7 Tips To Be Confident During Your Next Presentations
Do you get nervous before your presentation? Have you ever wondered how to overcome your presentation anxiety? Is presentation anxiety faced by all? Yes, even great leaders face presentation anxiety and they have overcome it by practice or rigorous training.
Warren Buffett, synonymous as an investor magnate and a philanthropist, was terrified to stand and speak in a crowd. He avoided any chance of speaking in public, overtime he realised the significance and enrolled for a course to enhance his presentation skills. There are various ways of developing your confidence as a presenter, some of the key pointers are discussed below.
TIP 1. START POWERFULLY:
To become a confident presenter one needs to be not only prepared in terms of your content but also present confidently. Here is an example of Sundar Pichai who is the CEO of Alphabet Inc. His start is always powerful as he uses the right amount of body language at the start with humor or even a story. This helps to connect well with the audience. So along with having a good start in terms of what style and content you would like to open up with, the way you start with the right first impressions and a powerful persona is also important. Knowing the right body language techniques for doing this can help you look more grounded during times when you feel less confident.
TIP 2. EFFECTIVE GESTURES:
When you start presenting you need to use effective gestures to build trust and help the audience connect with you and your content. Sheryl Sandberg the chief operating officer of Meta Platforms and the founder of LeanIn.Org uses effective gestures to put across her points while presenting which works very well for her. Have you paid attention to your body language when you are warm into your presentation, once you have overcome the initial anxiety of being in front of the audience? What are your movements like? What facial expressions do you use? How about hand gestures? Do you know there are many effective techniques that can help you corroborate your content?
TIP 3. GRABBING ATTENTION:
Similarly, there are various ways in which you can hold the attention of the audience like telling a story. While you would want to explore techniques to deliver your content, also using body language correctly can help to grab the attention of the audience and help them remember what you are saying for a long time.
TIP 4. ESSENTIAL NONVERBAL TECHNIQUES:
There are certain nonverbal essentials that a presenter needs to be aware of. One of them is trying to not be a barrier between the slides and the audience or letting any form of barrier come between you the presenter and your audience. An example of such a presenter is Steve Jobs who we all know as a charismatic presenter, he made sure he never had barriers around him whenever he presented.
Tip 5. ANALYSING YOURSELF:
We all experience a certain amount of nervousness when we present. Similarly there are various ways in which stress is shown by you when you present. This can be if you are nervous at the start, if you get stuck trying to explain some content points, when you encounter a difficult question from the audience, etc. Here we have an example of Malcom Gladwell, the famous author and presenter. There are different stress signals that he shows while presenting. Do you know how to understand what your stress signals are and how to handle them effectively?
TIP 6. FOLLOWING LEADERS
So how can you learn about these various techniques of body language, which one works for different personalities and situations, and how you can improve your style? The best place to start is by observing leaders and what they do very minutely. Also, try and understand how they vary their own style from situation to situation. If you have any personal favorites from leaders, be it business leaders or otherwise, when you are watching them, next time don’t just listen to what they are saying. Rather also focus on how they are delivering their content.
TIP 7. TWEAKING STYLE:
There are a lot of ways in which a presenter can tweak their presentation style depending on the content, audience or even place. One of the best presenters known for tweaking their presentation style is former president of US Barack Obama who seamlessly tweaked his presentation style for any and every situation.
HOW TO IMPROVE
If you would like to know specific techniques of body language for all of the above mentioned tips, learn how you can analyse your favorite leaders, what you can do to rehearse better and understand and overcome your stress, do check out our online course Confidence Hacks for Presentations, the first course in our three course series for better body language during business presentations.