Practice. I presume you will have read other books on presentations. When you think about being anxious, I love the idea of taking that tachcardia, those palpitations and heart-flopping sensations and re-interpreting them NOT as anxiety, but as excitement.
You are the expert. You have done more reading and more research that just about everyone on the planet. With extremely rare exception, everyone is here to support you and learn from you.
Speak to the person in the very back of the room. When you do that, you will find yourself projecting your voice more, and waving your arms more to make a bigger point. This works for your entire audience. Don’t look at the front row where you hope your friends are sitting.
Worst case, if you have frowny faces in the audience, look for anyone who is nodding or smiling, and use them as your islands in the sea and rotate your attention between them.
Avoid MONOTONE. Vary your speed, volume. Practice speaking clearly. Consider recording yourself and listening for verbal tic’s, or for swallowing the ends of your sentences (I do that, get quiet at the end of a sentence), or have someone listen and give you feedback. DON’T let anyone tell you your natural speaking voice is too fast or too slow. If you are excited about your topic, go for it, just make sure you don’t slur your sentences together.
Too many words. And, sitting behind a desk or standing behind a podium hides most of your body. Unless you are doing a technical demo, get out from behind and the them see your whole body and your non-verbal communication.
Dr. Corey Lyon is a dynamic speaker and does exactly that.
Try this! To engage your audience, hide a piece of paper. Have it be a printout of one of the slides with the answer to your question. Now you have at least one member of the audience who will respond to your question!
Pose the question (top right).
Your designated audience member finds the paper. Ask them to stand up, speak loudly and tell us the ANSWER! It is a surprise move that most audience have not seen, and it works well to wake people up and break the routine from your monologue.
CMIO’s take?
Do any of these presenter’s tricks resonate with you? Do you have other tricks? Let me know!