Confident presentations: How to sound confident when public speaking
Confident presentations are every public speaker's dream. However, if you are nervous when speaking in public and prone to stage fright you may sound hesitant, unsure or flustered. Your voice may tremble, you may speak too quietly, or mumble and rush through your speech too quickly. You end up not giving confident presentations at all but nervous ones!
Here are some tips for you on how to sound confident when public speaking. When you sound confident the audience is more likely to take note of what you have to say.
Confident presentations tip 1: Make your diction clear.
Precise, clear diction suggests decisiveness and confidence. Therefore, put effort and energy into your diction when you are presenting.
There are particular sounds, such as t/d/k, which, when spoken at the end of your words, need to be crisp and clear in order for you to project confidence easily. For example, practise saying "Bake the cake", with the final K sounds being crisp.
When people are nervous they tend not to form their words well. In contrast, when people are confident they do tend to form their words well. So if you speak clearly you will sound confident.
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Confident presentations tip 2: Maintain your voice volume.
Confident people can be heard easily. If you speak too quietly people may think you are nervous even if you aren't. Or they may think that what you say is not important.
Keep your volume up. Be easy to hear. Don't be afraid of the sound of your own voice. Speak up. Sound confident. Confident presentations are not possible if you are inaudible.
If you find it hard to project your voice then order a microphone, or go and see a speech and drama teacher to learn how to project it more easily.
Whatever you do, make it easy for your audience to hear what you are saying. An audience does not want to strain to hear you. Add volume to your voice and you will add confidence to your speech and will have taken an important step towards being able to give confident presentations.
Confident presentations tip 3: Pause.
Confident presentations contain pauses. Don't rush through your speech. Pause, and pause often.
It may seem like an eternity to you but to the audience a pause can provide the time they need to absorb and take in what you are saying. The general rule is the bigger the audience the longer your pauses need to be.
Confident presentations always have pauses in them. Pause. And look comfortable during the silence. Pause and the audience will think you are confident whether you are or not.
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Confident presentations tip 4: Come to a full stop/period.
Instead of rushing through your speech or presentation, clearly separate out one sentence from another.
Sometimes presenters, when they are nervous, fail to come to a full stop/period at the end of a sentence. Instead, they insert an "um" or "er" between phrases or sentences and everything they say gets joined together. This lowers the impact that your speech will have on the audience.
Instead, if you want to give confident presentations, trust that what you have said has been good enough and stop. Then wait before starting your next sentence. Do not fill in the space between sentences with anything other than silence.
Confident presenters are comfortable with silence. The silence is your thinking time. Give yourself thinking time. Stop at the full stops/periods and you will be more likely to sound confident.
Confident presentations tip 5: Control your speech rate.
Nervous speech is usually fast speech. I have seen some speakers appear breathless because they are in such a hurry to get their speeches or presentations "out of the way" or "over with".
Confident presentations are well-paced. Some confident speakers even speak quite slowly. They place importance on their words by slowing their speech down.
The words that are said more slowly would often be considered the most important ones. Don't throw away the significant messages that you have by speaking quickly. Modulate your speech so that you sound confident and your words sound important.
Confident presentations are controlled by the presenter who can speed up, slow down and be in control of the timing.
Confident presentations tip 6: Have an inflection that varies.
It is very easy to flatten your voice out when you are nervous so it becomes a flat, boring monotone. Don't do this.
Confident presenters have variation in their voices. Keep variety in your voice. Modulate your words so that the pitch of your voice goes up and down. In other words put "light and shade" into what you are saying.
If you have something important to say make it sound important and interesting. A voice with modulation is more interesting than a monotone and will make you sound more confident.
Confident presentations are delivered with light and shade in them. The speaker makes the material sound interesting and delivers it in an interesting way.
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Confident presentations tip 7: Drop your voice at the end of a sentence.
When you are uncertain your voice may go up at the end of a sentence. An upward or rising inflection in the voice is usually used for asking questions. When your inflection goes up at the end of a sentence when it is not a question, i.e. when you are making a statement or giving a command, you are likely to sound uncertain or open to negotiation. Your so called "command" will sound like an option.
Confident presentations do not include a lot of rising inflections unless there are a lot of questions asked.
For example, if you watch a TV newsreader, listen to what they do at the end of a sentence. If they want to sound confident and to make the news have authority and importance they go down at the end. I used to train the TV newsreaders to read the news, and they were certainly not allowed to go up at the end, not even when it was good or exciting news.
Confident presentations are delivered with authority. You can have this authority by dropping your voice at the end of significant points and sentences.
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Success is inside all of us and so is confidence. May your self-confidence and public speaking skills develop so you always give confident presentations.
Written by Rachel Green, CSP.
Motivational Speaker | Award-winning Communication Specialist | Public speaking coach
In 2010 Rachel was awarded the highest level of accreditation in the professional speakers profession: Certified Speaking Professional (CSP). This is an internationally recognised accreditation awarded by her peers in the speaking profession.
Rachel provides public speaking coaching. Gain the confidence to present your topic, speech or presentation well. Let Rachel show you how with a coaching session that will be specifically tailored to your needs, your speech, your skills, your event and your audience: Confidence in public speaking.
She also provides courses, workshops and speeches on how to give confident presentations which are convincing, credible and interesting: Presentations with self-confidence.
Copyright Confident Woman Australia, 2010.
NB: This article is general information only and is not provided as an alternative to obtaining professional advice from an appropriately qualified professional. Please seek the individual professional guidance you need to give confident presentations.
Rachel Green
Reader Comments (9)
Chris.
I also think one part of preparation that people may forget to focus on is preparation of the self. By this I mean preparing ones own mind, attitude, energy levels, clarity of thinking, sense of warmth towards the audience, enthusiasm, inner stillness, self-trust and more. All these also matter for self-confidence when speaking in public.
For example, before a big speech I will meditate the night before, eat well, spend quite some time sending loving kindness to my audience, get a good night's sleep and relax. The more I prepare my own mental and physical state the better the speech and the stronger my self-confidence is.
Sometimes people over focus on preparing the content and forget themselves. It is at these times that I think anxiety is more likely to arise and self-confidence can lower facing an audience and confident presentations become harder to achieve.
How do you prepare yourself?
I also find that I will usually start off a bit nervous, but as I go my confidence builds.
These are some great tips, Rachel, thanks for sharing them.
Confident presentations are about communicating and engaging with your audience. Maybe just let yourself really develop a connection with the people you are talking to and your speed will naturally pace itself.
I certainly agree that being authentic and not trying to adopt an artificial presentation mode is vital. Audiences need to feel engaged by and connected to a real human being not some cardboard cut-out figure.
Focusing on only being yourself can also mean that you deny yourself the skills you need to be a great presenter. Be yourself and get great skills, that is the winning combination for confident presentations.
However the audience is everything and therefore there is no one way - it all depends on the audience. It is about the audience it is not about us as a presenter. We are only there for the audience.
Can I be cheeky and suggest the title for the book could be "Real Leaders when they do powerpoint do them brilliantly". There is nothing wrong with powerpoint when it is used wonderfully well - it can be a great help to the visual people in the audience and contribute to great and confident presentations.
I think what confuses people about powerpoint is that they think the powerpoints are their speech notes and reminder points. Their real purpose is to help the audience get the key message. The powerpoint is certainly not the presentation. Our aim is a talk, with slides.
My speech notes are on paper in front of me if needed.
This can mean many things. For example, being able to monitor the audience as you speak and adjusting as you go to their reactions and needs, it can mean focusing on what you are saying now rather than on each of the words you imagined or prepared to say before you started speaking, it can mean being fully engaged with the audience and not worrying about yourself, it can mean being fully calm in your own body ... and so much more. What do you think? Will these things help you to give confident presentations?