re: "Speaking to large groups" knower abouters

Not forgetting to breathe is the most important thing for me. You could throw an animated slide or video in there that takes a few minutes to let you collect yourself. Just in case you one one of those moments. We’ve all had those. If it’s something you will have to regularly do there are classes for this full of people will the same problem.

That’s the Jordan Belfort method.

If you get dry mouth like I do, have a bottle of water or a lozenge with you. I carry the Biotene brand dry mouth lozenges for this exact reason. Just make sure the mint or lozenge isn’t visible as you speak where you have some weird looking growth from your face.

Make some speaker notes. Add your jokes and sidebar comments in there too so it all feels natural

Get an image in your head of you speaking and presenting yourself flawlessly. Then think about that as you speak.

quote:

---

I have to speak to our entire company (about 240 people) in a couple weeks. I'll be up for about 20 minutes. 10 to 15 slides in my deck. It's my material so I'm comfortable talking to it.. The problem: just the thought of speaking to large groups is one of my biggest anxieties. I'd rather swim with sharks than do this shite. I've never done it before, and I am already pissing my pantalones. Those who've done this before: got any advice for a first-timer?

---

Just be yourself and don’t worry too much. They won’t notice if you miss a note here or there. Just step up to the mic and make some small talk. “How’s everyone doing out there tonight? Who came ready to rock?!”
If you keep your sunglasses on you can’t see them and they can’t see you sweat.

In all seriousness humor is your friend. Don’t be stiff. Find a friendly face in the crowd and talk to that person. If you have some trusted colleagues that will be there ask them to sit where you can see their faces and talk “kind of” in their direction but do make sure to glance around AS IF you’re looking at the crowd. Try not to pay attention to peoples faces that you don’t know as you’ll over analyze their expressions and get nervous.

Whatever you do, DONT drink alcohol before you go up. You’ll just be jittery AND buzzed.

One of the best lessons I learned about being on stage in front of a shite load of people: “you know the material better than they do and they won’t know if you frick up. And the one or two that will won’t be balls enough to come tell you about it.”

quote:

---

Those who've done this before: got any advice for a first-timer?

---

Focus on one person or small group of people that you can see, then shift around to hit all the sections and you'll be fine. You're not talking to a "crowd", you're talking to individual people. The more prepared and comfortable you are, the better you will be.

Will you have the opportunity to rehearse in the actual space? I'm not saying you have to do the entire talk word-for-word, but you at least want to get up there with the lights on and rehearse your intro and slide transitions.

If you can't do that in the space, get as close as you can and have someone act as your audience to catch obvious errors in the slides, etc.

Work on your transitions. To me that was always the spot where things could get awkward. If they're too abrupt it's weird and you don't want to kind of peter out on one topic or point and then cold start another. Better to have some type of transition.

Other than that, do math in your head. It helps me at least, and my theory is it kicks in the analytical part of your brain and mutes the emotional a bit.

Some of the most impactful presentations I've seen came from people who weren't particularly polished speakers but those who knew and believed in what they were sharing. So you're already past the biggest hurdle by being comfortable and confident with the subject material. So I bet you'll be fine.

But you do have to get into it and you'll be most anxious at the beginning. Even people who do this routinely deal with anxiety. And without knowing you or specifics of the situation it's difficult to prescribe an approach to kick things off but something light-hearted, anecdotes or similar, are frequently an approach to get over your jitters and lead in to the meat of your presentation. Sometimes just telling them why you're on the agenda is a good way to start. Once you get into your material, face your audience and use your slides only as memory triggers. Your audience can read and listen at the same time so you don't have to read bullet points to them. Ideally you should be able to deliver the same message without slides. At the close, tell your audience the "so what?" outlining what they should take away from your presentation.

I'll be glad to help you if you want. Just let me know how to contact you.

Plenty of good advice in this thread, but I'd recommend also calling your doctor and getting some beta blockers. They are safe, non-addictive, and work wonders. They will 100% stop all physical signs of nervousness.

I practice every presentation until I find a good cadance to hit my alloted time. Record video of it to make sure everything looks good. Then on my note cards I will write the time every few bullet points. I will then lay my phone stopwatch on the podium so I can monitor making sure I am on time and not blowing thru every transition point.