Step Two to Presenting With Confidence

There are 3 Steps to Presenting with Confidence and in this article we’ll be exploring step 2 - Improving your approach.

Improving your approach is about ensuring you do everything possible to fully plan, prepare and practise what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it, so that you say it with confidence.

When planning you need to ask yourself the following questions:

What? Who? When? Where? Why? How?

Planning means being very clear on the purpose of your presentation and what you want the audience to take from it. This is crucial and should be the starting point for all your presentations. It often means that you work back from how you want to leave the audience (your closing.)
In fact, the open and close can be the same and they’re very important points at which to generate interest.

Think about appealing to the senses, using pictures, sound, music, smell (if appropriate) as well as speaking. Explore using emotions to grab attention – state a startling fact or statistic, paint a picture in words, use a relevant quotation – anything that will help people remember your key message.

Planning also means knowing who will be attending or who needs to be included, and thinking about how best to structure the presentation.

It means putting yourself in the audience’s shoes and asking WIFM? (What’s In it For Me?); thinking about the questions people might ask and being prepared for them as far as possible. It doesn’t mean you have to know absolutely everything, but it does mean that you have to think things through as much as possible.

When planning you need to think about how you can help people remember your key message; you can tell stories to illustrate your point, you can reiterate key points, as well as make sure you involve everyone by making eye contact, or by asking questions, if appropriate.
Emphasising points in an unusual way will also help people remember your presentation.

It’s worth pointing out here that none of us are particularly good at listening and people retain more information if they see as well as hear and even more if they can also “do” – so do tell stories and get the audience involved as much as possible.

Once you’ve planned your presentation you need to prepare. This involves deciding on visual aids, hand-outs (if appropriate) and ensuring you have sufficient facts, figures and notes to support you.

Practising is a very good idea, particularly if you are new to presenting or it is a very important presentation. This allows you to check venue, equipment and room layout, as well as help you with the flow of the presentation (and if you’re fairly new to this, it will also allow you to determine the length of time your presentation will actually take!)

Practising can also help you speak with passion and enthusiasm, as you need to be naturally interested in what you’re presenting, so that it comes across in your voice. If you’re not sure, try recording your voice and listening objectively – does your voice (tone and pitch and use of emphasis and pause) match the words and convey the message you want?

If you plan, prepare and practise well so that you improve your approach and you also harness your attitude for success by recognising your internal negative dialogue and putting something more positive and empowering in its place then you’ll be setting yourself up to Present With Confidence.