There are people who are natural-born speakers. They have no problems getting people’s attention and delivering the message they intend to. However, not all of us are good, and there are a lot of people whose jobs, profits, or careers depend on presentations, but those people are not gifted with natural public speaking skills, natural eloquence and, for them, talking in front of a large crowd can be a very scary thing.
If you are one of those people, you certainly understand what I’m talking about. Luckily, there are measures and training you can take to improve your public speaking and enhance your presentation skills so that you can convey your message easily while delivering the story with your own personal speaking style. Becoming an eloquent speaker is a long process, but you can speed things up by finding unique and useful content and some enthusiasm, and coating everything with some good humor.
Arrive early to prepare
Make sure that you arrive at the venue before everyone else. First of all, you won’t have the fear of being late and you’ll feel more relaxed. Secondly, and more importantly, arriving early will give you the time to adjust to the area in which you are going to hold your presentation. The more you adjust to the whole room or venue, the more comfortable you will start to feel and your presentation will be much smoother. You can learn how the room feels and where the distractions are, so you can quickly adapt to them and ensure that everything goes smoothly.
Time your pauses
When talking to the crowd, it is important to pay attention to the pauses you make, including when you make them and how long they are, and adjust them to the crowd. If you sense a dose of nervousness, you might start to speed up the presentation and talk without pauses. This may have been good in college, but these people don’t know the things you are sharing with them and you will have to take your time so that they can understand what you are saying. On the other hand, if you make pauses too often, or for too long, you might come off as unprofessional and unprepared, which can lead to losing credibility with the crowd.
Work on engaging the audience
Everyone likes to share their opinions and to be heard; however, most typical presentations are one-sided and they don’t give the audience any chance to contribute. It doesn’t have to be like this. Asking the crowd to participate with questions, so that they can get engaged and contribute to the conversation, is a good way to get all the people in the crowd interested in what you have to say. Just make sure that you are prepared and that you don’t get confused by any question.
Convert your negative energy into enthusiasm
Are you always having issues caused by overthinking that leads you to be nervous before a presentation? I certainly know I have. So, how can you find a solution to this problem? Well, the solution is actually quite simple. Instead of thinking about the presentation, you should do something that relaxes you and fills you with enthusiasm. For example, you can listen to music, workout, dance, or anything else that eases your mind and relieves you of stress.
Of course, make sure that you are in tip-top condition for the presentation, but when you divert your mind from having thoughts about the presentation, you will deliver your message in the most efficient way, without any negative obstructions in your mind.
