consolation in the thought that their main focus is on what you have to say.  They are not there to judge and rate your public speaking aplomb.

3)    Focus On Your Purpose
Amidst the hand wringing and brow wiping that you might endure before delivering presentations, endeavour with all your might not to lose sight of your purpose.  Your ability to build and maintain audience rapport is undeniably important.  Yet your inability to banish the nerves that blight your public speaking engagements can result in the shifting of the onus from clear and concise subject matter to over thinking your delivery techniques.

4)    Believe You Are Good – And Become Good
During your novice experiences of giving presentations, you will pick up many ‘what to do’s’ and ‘what not to do’s’ as part of the natural learning curve.  If you have put all of your background work in before you deliver your presentations publicly, there is little reason for you to be unconfident.  Methodical organisation of your subject matter, and due diligence to practicing, goes hand in hand with the refining of your end delivery.  Your back of office labour is half of your battle won.  When front of stage, you will already be well on your way to winning the war and reaping the applause and rewards.

  
Many charismatic and commanding professionals are reduced to quivering wrecks when having to speak publicly to small or large audiences made up of people they either know or do not know.  Whatever shape or size their public platform takes, they are unable to switch their mindsets positively.  Their regular daily aptitude to speak cojently and confidently evades them. They feel isolated by their fears. They battle on, hoping against hope that the day will finally dawn when they do not transform in to the human equivalents of Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse whilst presenting.

In modern working environments, you don’t have to be a Senior Manager of an organisation to be asked to give a presentation.  On the contrary, it is not unusual to finding yourself being asked to present during job interviews, making it all the more imperative that you tackle the fears that you share with many people.  Your employment prospects can potentially hinge on your ability to deliver an engaging presentation – or not.  And if you are lucky enough to bag your dream job, chances are that that there will be much of the same to follow, both internally and externally.  You will be far from out of the woods, but you are not alone!

Resultantly and very understandably, many professionals at a variety of different levels call loudly for presentation training and coaching.  What the pros have leant from experience and understand intrinsically is why people like you are stricken with terror when faced with presenting.  Whatever your own personal reasons might be, anyone’s and everyone’s reasons generally stem from a natural reluctance to sound silly.

This is a human universal that blights many people, whether during an informal chat with friends or in the workplace.  You might be loathe to venture your ideas and opinions in case others don’t agree with you or fail to value your contributions – so you keep them to yourself.  You are afraid of sounding stupid or showing yourself up as a charlatan who doesn’t know what they are talking about.  Keeping it zipped is preferential. 

You might admire those people who seem to ooze uber confidence and have inimitable knacks of always quipping in with dazzling one liners at just the right moments.  Remember that they are often faking and quaking, too, but have conquered their inhibitions.  Presentation training and coaching professionals know this and can share with you practical techniques to unlock your hidden potential, engage your audiences and move forward in all aspects of your life.

At Presentation Guru, we offer presentation training and coaching that goes far beyond the giving a humorous talk before sending you on your way.  Our twenty years of experience in the art of presentations has not only benefited FTSE 100 companies; our deep insight has challenged and influenced the training of trainers.  We do not claim to be the cheapest, yet we do pride ourselves in being market leaders.  Our time served methods and techniques constitute your very own box of tricks to banish your presentation butterflies and jettison your jitters.  

Editor notes

Presentation Guru is a specialist presentation training and coaching company aimed at senior managers. Further information can be found at http://www.presentationguru.co.uk or email john@presentationguru.co.uk, telephone 0845 899 1248.

    
 

  

       

 

 

 

 

  

     

  

 

   

    
 

         

 

 

 
 

              

 

 
 

   

I worked with an individual over Christmas who had been told that he must start presenting the companies solution to take the burden off the director. This in itself wasn't an unreasonable request, what was unreasonable was the director expected him to deliver a thirty slide Powerpoint presentation that at best, based on the number or words, could be described as a novel.
As you'd expect, the individual was full of reluctance, anxious and wasn't happy at the prospect of boring his audience to death.
When we put ourselves up to execute a presentation we are putting our reputation and potentially career at stake, so we need to communicate ideas that excite us and give a presentation full of enthusiasm that we fully believe in. In my experience, this can never be done using someone else's slideshow, especially if it dictates the tone of the presentation through masses of text.
Like many students before, my advice has always been to create a presentation you are happy with, yes it may look totally different, but the key theme and message will be the same. Wait! I hear you cry, our company has a standard corporate presentation that must be delivered in a particular format, then change it. Create a corporate presentation that is full of pictures, this will allow the presenter to execute the same showreel, but use their own personal soundtrack, which works far more effectively.

Presentation Guru

This anxiety stress thing is huge! everyone I talk to is stressed in some kind of way, especially on a Monday morning! We all too often look at the negative side of life, the glass half full scenario, take a moment to write down five good things about your life on a postit, and stick it somewhere where you can remind yourself no matter how bad the day is, its small compared to the good things around you.

http://www.oatmealtraining.co.uk/News/Stress-at-work.html

I've been pondering and researching all week on how to better address presentation anxiety, which if you believe the stats, is the no one fear in the US, bigger than the fear of death itself! Anxiety is largely rooted in past experiences, so in our case somewhere along the line you have had a bad presentation, or believe that you are about to give a bad presentation. The reality is that the things you fear are extremely unlikely to happen if you give yourself time to prepare, and techniques like breathing, viusualisation or simple engaging with members of the audience before your presentation will help.

I'll be talking about NLP to alleviate presentation anxiety in my next post, but please follow the attached link if you want some direct tips. http://www.oatmealtraining.co.uk/News/Scared-of-public-speaking.html

Simply put, some anxiety is good. It's only bad when you are so nervous that its visible to the audience and prevents you from communicating clearly. All good presenters suffer from some level of anxiety, even if it doesnt show, I guarantee you that they are anxious inside before a big talk. And lets face it, we value our pride, dignity and the respect of the audience, and what we really fear is failing before an audience in any shape or form. When I ask my students what they fear, the list is fairly predictable, forgetting lines, being boring, equipment failure or even being regarded as a fraud! But the good news is, our fears rarely see the light of day and even less so if you prepare. So, research your audience, minimise the failure of equipment by testing everything and having backups, understand your topic thoroughly and REHEARSE, and your anxiety will be kept to a minimum.