Five ways to crush your public speaking fears

It’s a near-essential skill, but public speaking can reduce most of us to nervous wrecks. It’s time to face the fear, and here’s how

Peter Roper

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“How many people here have ever been nervous about standing up in public and speaking?” When I ask my audiences this question, it is almost certain that 90% or more of the room will put their hands up (including me).

Public speaking is something the majority of us will have to do at some point in our lives, particularly those of us in business. We might not ever learn to love it, but it is a fear which has to be overcome if we are able to present ourselves professionally.

I haven’t got all the answers, even though I have been speaking for business for over 35 years. However, I’m going to share a few techniques I’ve learnt along the way to help you speak professionally in public and represent your business efficiently.

Believe in you

You need to be focused on believing you can give your audience something of value – not focused on your nerves. This means that you need to turn up for the start of the speech – not only in person, but in your head as well. Be ready to give them the best you can, turn up with enthusiasm and passion for your subject, and an audience will forgive you a great deal in lack of skill because they can sense your belief. Without it even the most well-crafted speech falls flat.

Visualisation is a powerful technique, so try to think about that enthusiastic audience. If that’s what you’re expecting you’re going to give it your very best shot and it will show. Of course you’ll get that really positive reception – because you’ll deserve it.

For the audience

As a speaker, I always want to share something that people can take away and use practically and immediately from the speech. My role, when I stand in front of you and speak, is to give you something that will make a difference. It’s not to say ‘look at me, how good am I?’.

In an audience of ten or more people:

10% like to know where they are going, so say something like “I’m going to cover five steps to speaking, is that ok with you?”. Most will nod, and that 10% will probably be on-side with you. That’s a good start!
30% want to have a bit of fun along the way; they don’t want to be bored to tears. If you bring these people along, you now have 40% of the audience who are with you.
35% simply want to know how much you care. Explain why you care about what you are speaking about and show you are a caring individual – now you have 75% on board.
25% is left if the sums add up, and if they don’t, that 25% will tell me immediately because they want structure and form! If you ensure your speech has this, you’ll have 100% on board!

Build a relationship

After many years in sales, and having thought long and hard, the conclusions I came to were simply these:

80% of sales is simply hard work, persistence and enthusiasm, as in all business
20% of sales is the ability to create a relationship, but it’s the difference between winning and losing, and is therefore the most critical part.

No relationship, no sale.

It took me a long time to understand that I could do business with most people once I understood where they were coming from and concentrated on that as opposed to what I wanted; this made my career improve dramatically.

It’s exactly the same for any speech. When you’re speaking it’s just like closing the sale. So see the audience through their eyes.

Know your lines

Either in business or when we really have something personal to say, how often do we take the time to know our lines?

Most of us simply put things off until the last moment, ‘wing’ things and make statements like ‘Thank goodness that’s over!’ instead of preparing. Even when the pressure can be huge we still delay – ask any dad just prior to his speech at his daughter’s wedding.

Please, where ever possible, don’t be a ‘winger’. Taking some time and trouble to prepare can make it much easier to face the fear of public speaking.

Speaking effectively

To me, speaking or presenting to any audience is about the ability to share your thoughts and ideas in a way that each individual can digest, understand and, hopefully, agree with.

It’s about putting yourself into their shoes and seeing life in the way they see and understand it.

It’s also understanding that you may not get it right every time and that, on any given day, you cannot touch everyone in the audience. That’s ok; it’s just not for them at that time. And maybe there will be another time, another place or even, perhaps, another speaker that can get the message to them.