Presenting Confidently for Business and Public Speaking

In this post I’ll be sharing with you some valuable tips to help you present confidently and skilfully.

It’s a vital skill for your career – interview procedures for management posts increasingly include a presentation assignment for you to do to demonstrate your communication skills. Certain job roles will include presenting and in many companies it can be a great opportunity to increase your visibility, your credibility and so your salary. Business success often depends on how well you present your business to clients and referral partners.

Whether your purpose is too educate, sell, influence, inform, impress, motivate or entertain there are 4 parts to delivering a confident presentation:

1.    Managing Yourself

2.    Managing Your Audience

3.    Managing Your Content

4.    Managing the ‘Stage’ or presentation area

In this post I’m going to cover Managing Yourself

They say successful people live in a town just south of Arrogance called Confidence. A confident presentation raises your credibility with your audience and makes them more willing to listen to you.

1. Unfortunately, surveys show that many people experience the same emotions and physical reactions as they would if they were swimming in shark infested waters! If you are one of those people, you are not alone.

A survey carried out in America found that people were more afraid of presenting than of dying!

My clients have included a director of FTSE 100 company worrying about whether his words would affect the company’s share price, owners of small and medium sized businesses presenting at networking meetings, managers in technology companies presenting to funding bodies, sales people, teachers and many others.

Many of them have been confident people in other areas of their lives but somehow when it comes to presenting they find it tough to stay calm. And the bigger the audience the bigger the nerves.

Some found they were okay once they got into the presentation but for others the whole thing was an ordeal.

Apparently when we are babies there are only 2 fears we’re born with – a fear of loud noises and a fear of falling. All the other fears we have in life are learned. So, the good news is that if fear of presenting is learned, it can also be unlearned.

So here are 3 of the many tools I use to help people tame the butterflies and getting them to fly in formation.

a.     I often use NLP and hypnotic techniques to help people overcome presentation nerves. You can also use some self-hypnosis and put yourself in a positive trance by remembering a time when you really felt confident. Think about it until you start to feel those confident emotions strongly again. Then walk on ‘stage’.

b.   In the days leading up to your presentation remember to rehearse. Do this in real life – out loud -  and also in your head. In your imagination, see the presentation turning out well. Why does this work? Well your mind works best when you focus on what you do want, rather than what you don’t want.

Your mind is a bit like a travel agent. If you said to a travel agent, ‘I don’t want to go to Birmingham’ your travel agent would have to ask you where you do want to go in order to help you. It’s the same with your mind. If you fill your mind with fears and thoughts about what you don’t want to happen, there’s little room for it to focus on how to get you the result you do want.

In fact you confuse your mind when you are nervous. Let me give you an example.

In a second I’m going to give you a command. I want you to notice what you had to do to follow that command. Okay, here’s the command: ‘Don’t think of a pair of sunglasses!’ Did you notice that you had to think of a pair of sunglasses to even process that thought? That’s because your mind finds it difficult to process negatives. So if you say to yourself, ‘I don’t want to make a mistake’ or ‘I don’t want to forget my lines’ you programme you mind to think about mistakes and forgetting rather than correct action and remembering.

c.  Breath deeply – deep, long and slow breaths are hard-wired in our nervous system to relaxation. If you are too nervous you tend to forget things, on the other hand, a certain amount of adrenalin helps you perform better.

If these confidence tips don’t completely cure your nerves, seek the help of anNLP trained presentation skills coach.

Here are some other tips for managing yourself during a presentation:

• If you are trying to convey a positive message when your body language and voice qualities are not positive, it’s your body language and voice qualities that will be believed. You can’t see me right now but if I say, ‘I erh feel umm confident’ how much do you believe me when I use that tone of voice? Not at all! So, keep your tone and body language upbeat.
• Because our body language and voice tones affect our emotions you will also feel more upbeat. Try it now. Check that     no-one can see you. Now, smile or laugh for no reason whatsoever. Did you notice yourself feeling happier?
• Your body language needs to enhance your message so use gestures that are relevant to what you’re saying. Avoid random arm movements, swaying on your feet etc. because they are distracting. Hands held in front of you with palms together or facing upwards can look weak, defensive or needing to please someone. Pointing at your audience can    seem aggressive.

• A good presenter’s stance is to stand with your feet hip width apart, your weight evenly balanced on both legs and with your knees slightly flexed. If you imagine an invisible string pulling your chest and the crown of your head upwards your back and shoulders will automatically be straight and you will look confident.

• One authoritative way to use your arms and hands is to move your hands down and outwards in a spreading movement with your palms facing down or angled downwards. This is known as a ‘Levelling’ gesture and it says things like, ‘This is the way it is.’ You often see TV reporters using it.

•  If you want to convey certainty or a positive message avoid words such as ‘quite’, ‘reasonably’ and ‘fairly’ – for instance, avoid ‘fairly successful’. Say it was successful or if you want to qualify the success give specific details.

• Avoid using a voice tone that goes up at the end of a sentence, unless you are asking a question, because it can sound doubtful.

Your image

Apparently people make 11 judgements about us in the first 30 seconds of meeting us. What we wear contributes to their assessment of us. There is a saying: dress for the job you want rather than the job you have. Whether you are interested in clothes or not they are a language that conveys certain messages. Here are some translations:

1.  If you want to create an authoritative look follow the example of people in authority and wear the deepest colour suit that suits you, a white/cream shirt or blouse/top and plain tie/scarf. Remember how Obama and Cameron are dressed on formal occasions – dark suit, white shirt and dark red or dark blue tie.
2.  Invest in an image consultation to find out what really suits you. I remember coaching an area bank manager. He was in his thirties and enjoyed being fashionable. At the time chunky things were popular, such as wide collars and large knots in ties. The trouble was that he was very slim and so he looked swamped by his clothes as if he was a boy in man’s clothing. Because I’m trained in spotting these things I could advice him to wear narrower ties and collars that suited his build. Most people wouldn’t be able to pinpoint that reason why he seemed less professional and authoritative but they would certainly get that impression all the same.
3. A tip for the men - red tie draws attention to your mouth which can be handy when you’re presenting.  Talking of ties,   the best length is touching your trouser waist. If you make the tie shorter or longer it directs attention to your                  stomach or, unfortunately, much lower down and gives you less credibility.
4. If you wear a different colour jacket from your skirt or trousers you will look shorter and fatter. If you wear the same colour jacket and trousers/skirt you will look taller and slimmer.

So, there are many ways to manage your self in order to feel and convey confidence – the 4 we’ve covered today are: positive rehearsal, body language, voice qualities and image.

If you want to find out more about confident and skilful presenting go to www.buildingselfconfidence.co.uk

And if you want to find out more about sales presenting go to www.TheAccountabilityClub.co.uk