re: "Speaking to large groups" knower abouters

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Watch your Uhhs.

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Do not say uhhh or ummm one fricking time

Percocet and 2 shots of whiskey. You won’t be able to shut up

get a prescription for propranolol (beta blocker) and clonopin. Actors and musicians use propranolol for stage fright.

I take 20 mg of that and 0.5 mg clonopin about an hour before a speech. Those doses dont make you feel any different. It just removes the fear of death.

ETA some people cant use the tried and true techniques. The anxiety is just too much for that. With enough time and exposure you can get over the anxiety (Toast Masters). Not everyone has time for that

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Practice, practice, practice. Watch your Uhhs.

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This. It sounds crazy but I'll practice my presentations by myself and then if time allows, have a few peers hear you out. This helps go over your lines and points on the presentation and avoid the uhhs and ahhs.

Make it funny and for God’s sake, don’t just read your slides. Have them on the screen, hit the high points and talk to the topics. Just dictating what you’ve typed will lose your audience.

Practice.

Speak extemporaneously.

Remember, you know more about what you are telling them than they do.

After introduction s, either by you or someone else introducing you, tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.

Any PowerPoint presentation should be succinct and to the point. If you don’t need a slide, get rid of it. No more than three or four points per slide.

Don’t joke around. Maybe be self deprecating, but just a little.

Good luck. You’ll do great.

I’ve spoken to all size groups (from a handful to hundreds) and what I’ve learned is the first few times you just have to “do it scared”. It’s an unknown situation so the fear in you will try to fill in the blanks with every negative possibility out there. The truth is if you just push through it and keep going- even if you feel like you’re about to hyperventilate- it’ll pass and get easier. Then each successive time you speak that gnawing fear gets less and less because you prove to yourself that you can indeed do it. You may even enjoy it. Additionally you may even be very good at it. Then one day you’ll look back and can’t believe you were ever intimidated by the activity of public speaking. I think now, how different my life would be and how many great experiences I would have missed out on if I hadn’t forced myself to press through the first time or two. You’ll make it. Heck, you may even crush it.

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you know the material it shouldn’t be a problem. Don’t read from a script, don’t read the PP. have a couple of bullet points you want to hit on for each slide. Remember most of the people on the call aren’t listening or could care less what you are saying.

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8 pages in, this is probably a pointless response, but this is one of the best tips. Even if you know the material, if you get nervous, you're going to end up mostly reading what you put in the slides. If you put a wall of text, that's what you're going to read. If you put just bullets (and keep them as simple as possible with enough for you to recall the topic), you will recall it fine and come across way more natural, as you should.
With that, make sure you have your specific details readily available and organized, for reference. You know the material and can give ball park figures, but it's nice to have specific data for reference during any q&a.

I always mingled before & talked to those that were interested. Eased my anxiety quite a bit. If that’s possible for you. Good luck.