Persuasive Presentations 4: Presenting With Confidence

In order to deliver persuasive presentations, you have to overcome any hesitation or fear of public speaking.

You’ve probably heard the claim that public speaking is the world’s No 1 fear.

It’s repeated so often that many people actually believe it.

Well, here’s the good news…

There is no reliable evidence whatsoever to substantiate this claim. It’s just a good example of “urban myth”.

But the problem is that it encourages many people to hold on to their fear. This damages their wealth, health and happiness.

Of course, nerves before a speech are not only normal. They also help your persuasive presentations performance by helping you prepare well and show respect to your audience.

Overcoming fear of public speaking is not only possible – it can be easy, profitable, satisfying and useful.

Here are some ways you can make sure fear of public speaking doesn’t hold you back from delivering persuasive presentations.

Invest in Preparation and Practice

Make time for preparation

You can easily make yourself very uncomfortable and anxious by trying to deliver persuasive presentations without adequate preparation. If you take enough time to understand what your audience needs and then to think about how to deliver the message effectively, you are going to feel more comfortable and you will get better results.

Learn to shadow box

In boxing and other combat sports, it’s not easy to prepare for a fight without risking getting hurt by an opponent. So an important part of training for boxers is what’s known as ‘shadow boxing’.

It takes that name because you literally fight your own shadow. The boxer throws punches at an imaginary opponent not a real one.

Through this process they can identify what they need to do differently to improve their performance.

Many of the most successful boxers attribute their success to thousands of fights with an imaginary opponent.

The equivalent in persuasive presentations is to practice without an audience.

You can speak to an empty hall or you could speak in your own home. You can speak in front of a mirror or practice using audio or video.

Whichever approach works best for you, it’s been proven that this sort of practice will make you more confident and get you better results.

Build experience in low risk environments

In the world of public speaking and persuasive presentations, you can take shadow boxing to the next level and practice with a real audience rather than in front of your bathroom mirror.

You do this by speaking in low-risk environments to build your experience and confidence. organizations such as Toastmasters can be a great way to do this.

Imagine Success Instead of Failure

The most important point to bear in mind about the word fear is that it almost always means:

False

Evidence

Appearing

Real

The big problem is that we are driven by our imagination of all the things that could go wrong. We don’t live in reality – we live in our perception of reality.

So we have to learn to create the reality the way we want it to be – rather than the way we fear it might be.

Many successful sports people spend time running through a successful outcome in their mind before they try for real.

You have to apply the same approach to public speaking and persuasive presentations.

Instead of focusing your attention on worrying about what might go wrong, take time to actively picture what it will be like getting the outcome you want.

The book Psycho-Cybernetics explains the process of doing this in more detail.

Changing your approach in this way can make a huge difference to your results.

This is part of a series of seven lessons on How to Profit from Persuasive Presentations. To receive all seven, please sign up free at www.PersuasivePresentationPower.com

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