Prepare, prepare and prepare. Comfortable and suitable clothes. Eat something. Avoid sparkling water.

And prepare even more on your first slides. Get the audience in the beginning and bob’s your uncle.

Hmmm. Maybe I should start to prepare for the two presentations I have tomorrow?

I’ve also presented lots and have two main tricks to keep down the nerves. Breathing deep and a little visualisation – I picture myself riding into the meeting or stage on a big black horse. Really helps the confidence!

Oh and preparation helps too.

I got a great tip I’ve used a couple of times. When you know there’s a difficult expert in the audience who might give you some grief. Try really hard to meet them before you go on and say “hi, I might get some questions from the audience that are hard to answer, you have the expertise, can I refer the question over to you? I’d really appreciate it.” You stroke their ego and should have a friend.

However, sometimes acting as if you’re not nervous will also help. I think much of the same applies if you are scared of something or shy when meeting (or talking to) new people. If you act as if yuo’re not nervous/scared/shy, people won’t know that you are.

Also, this post made me think of two great books on people-skills and public speaking:

How to Develop Self-Confidence And Influence People By Public Speaking and
How to Win Friends & Influence People, both by Dale Carnegie.