Good Presentation Techniques

Learn how to give a good presentation with techniques to help you alleviate your anxiety and fears of speaking in public. Control your nerves so you can crush it!

Palms sweating, forehead burning, lightheadedness, room spinning, choking on air. And you haven’t even hit the stage yet to give your presentation. Worse than that: you’re probably a week out from the date of your upcoming presentation.

If that sounds like your current worst-nightmare scenario, you’re experiencing presentation anxiety. Which sucks, I know.

The good news? There are ways to fix it! In this article, I’ll give you 14 ways to give a good presentation without suffering from anxiety.

What Is a Good Presentation?

At its most basic level, a good presentation is one in which the presenter doesn’t throw up on stage, and the audience doesn’t fall asleep. Okay, that’s a very basic level.

On a higher level, a good presentation checks off these three boxes:

• Informative. A good presentation contains all the necessary information and only the necessary information to make a point. Showering your audience with extraneous facts and figures, no matter how accurate or valid they may be, will only send them into snooze-land.

• Impressive. Impressive doesn’t mean that you’ve got to set off fireworks or arrange for Hollywood-style explosions to take place during your presentation. But it does mean that your presentation needs to include visual content to help impress your words onto your audience’s mind. Visual content can be images, graphs, video, or even something as simple as expressive body language and meaningful gestures.

• Storytelling. The human mind loves stories. Both oral information and visual expression can quickly bore an audience if they’ve got no meaning, no structure, or greater purpose. But tie the two things together in an interesting series of events that take the audience on a journey, and you’ve got them hooked by the nose!

But you can’t easily tell a great story and connect the informative points to your audience if you let nerves get in the way of your presentation.

Today, we’ll be taking things a step further and looking into how you can deliver an awesome presentation without letting anxiety or nervousness hold you back.

Worst-Case Scenario Management

The thought of giving a presentation can shoot your anxiety level off the charts because the act of speaking before an audience plays on some of our biggest fears as humans: the fear of failure and the fear of rejection.

Now add to that mix the possibility that our failure may take the form of public humiliation on stage, and our rejection being delivered live from a booing audience, and you can easily see why presentations can cause paralysis by anxiety.

The best way to combat your presentation anxiety, though it may sound counterintuitive at first, is to think about the worst-case scenario. What’s the worst thing that can happen?

You shouldn’t think about this so you can wallow in your misery, but so you can take preventative measures against it and dispel your anxiety knowing that you’re fully prepared.

In fact, worst-case scenario thinking is a concept that’s often used in risk management to strategically plan how to tackle a big problem or major event. And in the case of how to give a good presentation, your worst-case scenario planning looks like this:

14 Ways to Eliminate Your Presentation Anxiety

1. Think About the Audience, Not Yourself

No, I don’t mean that you should imagine the audience in their underwear—or even naked! I don’t know who came up with that idea, but in all honesty, it never helps me when preparing for a presentation. It just makes me feel awkward and embarrassed.

Instead of thinking about all the ways you can mess up, turn the spotlight on your audience and think about all the ways you can help them by giving a good presentation:

• What will your audience learn from you in this presentation?
• In what ways will your presentation benefit your audience?
• How will your message or knowledge help improve people’s lives?

Once you start focusing on the purpose of your presentation and the importance of that purpose for your audience, you’ll realize that no one wants you to fail! Far from being there to judge you and see if you’re any good, your audience wants you to give a good presentation. They want to learn something from you.

2. Use Building Blocks

Presenters often worry that they’ll forget their words during the presentation.

Well, so what if you do? I don’t mean that you should freeze on stage, but your presentation is about the core message you want to deliver, not about the specific words you use to deliver that message.

You can stay focused on your topic and keep your rhythm going by breaking down your presentation into 10-minute building blocks. Each building block should focus on just one point you want to make.

You can also visually structure your presentation around these blocks by using section title slides that stand out visually. Notice below in the Agio PowerPoint template slides how different slides stand out to indicate a new section with a bold heading. This simple technique breaks up the visual rhythm of your regular slides and allows you to quickly pinpoint where your blocks are.

This approach makes it easier for you to remember your presentation than if you tried to memorize the whole thing as one piece, and it also gives you a lifeline in case you “mess up.”

3. Plan to Pause

Hitting your pauses is just as important for giving a good presentation as hitting your main points. Rushing through your presentation will not only leave you exhausted and breathless, but it’ll also leave your audience feeling overwhelmed and lost.

Don’t rush through your points, and don’t rush your audience. Pause to give them time to consider what you said and to give yourself time to gather your thoughts.

4. Prepare Your PowerPoint Early

As soon as you finalize your speech, get to work on your PowerPoint presentation and have it ready well in advance so you can relax and focus on perfecting your delivery.

If you’re looking for cool and powerful presentation templates to complement your presentation, check out some of the best, trending presentation templates on Envato Elements.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice

And you’d be wise to follow the same advice when preparing your presentation to minimize performance anxiety.

Practice not just your words, but also your visual presentation. Practice what you’ll say, what you’ll show, what you’ll do, and how the two will come together.

6. Record and Review

Take action and clear your doubts. Record yourself on your phone or camera and see how you look giving your presentation. Go over your recording and make notes for improvement.

If possible, ask some friends or colleagues over to act as your audience. Not only will it be better for you to practice before a live audience, but you’ll also have their feedback on ways to improve your stage presence.

7. Get There Early

Arriving early gives you a chance to familiarize yourself with your surroundings so you can feel more at ease during your presentation.

Even if you can’t get into the place of your presentation early, you can still take a walk near the building where you’re presenting, relax, clear your mind, and prepare for your presentation without worrying about time, the traffic, or anything else extraneous.

8. Test the Technology

Another benefit of arriving early is that you can ask to test the technology to make sure everything will run smoothly during your presentation.

Always have your presentation saved on a variety of media that you can access in a variety of ways should anything go wrong.

9. Breathe Deeply

Deep breaths have been scientifically proven to help us relax, reduce our stress levels, and improve our outlook on the situation at hand.

Right before going on stage or entering the presentation room, take 5-10 deep breaths slowly inhaling as much air as you can and slowly exhaling it back out. The practice will help you relax, focus, and dispel any minor anxiety.

10. Mingle With Your Audience

Consider chatting with your audience members before the presentation. By doing so, you’ll not only present yourself as more approachable, but you’ll also feel less like you’re talking to complete strangers.

11. Remember to Hydrate

Prevent cotton mouth by drinking plenty of water before your presentation, but do remember to hit the bathroom right before you start.

12. Smile

The key takeaway: smile during your presentation. This will make you seem more approachable, and you’ll put a smile on your audience’s faces as well.

13. Exercise

Getting regular exercise is a great way to combat anxiety in general. If exercise isn’t a part of your routine, consider going for a short, brisk walk before your presentation.

14. Avoid Caffeine

While caffeine can help you remain alert, it can also raise your anxiety levels, so cut back on coffee and any caffeinated beverages the day before and the day of your presentation.