Stage fright or “podium fear” is probably the one reason people hate doing presentations. It is the reason for all those sleepless nights, loss of appetite and hatred for your boss and or job. But stage fright is nothing new, you are not alone when you experience it. Every presenter, actor, TV star and musician face it every day. Stage fright is what makes your performance brilliant. Stage fright should be embraced and worked with.

However, stage fright in its extreme form can cause you to ‘freeze up’, and when that happens it is not good. So how can you overcome this extreme form of stage fright? Here are a list of strategies that have always helped me and I hope can help you:

1. Arrive early and claim the room

By arriving early, setting up your computer / whiteboard / OHP etc you are becoming familiar with the room. After setting up your computer walk around the room, get a real feel for its dimensions and layout. Part of the problem we have when we present is that we are not familiar with the room in which we are presenting and therefore we naturally feel uncomfortable. By arriving early, and before your audience arrives, you allow yourself time to become familiar with the room and to ‘own’ it. Once you ‘own’ the room it becomes your territory and then you will feel much more comfortable. Imagine how you feel talking to a stranger at your desk or in your office – you do not feel nervous then do you? That is because it is your territory.

2. Prepare and practice

If you do not practice and prepare before hand then you are going to be very nervous. By practicing your presentation, going through it with your slides and not just reading and reading a paper script you will gradually feel more confident. By being confident you will overcome to worst of the nerves. Again, you need to do this with your slides as this gives your practice and rehearsal a more realistic feel and it also prevents you from losing your place in the middle of your presentation.

3. Greet your audience when they arrive

There is a subconscious factor working when you are standing at the door of the presentation room greeting your audience when they arrive. It gives you an air of power and control. It also gives you the chance to see that your audience are not angry monsters wanting to kill you, but nice, friendly people interesting in what you have to say. Hiding away at the back of the room is going to intensify your nerves. Being out there at the door greeting your audience is going to help you forget that you are nervous – after all what is more natural than meeting people?

4. Don’t change your presentation last minute

I still cannot believe that people do this – they spend weeks preparing for a big presentation, they practice many hours and then on the night before or even the morning before they change their presentation. Never do this! Changing your presentation hours before delivering it is going to intensify your fears. Set a cut off of one week before your presentation and then do not change it. You will be tempted to do it, but do not. Once you have your boss’s OK then stick with what you have got and then practice it. If you have practiced the presentation well enough, made no changes you will be confident and your fear will be less intense.

5. Visualise

Olympic athletes, stage actors and musicians all use this trick to enhance their performance. They visualise performing fantastically and winning the gold medal or receiving loud applause. As you are practicing your presentation visualise everything going well – visualise looking at the audience, clicking through your slides seamlessly and answering questions effectively. While most people find it difficult to see how this can work, trust me when I tell you that it really does. It prepares your body and mind and it helps you to perform brilliantly.

I hope these little tips help you when you next do your presentation – try them, they have be tried and tested by many great speakers over the years and they have been proven to work.

Ever since I was twelve years old, when I was first introduced to the James Bond books, I have had a fascination and admiration for the creator and author of the James Bond novels, Ian Fleming.

Ian Fleming with his ever present cigarette

Ian Fleming had a brilliant ability to bring people alive through the way he described them. No small detail was ever over-looked, and he used everyday products to give his characters some authenticity. He was a “people watcher” – a person who enjoyed looking at people and observing their mannerisms, their fashion style and the way they interacted with other people. This interest in people and their surroundings gave him the ability to replicate his observations in minute detail through his books.

Ian Fleming also based many of his characters on people he actually knew. While this sometimes caused offence to some people, it also helped him to create authenticity in his characters.

So. how does this help the humble presenter?

As this blog, and many other presentation blogs and books continue to advocate, telling stories in your presentation can take your presentation from being ‘just another boring presentation’ to becoming a great presentation. One way of telling compelling and interesting stories is to ‘set the scene’ to actually help your audience imagine the scene, the situation or the person you are describing. Ian Fleming had this ability, and while Ian Fleming was not presenting his characters using PowerPoint or Keynote, he was using this ability to become one of the twentieth century’s greatest fiction writers.

Here is an example of Ian Fleming’s writing. In this paragraph, taken from the first James Bond book, Casino Royale, Fleming is describing Felix Leiter, a character that comes up in many of his stories, as the CIA representative, and eventual close friend of James Bond.

Felix Leiter was about thirty-five. He was tall with a thin bony frame and his lightweight, tan-coloured suit hung loosely from his shoulders like the clothes of Frank Sinatra. His movements and speech were slow, but one had the feeling that there was plenty of speed and strength in him and that he would be a tough and cruel fighter. As he sat hunched over the table, he seemed to have some of the jack-knife quality of a falcon. There was this impression also in his face, in the sharpness of his chin and cheekbones and the wide wry mouth. His grey eyes had a feline slant which was increased by his habit of screwing them up against the smoke of the Chesterfields which he tapped out of the pack in a chain. The permanent wrinkles which this habit had etched at the corners gave the impression that he smiled more with his eyes than with his mouth. A mop of straw-coloured hair lent his face a boyish look which closer examination contradicted.

Just from this paragraph, you can imagine Felix Leiter vividly, you can imagine the clothes he is wearing and even the way he smokes his cigarettes.

When we present, and when we try to describe a situation to our audience, giving vivid, and precise descriptions of the characters in our stories helps our audience to build a clear picture of the scene or character. This not only helps our presentation to become more interesting and even entertaining, it also makes our presentation much more memorable. And that is always the ultimate goal.

So, next time you begin preparing your presentation, take time to think carefully about the stories you will use, how you describe the scene and characters in your stories really does make a huge impact on your presentation.

I have seen hundreds of presentations delivered in hundreds of locations over the years and there is one thing I have noticed above all else, that is no matter what the subject matter is, no matter what visual aids are used, the most successful and most powerful presentations are the ones delivered using a natural, conversational style.

The biggest obstacle to a conversational style is our mind. When we think presentation, we think formal, we think serious, we think business. Yet while to some degree these things may be true, we do not have to speak in a formal and boring way. However, when we write out our words and practice and practice and practice those same words over and over again we lose that conversational style.

When we talk with our colleagues we do not have to write what we want to say down on a piece of paper and read it to them. We never write out what we are going to say to our friends when we meet them for a few drinks or a coffee. And because we do not write out exactly what we want to say, we sound natural and human. We think mid sentence, we start a sentence then stop half way through speaking it. All these natural speaking habits create the conversational style.

When it comes to presenting, we do need to prepare. We do need to practice and we do need to have a good idea of what we are going to say. However, to create that conversational style we have to interact with our audience. Using rhetorical questions can help, moving around on the stage and looking at our audience also helps. there are so many ways to help you to create that natural, conversational style.

If you are one of the many presenters out there that have to write out your words, try a different approach. Get yourself a voice recorder, and during your preparation have a conversation with yourself. Imagine you are talking to someone about what you are going to say in your presentation. Think: “I am having a conversation”. Then, when you are happy with your words, transcribe the words onto paper.

The problem we have when we are writing out our words is that we naturally write formally. It is very difficult in English to write informally, therefore the words we write come out formally. To avoid this, it is far better to speak out your words and then transcribe those words. They will sound much more natural.

When you are out there doing your presentation, imagine that you are having a conversation with your audience, they are your friends, they are there to help you and they want to have fun.

Finally, below is a presentation from TED by Creativity Professor Sir Ken Robinson. Sir Ken Robinson is a great example of a presenter who when speaking has that fantastic conversational style. Notice how he asks a lot of rhetorical questions (“… am I right?”) and how he looks at the audience and laughs with them.

Recently, I have read a number of books on the life of Sir Winston Churchill. Churchill is famous for many things, but possibly he is most famous for his inspirational speaking.

Churchill never possessed the clear tones that President Barack Obama does, nor did his possess the easy conversational style of Tony Blair. Churchill actually had a speech impediment that left him with difficulty pronouncing “S’s”. However, what Churchill did possess was a remarkable ability to stress the important phrases and words within his speech. He spoke slowly and carefully and was able to put incredible emotion in to his speeches that made what he was saying believable and honest sounding – unlike most politicians today.

Churchill also memorised his speeches. Most advice given today is you should never memorise a presentation or a speech as it makes you sound robotic, however, Churchill compensated for this by the way he stressed his words and by dictating his speeches to his secretaries. He then practiced incessantly until he got his stress, intonation and naturalness perfect. That is something you must do if you have to memorise your speeches. Practice, practice and practice until you have the stress, tone and flow perfect.

Below is an excerpt transcript of Churchill’s famous “Never Surrender” speech given in 1940. I have highlighted the words that are stressed so that you can see how this famous speech was developed:

We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God’s good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.

You can also listen to the speech by watching this little video:

Memorising your speech is dangerous if you do not practice enough, but it is possible to deliver a great speech using this method. When memorising your speech remember to stress words, use dramatic pause, and practice in the shower, bathroom and anywhere else you can get a few minutes.

If you have to do presentations in English on behalf of your company, then there is a good chance that you will need to introduce your company at the beginning of your presentation. Sadly, most people do a terrible job when presenting their company. However, with a little foresight, and some planning and preparation, you can turn this part of your presentation into something amazing.

Below is a step by step guide to planning your company introduction

:

First, prepare simple table as in the example above. Then complete the details. Once you have completed the table, begin making sentences to link the information together. For example

“Our company is called Fandcorp English Solutions and we were established in 2005.

We specialise in teaching specialised English programmes to companies throughout Korea, for example, medical and hotel English. We also do seminars in presenting in English and offer translation and English teacher recruitment services.

We have four employees at the moment and we operate throughout Asia. We are hoping to expand into Europe in 2011 and to employ an additional four employees to help us expand.”

What we have done here is to take the basic information and to link it together with link words such as “and”, “also” and “for example”

Quite often we over complicate our English because of what we are taught at school. The truth is, if you simplify your English, you make your message clearer and easier to understand. A presentation is not a TOEIC or TOEFL test, a presentation is about communicating a message clearly and understandably.

This method does not only work for your company introduction, you can do this with almost any part of your presentation. Start with the basic information, then link it together with the link words. By preparing your presentation in this way, you not only create a simple message, you also create a style that is unique to you.

4월 12일부터 영국에서 총선거 운동이 시작됩니다. 게다가 다음주쯤, 영국에서 단 한번도 이뤄지지 않았던 정당 대표자들의 토론의 장이 역사상 처음으로 열릴 것으로 예상됩니다. 그래서인지 문득, 지난 미국 대통령 선거 후보들이 펼쳤던 열띤 토론에서 배울 점 몇가지들을 여러분들께 알려드리면 참 좋겠다라는 생각이 들었습니다.

오늘 BBC Today 프로그램에서, 미국의 민주당 정치 고문인 Frank Lunz가 토론 시 필요한 몇 가지 팁들을 알려주었습니다. 그 중 프레젠테이션 발표자들에게 유익한 사항들을 아래와 같이 적어보았습니다.

1. “soundbite” 를 가져라! “soundbite”란 정치인의 연설 등이 끝난 후에 청중들이 계속 기억하게 되는 짤막한 어구 또는 단어들을 뜻합니다. 대통령 후보 토론이 끝나고 나면, 라디오와 티비 등, 각종 매체에서 이런 “soundbite”들을 쉴새없이 반복하여 떠들어 댑니다. 실례로 조지 부시 1세가1998년 대통령 선거를 앞두고, 선거 공약으로 “ 제 입술을 보세요. (제 말을 믿어주세요). 더 이상의 새로운 세금은 없습니다.” 라고 말한적이 있습니다. 이 말은 온갖 매체에서 인용이 되었고, 실제 이 말로 부시는 유권자들의 마음을 사로 잡았었습니다. (결과적으로는 이 약속을 지키지 못해 재 선거에서는 참패를 맛보긴 했지만 말입니다.) 이렇게 언론에서 끊임없이 언급하고 청중들 또한 오래 기억하게 되는 것이 바로 “soundbite”입니다. 우리도 프레젠테이션을 할 때. 청중에게 오래 기억될 이런 “soundbite”를 만들고 시도해야 합니다. 이런 것이 있다면, 청중들은 프레젠테이션이 끝난 후 아주 오래된 시간이 지나도, 여러분의 프레젠테이션에 관하여 이야기하게 될 것입니다.

2. 편안하게 보이도록 하라! 실질적으로, 이 뜻은 여유롭게 보이도록 하라는 뜻입니다. Frank Lunz 가 이야기 하기를, 토론 중 “만약 당신이 긴장한 것처럼 보이면, 당신은 실패한 것이다”라고 했습니다. 비록 우리의 프레젠테이션이 선거 연설처럼, 혹은 대통령 후보 토론처럼, 승패를 위한 절박한 싸움과 같이 극적인것은 아니지만, 여유롭게 보이는 것은 여전히 중요합니다. 우리가 여유로워지면, 청중 또한 우리를 보고 편안하게 느끼게 되고, 여러분이 불안하고 초조해 보이면, 청중도 우리를 보면서 똑같은 느낌을 갖게 되기 때문입니다.

3. 규칙을 깨버려라! 개인적으로, 이 부분이 가장 좋은 팁이라고 생각됩니다. 프레젠테이션의 규칙이, 만약 그런 규칙이 정말 존재한다면, 그 기준 방식에 맞추어 프레젠테이션을 하도록 여러분 스스로가 강요받게 됩니다. 그런 기준 방식은 정말 지루합니다. 이런 규칙은 과감히 깨버리시기 바랍니다. 자신의 이름과 직위를 꼭 프레젠테이션 첫 시작에 말하지 않으셔도 됩니다. 대신 드라마틱한 말들로 프레젠테이션을 시작할 수도 있는 것입니다. 슬라이드에 회사 로고를 넣는 것도 이젠 너무 식상합니다. 60분동안 프레젠테이션을 해야한다면, 30분만 진행하시고 끝낼 수도 있는 것입니다. 꼭 60분을 다 채워야 한다는 규칙은 어디에도 없습니다. 프레젠테이션에 있어서, 규칙은 깨기 위해 만들어진 것입니다. 그러므로 과감하게 깨버리시기 바랍니다.

프레젠테이션은 파워포인트나 키노트가 전부가 아닙니다. 우리에겐 프레젠테이션을 진행하는 스킬도 필요한 것입니다. 그러므로 프레젠테이션을 하실 때는, 한 두개 정도의 사운드바이트를 만들고 긴장을 풀어 여유롭게 보이도록 하면서, 지루한 프레젠테이션 규칙에서 벗어나 보시기 바랍니다. 이 세가지를 기억하신다면, 여러분도 훌륭한 프레젠터가 될 수 있을 것입니다.

전문가들로부터 보고 배우는 것은, 자신의 실력을 향상시키는데 참 좋은 방법이라고 늘 생각합니다. 아래의 동영상은 벤처 캐피탈리스트인 가이 카와사키의 프레젠테이션으로, 정해진 시간보더 더 길게 진행하여 규칙 깨기의 좋은 예를 보여주고 있습니다. 그의 훌륭한 프레젠테이션을 감상하시면서, 배울점이 무엇인지 한번 찾아보시기 바랍니다.

One of the biggest fears presenters have is the question and answer session that follows their presentation. This understandable. Fear comes from not knowing whether you will understand the question, or whether the question asked is one that you know the answer to. However, there is a way you can prepare for questions before your presentation that can help to remove your fears.

During the planning stage you will need to think carefully about when or whether to allow questions. In general, the smaller the audience, the more difficult it is to avoid answering questions. If you are presenting to 2000 people, then answering questions would be impractical (although I know that in some cases there is a Q&A session after the talk) However, if you are presenting to around 10 people, it would be almost impossible to avoid having to answer questions.

The secret here is to plan for questions. You can predict the kind of questions you will be asked, and if you cannot predict them, have a colleague or friend listen to your presentation and have them ask you questions. You will be able to judge the kind of questions you will be asked from this short exercise.

When planning for questions, make a note of the questions you think might be asked. Anticipate what the subjects will be asked about. In a product launch, if you have not already told your audience, they will want to know the price of your new product. They may perhaps want to know what margin you will be giving them. There is no excuse for not knowing the answers to these simple and basic questions. So find out!

There will of course be times when you will be asked a question that you simply do not know the answer to. Be prepared for these questions too. Depending on the type of question asked, have an honest answer ready. If you do not know the answer, be honest. Tell the questioner that you will get back to them later when you have the answer. Do not try and answer a question that you do not know the answer to, it is unprofessional and you will be found out.

If you do not understand what the questioner asked, because they spoke too quickly, or their pronunciation is not very good, just ask the questioner to repeat the question more slowly. Saying “I’m sorry, could you repeat your question a little slower” is not embarrassing or telling everyone that your English is not good, it is polite, and professional.

If you are not sure exactly what the questioner asked, repeat the question you think they asked, nine times out of ten the questioner will agree that you understand correctly and then you can answer the question.

So, do not fear the Q&A session – Prepare for it.

Having spent a number of years teaching business English to large numbers of students where English was not their native language, I very quickly learned that one of the key requisites for any speaker when speaking to an international audience is to speak slowly.

Now, I am a native English speaker, most of you may not be. But the same rules apply to non-native English speakers. In fact, speaking slowly is probably more important for a non-native speaker than a native one because of possible pronunciation difficulties.

When you are presenting you are not in a race to finish. Your job is to communicate your message in a way that your audience a) understands and b) remembers. If you fail at these basic communication goals your whole presentation fails.  

When you are preparing your presentation, always practice your presentation in front of someone and get their feedback. They will tell you if you are speaking too fast. I always remember a very wise man who told me that when you are doing a presentation in front of a group of people, if you think you are speaking at a normal speed, then you are speaking too fast.

It is unlikely that you will ever speak too slowly when you present because your nerves will automatically speed you up. So focus on your words, think slow and try to relax a little. Focus on the stress and intonation of your words, pause before saying an important word, or an ‘action verb‘ to give it more impact. These little tips will help you to slow down.

I always find that when I feel very strongly about a subject, my passion speeds me up without me realising it. A tip here is to stop when you think you are going too fast and take a breath.

If you take a look at the Jamie Oliver speech at TED 2010, Jamie’s passion and enthusiasm floods out of him. It was a brilliant presentation, but at times he speaks too fast. But if you watch carefully, when he realised he was speaking too fast he stopped himself. He took a breath and started again more slowly.

I know there is a lot to think about when you are presenting in a foreign language, and having to worry about your speed is yet another thing to worry about. But most of the things you have to worry about can be dealt with before you begin your presentation, by proper planning and preparation, but speaking too fast is something you really do need to watch for during your presentation, and when you do find yourself speaking too fast be brave enough to slow down.

Quite often when you are presenting in English as a second language, you focus so much on being ‘correct’ that you forget about being ‘human’. I have sat though many presentations where the presenter was using good words, good sentences and being more grammatical correct than I am, yet their presentation failed in its objective.

You see, in English choosing the correct words, the perfect grammar and the best sentence structure is not going to win you any speaking awards. In English, you need to use tone, stress and the art of silence.

What do I mean? Well, try getting a friend of yours to read a paragraph from any English article, magazine or book. Ask then not to use any tone, and just read what they see. What you will notice is that although what you are hearing is perfect English, with the correct grammar and sentence stress, it will sound terrible. The reason for this is that English needs intonation and rhythm. Without intonation and rhythm English dies. And that is one of the biggest mistakes I see when I view a presentation done in English by a speaker who is not a native English speaker.

So, how do you improve this?

Well the simple thing to do is to use the punctuation. When I was very little, my teacher always taught us to use the punctuation to take a breath and to look at your audience (if you are reading – which of course you should not be doing when presenting) And we can take this advice and use it in our presentations. When we come up to a comma (,) we should take a breath, and when we reach a full stop / period (.) we should use this for a one second pause.

No try reading the paragraph you heard before and try taking a breath when you come to a comma and pausing for one second when you come to a full stop. Does it sound a little better now?

Another good way to improve the sound of your English is to put a pause before and after an important word or phrase. What I mean here is best demonstrated by Margaret Thatcher when giving a speech. The words that she wanted to stress she paused, slowed down and looked directly at her audience. You can view a great example here

What you will notice that Margaret Thatcher doesn’t feel like she’s rushing, she is flowing smoothly and using natural pause and stress to make her speech come alive. She also allows her audience to stop laughing before continuing.
Margaret Thatcher was not a natural speaker, but she used some simple techniques to improve her speaking which made many of her speeches very powerful indeed.
So next time you do a presentation in English, think about your pauses, your breathing and how you can use these to improve the impact of your presentation.

Here is a fantastic example that shows that even when English is not your native language, when you have a strong ‘foreign’ accent when using English, if you compliment your slides with what you are saying it really does not matter how clear you are at speaking English.

Jacek Utko, a Polish newspaper designer spoke at TED (Technology Education Design) recently. His talk was only 6 minutes long, but he was able to convey his message with passion, flow and seamlessness. Because Jacek was able to synchronise his words with his slides it was very easy to forget that he was speaking with a foreign accent.

To view this with subtitles click here

I do accept that Jacek’s English is very good, my point is that his accent could easily distract an audience of native English speakers. However, Jacek’s ability to synchronise his words to his slides enabled him to make his words clear and sharp.

But one of the best things about this little presentation is the story. Jacek started his story off with a question about the future of newspapers, the answer, if any, was that the newspaper was doomed. However, he then went on to describe a solution. He was able to show some examples and even gave the statistics that proved that by designing beautiful newspapers there is a way that newspapers could saved.

This is a very good demonstration of a man who does not speak English as a native speaker, yet has the confidence to stand up on a stage and speak to 2000 people in a foreign language and deliver a presentation that is 100 times better than most native English speakers could do.

Remember Jacek’s final words?

“To be good is not enough”

That’s a good lesson we can all learn.