Fear Is a Good Thing - It Will Help You Become a Great Presenter

Presentation S.O.S.; From Perspiration to Persuasion in 9 Easy Steps
by Mark Wiskup

Don't worry ... be brilliant!

Everything you need to make your next talk a resounding success is right here-even if you dread the thought of approaching a podium! In Presentation S.O.S., renowned communications expert Mark Wiskup gives you a quick, concise, and (yes!) fun way to confidently sell your ideas to any audience.

Packed with unique tips and featuring nine easy, painless steps that will transform you into a great presenter, this book shows you how to:

• Develop a "Power Sound Bite" to grab your listeners' attention and focus your message.
• Get the most out of PowerPoint-and dodge its pitfalls.
• Avoid seemingly harmless words and expressions that can turn the audience against you.
• Finish big with a knock-'em-dead "Power Close."
• Win the Q&A battle-learn how to handle even the toughest questions and most difficult members of your audience.

Chapter 1

What You Will Learn From This Chapter:

• It is healthy and reasonable to be fearful of your upcoming presentation.
• The reasons why your fears are well founded.
• How to use your fears to create a great presentation.

It's going to be okay! I know you are nervous about your next presentation, and that is understandable. I also say it's good. Being nervous will give you the energy you need to create a vibrant talk and then deliver it to your audience with power and confidence. The fact that your upcoming presentation is giving you a case of the willies is a good sign. It shows you care. It shows you want to be good, and improve. Please don't wish for the jitters to go away! Accomplished speakers, like athletes and entertainers, recognize that sense of discomfort is a tool to help them focus, prepare thoroughly, and perform well. The physiological distress signals your body sends out to stop you from taking the podium-sweaty palms (as well as upper lips, foreheads, and underarms), constricted throat, butterflies in the stomach, shortness of breath-come from realistic fears. Good. In fact, as my kids say, "It's all good."

Your body is telling you, "You're in for a fight." Get ready. This anxiety can be channeled to help you heighten your senses, intellect, creativity, and drive. Deliver a powerful performance, receive encouragement and insightful questions from the audience, and you've jumped a major hurdle: You've kicked a little tail on those presentation fears.

I don't want to talk you out of your fear. I'm not going to tell you not to worry about your next presentation. Your anxiety shows me you're perceptive, not paranoid. You understand that when you stand in front of an audience, every single face hides a fair-weather fan. You can get those in the audience to become fans and cheer for you, your ideas, and your proposals. All you have to do is create a strong connection with every one of them, no matter how big the room is. You can do it, and understanding and accepting your fear is the first step. The worst presenters, I believe, are the ones with no fear, no sweat. They think they're already pretty good and don't care about improving the impact of their presentation on the audience.

The comic dying onstage always says, "Wow, tough crowd." I say they're all tough. From the PTA parents in cafeterias to the corporate "C-levels" (MBA marketing lingo for CEOs, COOs, CIOs, and CFOs) in mahogany conference rooms, to the colleagues you hang out with every day in the coffee room, every audience is demanding. They expect the speaker to be good, even if you're their "bud," "sister," "bro," or the only one in the office they can talk to about the suspense behind last night's eviction ceremony on Big Brother Five.

Audiences don't like being disappointed. They will quickly turn on any speaker who's not building a connection. Therefore, the task ahead is easy. When the spotlight is on you, never let the audience down and you'll be golden. It's a good goal-one you can reach.

I can say, after years of sitting in them and talking to them, that audiences are not unfair. But they are quick to judge. Once you understand how to connect with the audience members, you'll find you can please them every time. Audiences will keep buying what you're selling as long as they think they want and need your ideas, your insights, and your thoughts. They are the ultimate conspicuous consumers, right out of Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class (wow, Dad, five years of college wasn't down the drain!). They will cheer you and keep buying your thoughts as long as you please them. Keep pleasing them, and you'll keep the boo birds at bay, forever.

That's a good ambition because a disparaging audience won't actually boo you to your face if you bore them. Boos might be more helpful than what really happens because instead, they'll do worse. They will cruelly mock you behind your back if you fail to connect with them. For the next fifteen to thirty minutes, they want you to rock their world. And they expect you to know how to do it. After all, there you are, in front of everybody, commanding all the attention.

So your fears are well placed. I guarantee they will not "love you for just being you," as your mom told you while wiping away your tears on the way to the first day at a new elementary school. The audience is filled with professional adults who will only "love you" if you connect with them, inform them, and help them. Follow the right steps and you can do all three every time. If you're a week away from the presentation and your palms are starting to sweat, know that you're in good company. Everyone who has to stand in front of others, in the figurative spotlight, begins with these same fears. Those who succeed will embrace the fears, akin to that famous Hollywood stereotype: the vacant, unemployed blond-haired surfer assessing ferocious fifteen-foot swells that crest and violently pound the shore. The tanned and seemingly inarticulate surfer gazes intently at the threatening horizon and says directly to the waves, "Come on, dude, let's party!"

That's how confident and successful speakers feel, imagining the faces in the audience they'll be standing in front of in an hour or a week. The real pros fully understand this is treacherous professional territory. They understand it can cause embarrassment and pain, and might even "leave a mark" on their careers as well as their psyches. They also know fear creates realizations that will enable them to perform well, navigate the punishing environment, and bring them a rewarding and exhilarating experience that our character out of Malibu central casting would describe as "totally righteous."

Your fear is good. No one should talk you out of it. And they'll try. Heavens yes, they'll stick their noses right in the middle of your fears. Who hasn't experienced that surreal scene that could have come out of Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, or The Brady Bunch? Here's how it goes in case you haven't had the pleasure:

You're going over your notes at your desk. You're feeling tense because your presentation is tomorrow. Enter the foreverpatronizing Mike Brady character (Mike being the natural father of Greg, Bobby, and Peter) in your life. With a gentle wave of the hand and head tilted in full condescension mode, he says, "I know you're nervous. But here's a little trick that always works. Just pretend everyone in the audience is in their underwear and you'll be fine." As my daughter says, "Eeeoow! Gross!"

How is this underwear thing supposed to help? It's cruel. Well intentioned, but cruel nonetheless. It may be disturbing and even slightly sickening to envision your peers, your customers, your bosses in matching sets of Hanes, but it's not calming to a jumpy speaker. Only in the bizarre alternative universe of sitcoms does the "underwear" advice assuage the dread of the next presentation, transforming an anxious frown into a smile of earnest enthusiasm and confidence. That probably didn't help you in high school and it's not going to help you now. "They" are wrong. There is something to fret about. And it's real! I want to take a look at your biggest fears, show you why they aren't imagined, and prove that is the first step to overcome in your meaningful and connecting presentation.

It's worth the effort. You may never bring yourself to say, "Come on, dude, let's party," as you step to the podium, but you'll be more confident at the front of the room as you open you mouth to speak.

Copyright © 2005 by Mark Wiskup

About the Author

Mark Wiskup is a renowned communications expert who speaks nationwide to many Fortune 500 companies. He is the President of Wiskup Communications.