October 04, 2012 at 8:14 PM

Twice in the past few months I have worked with clients who have been petrified at the thought of doing a presentation; the first was to the staff, all of whom he’d worked with for some time and I knew that he was both well liked and well respected and the second was to a group who my client has never met before. Standing in front of a group is clearly something that makes people very anxious.

I asked both of them to tell me what they could remember about the last presentation they had been in the audience for. Neither of them could remember the content at all; but both could remember how the presenter came across and whether they had enjoyed it, or not, and the general theme of the presentation, but not the specific content.

We discussed how to try they could make their nerves work for them, as nerves are actually quite a positive thing and the adrenaline can help you to present more effectively, but the key is to manage your nerves and to focus on what the people in the audience want from the presentation, and not on how nervous you are. Usually they want to be informed and entertained.

Together we thought of all of the really memorable presentations that we had had seen and I was surprised at how both of my clients came up with very similar examples of presentations that they had either enjoyed, learned something from, or both.We agreed that there are 6 key factors in presenting well and by focusing on these the nerves can, to some extent, be kept under control.

1. Structure: I was always told that the way to structure a presentation is to tell the audience what you’re going to say, tell them and then tell them what you told them. I still think this is pretty good advice.

2. Know your audience: What do your audience want from the presentation? Ask people what they want from it beforehand by contacting people who’ll be in the audience.

3. Know your material – Prepare and Practice: Make sure you know the content backwards so you  don’t have to constantly refer to the presentation either behind you or on the screen in front of you. This allows you to make eye contact with the audience too, which helps you to relax to realise that they are not a hostile audience! This means really thorough preparation and plenty of practice so you know what is coming next. Should you forget to say something, nobody will know! Knowing you are well prepared is the best way of all to calm the nerves.

4. Move around: Both of my clients said that the best presenters were the ones who’d moved around the platform, or indeed gone into the audience. This is a great way to present and you can only do it if you have practised.

5. Plan for questions: Through being prepared thoroughly, you should be able to answer questions that are likely to arise with ease, but be prepared for them and plan your responses. If a discussion breaks out (or somebody takes issue with a point) plan how to end it and not get bogged down.

6. Develop strategies to control nerves: This could be visualising success and audience reaction (positive of course!). Smile! It makes you feel positive as well as the audience and slows the heart rate too! Also remember that a good presenter will usually speak at a much slower rate than in normal speech. Have water handy as people do get dry-mouthed and sipping water helps and slows the heart rate.

One client still has to do her presentation, and I know that she will do extremely well. The other client did very well. He inserted plenty of jokes, which he said he’d never done before and this helped change the mood of the room enormously. But it was an internal presentation (albeit to 500 people) and this helped him to relax, as well as the audience, I’m sure). But that’s not always possible.

 

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