Have you encountered this before? You were giving a presentation in front of 100 participants. You were nervous because you were afraid of making mistakes and your participants might be laughing at you.
I know how embarrassing it could be because I personally encountered such situation before. Nevertheless, this is not the end of the world. With some help from more experienced trainers, I have learnt how to overcome this and speak confidently in my training sessions. In this article, I am going to share with you 3 great tips that allow you to overcome hesitation and speak confidently in your next presentation and hopefully you will find my sharing useful.
Tip No 1: Preparation helps to overcome hesitation
In my opinion, hesitation is an indication that the trainer on the stage does not appear to be confident. I am not sure if you agree with me here. As a trainer, my job is to transfer my energy to my participants so that they can learn. Honestly, I strongly believe that if I am not confident enough, my participants can feel it. What will happen next? This can have an adverse impact on my credibility as a trainer in front of my participants.
To overcome hesitation and improve your confidence level, choose your topic carefully and make sure that it is something you are familiar with. Prepare an outline of your presentation and decide in advance the following:
the key objectives of the training;
the learning outcome for your participants; and
the key points or messages in your training
Tip No. 2: Set out your rules of engagement with your participants properly at the beginning of your presentation
Did you encounter this before? During your presentation, one of your participants challenged a point you made. As this came as a surprise to you, you were hesitant in deciding what to do next. Further, it disrupted the flow of your presentation and other participants were not impressed with your inability to deal with this situation and gave your negative feedback.
One thing I have found useful is to set out my rules of engagement with my participants properly at the beginning of my presentation. From my experience in using Extended DISC profiling tool, some of the participants have C-Style and this means that they tend to be judgemental and look for the trainer's mistakes.
Here is my rule to deal with the potential problems created by my C-Style participants. I will ask all my participants not to believe the words I say because what I share in my presentation represents my experience only. Therefore, there is no right or wrong, true or false; or good or bad experience. My C-Style participants will find it more difficult to challenge me.
Tip No. 3: Decide when to take questions from your participants
I know some trainers prefer to take questions from their participants during the presentation and some prefer to take questions only after the presentation. Whichever way you prefer, you must set out your rules clearly with your participants. Here is my experience. If I am extremely familiar with the topic, I will invite my participants to ask me questions during my presentation because I can use these questions to reinforce what my participants have learnt. If otherwise, I would ask my participants to ask questions only after my presentation so as not to disrupt the flow of my presentation and make me nervous.
In case you are not aware, it is normal if you cannot answer your participants' questions immediately. What I will do in such cases is to assure them that I will look for the answer and revert to them. It is risky to say something I am not sure if I am correct and my participants will feel it. Do you agree that your participants will appreciate you more if you are sincere and honest?
I hope you realise that you are able to overcome hesitation and improve your confidence level in your next presentation. I hope the tips I share in this article will be useful to you.
