One of the most common fears or concerns I hear from my clients is nervousness before giving presentations. The best advice I give to overcome the jitters is focus on your audience, not on yourself.
As simple as that may sound, it really works. At the same time it is also the key to giving presentations that are effective, meaningful, and memorable.
Curiosity is perhaps one of the best "jitter repellents" and helps me to focus on those I will be presenting. I like to ask myself questions like:
- What brought them to this conference?
- What might they be struggling with and how can I help?
- What will they be facing with they get back to the office?
- How can I make sure I give them something tangible to take back with them?
- Is my presentation easy to read and follow?
When I answer these questions I begin to see real individuals instead of an "audience." It also helps me make sure what I present is practical, relevant, and actionable. Focusing on their immediate needs helps me overcome the feeling that I have to share everything there is to know about this topic. Sometimes we treat our presentations as if they will be the only time the attendee will be exposed to the material.
I recently gave a presentation on a unique way to do business modeling in an organization. Given the needs of my audience I realized that they are faced with a lot of pressure to get things done as quickly as possible. I also realized they were expected to help their stakeholders interpret the results of their modeling and identify and prioritize their next actions steps. This resulted in a focused presentation entitled: "Rapid Business Modeling: Getting to What Matters."
Focusing on the audience helped me in all phases of the presentation cycle: research, creation, delivery, and follow-up. This gave me great peace before, during, and after my presentation. It helped me look into the faces of those attendees and see individuals who were people just like me. I was so focused on them that I did not have the time or desire to worry about how it was going to go, "would I remember everything?", "what about hard questions?", or even "I wonder if my zipper is up all the way?"
Focusing on the audience, not on yourself has helped me to create and delivery better presentations without those "jitters" that seem to go along with putting yourself in front of a large group of people. Try it. Let me know how it worked for you.
Do you have other things you like to do to eliminate the jitters? Please share with us by using the comment form below.
Excellent advice. Following the same pattern, I often think about times I’ve been in an audience watching a nervous speaker. It’s uncomfortable for me, as an audience member, to watch that! So I often dispel my own jitters remembering this and telling myself: “They don’t want to sit there watching a nervous person”
In one of my college writing courses, the professor discussed the concept that even writing is a collaboration between the author and the reader; even written words do not transmit concepts with full fidelity to a “human input channel”. Instead, the reader adds his or her own experience, connotations, and context to your writing at the moment their eyes scan the page.
Take this to a real-time presentation and you see that it’s not just that you are mustering up an attitude that you are doing it for them, it’s logically the case that the audience is co-creating your presentation as you do it, each member, silently or participatively, adding to what’s being presented. You are truly doing it with them and for them.
I have heard the concept of preparing “Rude questions”. What’s the worst that someone might ask? If you prepare for that by writing them down, you not only prepare the answer, but you help make the source of some of your own anxieties visible to yourself by clearly stating what you are worried some audience member might ask.
I always get the jitters before a presentation, and I used to interpret the feeling to impending doom or something bad about to happen. Now I interpret it as extra energy that can be used to give a presentation that matters to the individuals in the room with me.
Bill,
I appreciate your reminders to keep the focus on the audience. Beyond relieving jitters, your suggestions increase the likelihood of a high quality presentation. Never too many of those.
Things that also work for me are to make sure I have multiple backups of presentations on different media and that I have thought through what I would do if all the technology failed. I usually rely more on my handouts than any projected slides. I make great effort to get to the room early, having planned my setup, so I can do it quickly. I then try to greet as many people as I can personally, talk to them individually, perhaps sitting down at tables for a few moments. I think it has the same results you were talking about in that it makes the people real. It gives me something to do rather than fiddling at a podium, playing with my laptop, or sitting waiting to be introduced.