I’m sitting here in the Audi dealership because my beautiful, five year old S5 threw a tantrum on the highway today. Well, she is five, after all. And so, after rescheduling two appointments that I know I won’t be able to make it to in time, I’m hunkering down in a very nice, if not sterile, environment, with a span of uninterrupted time stretching in front of me. A perfect opportunity to pick up my blog series I let languish over the summer.

Now that the fall is upon us, many of us will begin to plan and prepare for fall conferences, meetings and seminars. If you happen to be lucky enough to be a presenter at one of these events, good for you. For some, this is a fun activity. For others, there is no need to panic or dread it. You’ve been asked for a reason – you are seen as an expert and people want to hear from you. This is the topic for today’s blog: how to prepare your best presentation and take the fear out of public speaking. I’ve spoken and taught groups that range from 30 – 2500 attendees, so I’ll share what I have found to be helpful.

Fair warning: this will not be a formulaic discourse advising you to plan, refine and practice. You are adults and already know that. Effective presentations go beyond those basics. Just as in branding a product or service, success in public speaking is about making emotional connections with the audience. And when you make those connections as a speaker, you can feel that energy from the audience. That emotional connection can be a tsunami washing back over you, dispelling any nerves that arise along the way.

As marketers, we know how to create emotional connections between our products and our customers. So why when some of us are tasked with presenting, does that knowledge seem to fly out the window? I’ll tackle this in two parts: crafting compelling content and creating personal presence.

I. Crafting Compelling Content

While you do need to plan your presentation content, think simultaneously about how to keep your audience engaged. No one wants to listen to a presenter drone on about obscure facts and begins to sound like the adults in a Peanutsâ cartoon. On the opposite extreme, Susie Sunshine who has had too much coffee and is over-the-top with emphasis is no fun to listen to either.

First - Know your audience – craft your content to appropriately address the people who will attend. Not sure who they really are? Contact the event organizers to get an overview of the attendees’ backgrounds, years in business, etc. and use that as a baseline from which to build your content. When in doubt, take your level of industry-speak down a notch or two, ensuring all attendees will follow your points. Knowing who is in the audience will help you refine your message in a way that makes it easy to understand and follow.

Second - Narrow the overall presentation to no more than three key messages. Most likely, you have more information to convey than you have time for in your presentation. What is the main point you want your audience to take away after you finish? Once you have that answer, develop three pillars that tree up to that main point. Build those pillars out- with real life examples to illustrate what you mean – and tie each pillar back to the main point. Connect the dots for your audience, don’t make them do it.

Third - Most importantly, inject authentic personality into your presentation. The examples that you use to illustrate your main point should inspire others by evoking humor, empathy, frustration or happiness as appropriate. When you craft examples to illustrate your pillars, consider adding in personal stories. You are an evangelist for your topic when you present to an audience, and they need to feel that emotion to be fully inspired and to retain your message.

Key takeaway: Make sure that you are the author of your presentation, not delivering someone else’s words.When you write your own presentation, the word choice and cadence sound the same as when you are speaking – making your delivery all that more authentic and memorable. When you present another’s words, it doesn’t sound at all like you and that disconnect is conveyed to the audience. Plus, you’re apt to “read” a presentation that you didn’t write. There’s nothing less interesting than listening to someone who is clearly not athletic use sports analogies in a presentation. You know they did not write it and therefore as part of the audience, you subconsciously discount what they are saying.

Once you have written your own presentation, you’ll be 100% comfortable delivering it vs. presenting anything someone else wrote for you. Committing it to memory will also be much easier as you know the key concepts you want to get across to the audience, and you can ad lib if need be. Writing and delivering your message allows your personality to shine through whether you are a scientist presenting a new discovery or a professional salesperson extolling the virtues of a new product line.

II. Creating Presence in Front of an Audience

Part two of your prep work is to spend time thinking about how you will create presence. You have the content solidly planned and now the key is to convey your own personality while maintaining a professional demeanor.

Presence stems from an authentic sense of self and enthusiasm for your subject. Presence also dispels some of the fear. By the way, others can tell when enthusiasm is faked – it comes across in the way you modulate your tone of voice. When enthusiasm is real, it flows effortlessly. When practicing, if you find your delivery feels stiff, try inserting a rhetorical question into your presentation to break things up. The unexpected change in pace combined with the lift in your tone that comes naturally when you ask a question will pull the audience back in to focus on you and what you are saying.

Another important part of crafting personal presence is carefully selecting your “armor”. In this case, armor refers to what you’ll be wearing and any props or visual aids you’ll use. As with your words, this armor must be consistent with your personal brand. For me, it’s always a pair of really great shoes that make me stand taller and with great posture. Plus, I can’t walk fast in heels so I naturally slow down the entire pace of my presentation – which benefits the audience.

If you are known for your sense of humor, but the setting is professional, consider a fun prop to illustrate your point. A colleague I worked with always used his team members in a skit-like fashion onstage to illustrate his points. This allowed him to maintain his executive presence while they joked onstage alongside of him. It also conveyed to the audience that his team was the lifeblood of the organization and he was just representing their hard work. Whatever works for you.

Remember you can relax, you are speaking because you are perceived to be an expert on the topic you are presenting. Not everyone is a natural in front of a crowd like Billy Graham or Bruce Springsteen, but you already have what these well-known crowd-pleasers do. You have faith in your knowledge of your topic. And if you genuinely want to help others see your point as clearly as you do, that will shine through.

If you do get nervous in front of a crowd – be it 5 or 5000 people– know that everyone does to some degree. Just remember that you’re the expert, you’ve done the work and you’re here to teach what you know. Channel those nerves into positive energy. Try using the old trick of picking out 3-4 people in the audience in different areas of the room – look into their eyes and smile after making a key point. This tactic allows your brain to stay focused on your points and not on worrying if others are judging you. Ninety nine percent aren’t and that one percent? To heck with them.

If you are in a small enough room where you can make eye contact with most of the people there, read the room. If they look confused, slow down, stop and ask if they are following you. If they are disengaged, stop and ask a question to re-engage them. Interact with them and then get back to your points. Is English their first language? If not, plan for that when you craft your presentation. I always watch collective reactions to help me steer the emphasis within a pillar/topic as well as my pace. If you tend to be nervous and if your natural speaking cadence is quick, it will most likely get quicker! Pause throughout your presentation and take a few breaths – this lets your audience absorb what you’ve just said and follow your train of thought.

A note on practicing: Of course you’ll practice your presentation several times before delivering it. I recommend putting on the outfit you plan to wear and standing in front of a mirror. You’ll quickly figure out if that suit is scratchy and distracting, or if your posture is poor, etc. If you’ll be using a teleprompter for the first time, I highly recommend getting a practice round in before your speech. Teleprompters are wonderful things, but they can be awkward the first time around, and each one is different.

To summarize: Remember that presence is personal and unique to each individual. What works for one will not be authentic for another. So “go back to your roots” so to speak, and dig into what makes you truly YOU and build from there. Remember that you are the subject matter expert and that’s why you’re presenting – no need to fear anything. And have fun. It’s an honor to present to any audience, and you get to talk about something you know and (I hope) love. Good Luck, let me know how it goes. I’d like to hear from you!

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