Are you scared you’ll make a fool out of yourself during your job presentation? Are you nervous your classmates will laugh at you for constantly using fillers such as “like” and “umm”?
Here are six ways you can improve your presentation skills in front of a group of people. Whether you’re looking for that job promotion and need to impress your boss with your professional presentation, or just want a good grade in your communications class, these six tips will make you feel like you have gained total control of your audience:
1. Know and care about your material
They say “practice makes perfect,” but sometimes improvising helps you connect better with the audience. Don’t just memorize your material by practicing something repeatedly. Understand it, care about it, and know it so well that you can explain and teach it to your audience as if they were your students. You’ll feel more confident about yourself and won’t have to worry about getting lost during your speech.
2. Practice in front of the mirror
“You talkin’ to me?” is probably the last thing you should practice saying in front of the mirror like Robert De Niro did with his infamously creepy character, Travis Barker, in “Taxi Driver.” The purpose of you practicing in the mirror is to get a sense of what you look like when you speak (to get a sense of what the audience is seeing). Practice your facial expressions and make sure you have good posture. This will help you worry less about what you look like because you’ll already know from practicing in the mirror.
3. Be energetic without being over the top.
Yes, you heard me. Don’t be annoying. Just because you’re talking loud and sound super excited doesn’t mean that others will find you interesting. Make sure your speech and voice is not monotonic, but don’t yell either. Try to find the perfect balance where people can actually hear what you’re saying without having to cover their ears or use a hearing aid.
4. Maintain constant eye contact with your audience
As awkward as it may sound, maintaining constant eye contact with your audience is crucial to keeping them engaged. Don’t stare at one person during the whole speech, but try to give each of them one or two seconds of your attention. This will help you connect more personally with the audience, as you will be able to break up the mass of people into individuals, and therefore feel less lost in a huge crowd.
5. Careful with the jokes
Jokes can either be great icebreakers or disasters. Be strategic when adding humor to your presentation. Keep the audience’s demographic in mind. Otherwise, you might deal with a “tough crowd” because they might not understand your jokes or find them funny. This could lead to an awkward silence, causing you more anxiety. In other words, do not tell any jokes unless you have contemplated the demographic.
6. Engage the audience
Don’t just lecture the audience with your speech; ask them questions! Questions can be rhetorical in nature, or even an inquiry as to whether or not anyone in the audience can relate to an anecdote. You’ll connect better with an involved audience, and this will also help you overcome any anxiety about speaking in public.
These six tips will help you get rid of that nervous 4th grader inside of you and help you do your best in captivating your audience. Nobody is perfect, and while you stand in front of the crowd, remember the wise words of Marcus Garvey:
“With confidence, you have won before you have started.”