How to Feel Confident in Front of Your Audience

The fear of public speaking is one of the top fears that people have. Statistics show that over 41% of people have some level of fear or anxiety with regards to speaking in front of an audience. This fear often manifests as excessive sweating, sweaty palms, increased heart rates, blanking out (memory loss), nausea and sometimes difficulty breathing. There are many speakers who have been in front of audiences for years and they still deal with anxiety to some degree.

Since having this fear often has no bearing on whether you have to do a presentation or not, you’ll have to find some ways to overcome your anxiety. The first step is to know that you are not alone and that you can prepare in advance so that the level of fear you feel is significantly reduced. Here are some other interesting statistics.

- Proper presentation and rehearsal of your message can reduce your fear by about 75%.

- Utilizing breathing techniques can reduce your anxiety by another 15%.

- Preparing for your mental state can reduce your fear the remaining 10%.

With these statistics in mind, here are some preparation tips to help you relax and reduce how you feel before going in front of your audience.

1. Know the environment you will speak in. Become familiar with the area by arriving early and walking around. Know how much space you have and the physical distance between you and your audience. As you acclimate yourself to your stage, you will find yourself feeling more comfortable.

2. Know your audience. You should find out who comprises your audience and do some research to find out their likes and dislikes. When they enter the room, greet them and take time to get to know some faces.

3. Know your presentation inside and out. If you don’t know what you’ll be presenting how can you expect yourself to feel fearless?

4. Implement breathing techniques to help you relax. Breathing techniques have been scientifically proven to invigorate the body and help you get rid of nervousness.

5. See yourself on stage before you actually get there. Replay images of your successful presentation in your mind. If you visual success, you’ll find it.

6. Know that your audience wants you to succeed. Your success means they get what they want and need. If they’ve paid money to attend your presentation, they have a personal stake in your success. If you’re providing training, they have a personal stake in your success. If you’re delivering a graduation speech at a local university, the graduating class has a personal stake. Get the idea? Your audience wants you to succeed.

7. Don’t draw attention to your being nervous. Many people won’t even realize that you are nervous. Most times you will find that while you have your audience’s attention, they are really thinking about themselves. They are absorbing what you say and processing that into how that relates to them.

8. Know that there is a purpose to your message. You have a message to deliver. Sometimes it’s a cause that you are passionate about. Other times, it may be training that your company needs you to give.

Preparation is the key to your success! Through preparation, you can also overcome most if not all of the feelings of fear that you might have so prepare, prepare, prepare!

Easy Ways to Remember Your Material

One of the most common reasons people fear public speaking is that they blank out and forget their entire speech. You can practice and practice and practice and when the moment comes that you need to remember your presentation, everything goes blank! There are ways that you can fool proof your message so that the parts you actually have to memorize are minimal if at all.

This means that you incorporate the use of triggers in your presentation. These triggers can be things like power point slides, props, and story telling that you’ll scatter throughout your speech. What the triggers do is prompt you to talk about the next point your trying to make. The triggers can also serve as a trigger to help you remember what to say next.

There are four primary ways to remember your presentation.

1. The first one is memorizing. This can work for presentations less than an hour, but if you’re teaching a six hour seminar course, you’re going to have to find some other way other than memorizing. This is actually one of the worst ways to remember your presentation because there are no safe guards that protect you once you forget.

2. The next way to remember your presentation is to read a full written version. People write out their speeches, but reading from the full written text can cause you to sound stiff and unnatural.

Most commonly occurring in business settings (i.e. – at board meetings or company meetings), reading your speech may be necessary. If you have to read your speech, there are things you can do to help you sound natural. Keep in mind the business tone may be necessary, but there may also be parts in your presentation that require the monotony to be broken!

3. The third way to remember your presentation is to use notes – a condensed outline form of your presentation. Have your notes on a single page sheet or on note cards. Highlight key points to make in a way that you can easily understand the emphasis that the points need. Having notes does not mean that you do not need to work with your presentation!

4. The last way to remember your presentation is to use visual aids (props) as your notes. Let your visuals and images prompt you to speak. Tell your audience a story about the image you’re showing. You can also let your visuals and images do the talking for you. You can post your outline on the screen and say that it’s because it will help your audience stay on track with you!

Work with creating mental images of the points you are trying to make. This will help you sound more natural and more “impromptu” with your audience. When you sound natural, you sound genuine.

Utilize one or more of these ways to remember your presentation. Use various ways to “trigger” your memory to say what needs to be said. Use overheads to lead you through your speech as you place keywords on the screen.

Organizing Your Professional Speaking Presentation

You may have just been asked to make a presentation by your boss or maybe, you’re starting on a new professional speaking career. Whatever the case may be, starting your presentation means you’ll have a ton of details to organize into a relatable format for your audience. Here are some tips on how to do just that.

One of the most difficult aspects of making your presentation is getting started. You may be feeling overwhelmed even if you’ve been working with your materials for years. Maybe you’re looking for a way to simplify your research process. In any case, the first step is to jump in there and get started.

1. Research your material. Collect and read as much information as possible. Make some notes and also look at the validity of the information you are collecting. Is the information outdated? Is it relevant to the actual subject you are going to talk about? Start taking notes and highlighting potentially key points of your presentation.

2. Once you feel you’ve gathered enough information to present, review your notes and select the information you are going to present. Look for key ideas that support the purpose of your talk. Decide how deep you will go when presenting your information? Consider your audience. What do they need to know to take action on your subject? How much detail do they actually need? Consider also, the length of the time you’ll have for your presentation.

3. Organize your key ideas into an outline form. Start with the key points you will make and add two to three supporting elements to it. When you speak, you will be leading your audience from point A to point B. You’re taking them somewhere even if it’s only in their minds. Does your outline show a path to take? Is it relevant? Adjust your key points until you do lead your audience to where you want them to go.

4. Decide how you will present your organized information in your presentation. What visual aids can you use to strengthen your points? Is there data or research that you can bring into your presentation? How can you vary the delivery of your message? Your presentation will be more interesting if you do more than just talk. People can easily tune out of your message especially if it’s during a meal or immediately following one.

5. Organize your presentation outline to incorporate your visuals and method of delivery in your presentation. Review what it looks like on paper. Your outline is like your map for success. Is your map clearly defining the information you want to say? Are there any weak points were the information is not as strong as you’d like it to be? If it’s not, revise and review and keep doing this until you get your map the way you want it to be.

Organizing the material for your presentation is a process. As you take your audience from lack of knowledge to having knowledge, your background work is to create an outline map of your journey. This map is the key to your success and the only way to be successful is to have a plan of action. Start today in creating your map of success!

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