Member Article

5 Methods to Kick Nervous Speaking Habits

By Spencer Waldron, European Regional Director for Prezi

The reality of today’s business landscape is that every professional needs to be able to deliver an engaging and interesting presentation. This may seem to come easily to those who work in sales or marketing, but presenting is a serious business skill that requires practice and hard work to succeed.

Nearly 75% of the world’s population suffers from Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, making it one of the most common fears on the planet. While you may never be able to fully overcome your nerves, using the correct presenting technique can help you to feel more comfortable. Thanks to the support of modern tools and techniques, you can deliver an exciting talk that will loosen you up and reduce anxiety.

As such, here are my top five tips to help you conquer your nerves and supercharge your presenting skills in 2017:

• Conversational Presenting. When people imagine presenting, most of them think of delivering a speech, and this is why many feel nervous. Delivering a monologue puts all of the focus on the speaker. However, a conversational presenter engages the audience by including them in the presentation itself, allowing them to steer the content and focus on their priorities and interests. This approach therefore places substantially less pressure on presenters whilst also being more engaging for audiences. If you’re supported by presentation tools that allow you to move flexibly through your content, such as Prezi Business, then it eases the feeling that everyone is watching you, and you alone. Plus it means that you needn’t worry about learning a fixed script by rote.
• Storytelling. Sales teams around the world are investing serious time and resources into perfecting their storytelling capabilities. If you’re looking for simple ways to engage with your audience, your presentations should be no different. Storytelling not only allows you to bring your content to life, but adds backstory, character and personality. Take your audience on an emotional journey. By sharing a story that’s personal to you specifically, you can also connect more meaningfully with your audience, as they’ll appreciate you showing more of yourself to them, rather than speaking about general ideas and events. This can also help you in overcoming your nerves, as it won’t be something more for you have to learn by rote and deliver - you just need to tell them about your experience, in your own words. Imagine telling an anecdote over dinner - that doesn’t feel like presenting, but it shares many of the same characteristics. Picturing your presentation as a story will create a natural flow and make your delivery more organic.
• Minimalist design. Those concerned with speaking often use their presentation as a crutch, overloading it with information in order to have a written record, just in case they lose their train of thought. However, if you’re nervous then it’s best to avoid this. Not only is it sensory overload for the audience but it encourages a mindset where the presenter feels they must make every single point and include each individual fact, sometimes exactly as they are written. This is difficult even for confident speakers, let alone those who suffer from nerves! What’s more, it often causes you to turn your back on the audience to find your place and check your facts. Instead, keep your text simple and clean, making sure it supports your conversation, with detail only when absolutely needed to inform the audience. If you are worried about forgetting your speech, consider cue-cards instead - they’re a great tool for keeping you on track.
• Cinemagraphs. Video is becoming increasingly common in presentations. Now, cinemagraphs, a hybrid between still images and video (eg. a photo of the Thames where the water is animated), are set to explode in 2017, providing an immersive way for visualisation and storytelling. By putting something in your presentation that will spike your audience’s attention, you can relax for a moment while you know your content is still gripping.
• Remain Enthusiastic. Even the most experienced presenters can get nervous - the key is to take advantage of that nervous energy and project it into the room. You’ll see many professional speakers gesticulating and pacing around the stage - they are taking those nerves and converting them into an explosive energy that energises the crowd. You may not feel comfortable going that far but don’t be afraid to raise your voice, move your hands and talk with emotion. Getting into the swing of presenting will make you appear confident to those around you.

Public speaking is a challenging experience for the majority of the population - don’t worry if you’re nervous, and remember that your audience wants you to succeed. By utilising some of the methods above, you can create an interactive presentation that feels more like a conversation than a speech; calming your nervous, and keeping your audience engaged.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Prezi Next .