Perfect Pitch Blog

How to fake confidence during a presentation?

When I complain about something that doesn’t make me feel good, I have a good friend who will often chide me with, “What does how you FEEL have to do with it?” And he’s right. Usually, I just have to throw on some big girl pants, swallow my fear, and carry on.

Presentations can be one of those things that don’t make us feel good and have us wishing we knew how to fake confidence during a presentation or how to be confident for a presentation. We have clients tell us they hate presenting, they get too nervous, and they don’t feel confident. I can hear my friend’s voice in my head, “What does how you FEEL have to do with it?” He’s still right. How you feel matters very little. How you behave matters a lot.

If you worry about how you feel, you are not focused on your audience. Your audience can’t see how you feel. How you feel won’t impact their decision to support or ignore your idea. Your behaviour, on the other hand, will.

A week ago I delivered a keynote talk to a room of 170 people. The content was new, tailored specifically to the needs of our client and, as a result, I didn’t feel as confident as I normally do. Rather than beat myself up about that, I figured it was normal. I had no idea how it was going to turn out. Maybe they’d be bored. Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they would laugh at my jokes. Maybe they wouldn’t. I had no idea and that made me nervous. I didn’t have anything to FEEL confident about! I needed to figure out how i can be confident for this presentation.

The good news is I’ve learned how to fake confidence and I’ve practiced faking confidence a lot. The better news is once I start faking how to be confident for a presentation, I do start feeling it. My brain manufactures the feeling out of the behaviour I am exhibiting on stage.

A well-known truth about public speaking and presenting to an audience is that your audience will only respond to what they see as well as hear. Learning how to fake confidence will lead to you feeling confident. Many have the question how do you fake confidence if you are genuinely not feeling confident? So, if you are one of those presenters who rarely, if ever, feels confident about presenting, here are the three techniques I use to fake confidence until I feel it and how to be confident for a presentation.

Start Slowly If You Want To Fake Confidence During a Presentation

Adrenalin hits your bloodstream a few minutes before you start presenting. This is normal but it will cause you to want to rush. All of that extra energy in your body is dying to get out! Resist! Resist the urge to race into your presentation. Force yourself to look at your audience, smile, and speak slowly. Breathe. Rushing into it will make you look nervous. Taking your time will give the impression you are far more confident than you feel. Remember, they can’t see how you feel. They can only see how you behave. Start slowly.

Approach Your Audience

Nerves might make you want to play sideshow to your PowerPoint deck. While you hang out next to the screen, hiding in the pale glow of your slides, your audience is longing for a presenter who takes control, who guides them through the content with an expert hand. Nothing is worse than lecterns. No, they are not podiums (the podium is the little stage you’re standing on), they are lecterns and they are the worst kind of barrier between an audience and a nervous presenter.  Want to really display how to be confident for a presentation? Step out from behind the lectern. Abandon the shelter of PowerPoint. Approach your audience. When your adrenalin makes your legs start fidgeting, take a step TOWARDS them, not away. And, please, don’t dance on the spot.

Pause And Remove Filler Words

We all know how painful it is to sit through a presentation where every second word is “uh” or “um.” Suddenly we’re counting the filler words and not listening to the content. Before we know it we’re wondering if this clown is ever going to take a breath or be able to end a sentence without filling the space with “uhhhhhh.” Don’t be that presenter. It’s a tough habit to break and I know because I was that presenter. One year doing radio broadcasting at Journalism school broke the habit. We learned to pause. Pauses were so important we had a special notation for “pause” that we would mark onto our scripts so we didn’t forget them. Suddenly the “uhs” and “ums” were gone. Why? Because that pause gave us time to think about what we really wanted to say next and it was never “uhhh.” We kid ourselves if we think never pausing makes us sound confident. It does the opposite. With no time to think, our brain fills the void with filler words making us look ill prepared and even like we might be making it up as we go along. Pauses will make you sound more confident. When you are confident this allows you to speak to your audience with clarity. When you are presenting and are calm and focused you can collect your thoughts and manage them better. Learning how to fake confidence helps you as a speaker to talk slowly and this allows the audience to understand you better. When you learn and master how to fake confidence you
build charisma and we are all captivated by charisma, but when you lack the confidence the audience feels that and tends to tune you as a speaker out.

In the end, my keynote went well. I faked confidence. How was I able to be confident for my presentation? I owned the content I had developed and told myself it was going great, even when, really, I wasn’t sure if it was. At the end of the talk, I was stopped outside in the hall by several people who thanked me for an engaging and useful talk. The best of the day! Phew! I felt great but, as always, what does how I feel have to do with it? All that mattered was them and if every presenter tells themselves that before starting, faking confidence is no problem at all. Fake confidence and look the part! Your audience only responds to what they see and what they hear. You’ll soon find out that when you start to fake confidence you start to feel the confidence. Want to be confident during a presentation and hold investors’ attention? Quiet your feelings that plague so many before giving a presentation and learn how to be confident during your presentation.

Keep in mind going into a presentation confidently can be as much of a science as it can be an art.

Would You Like To Be More Confident During A Presentation?

Being confident for a presentation begins with three parts, start slowly, be present with your audience, and remember to pause. Starting slowly gives you time to think about the point you want to make and helps eliminate the filler words that we tend to stumble over when presenting. Being present with your audience and stepping out from PowerPoint decks will allow for a higher degree of audience engagement.

In terms of how to use extra energy and adrenaline causing you to fidget, channel that extra energy and take a confident step toward your audience. Make sure to pause and resist the tempting urge to rush through your presentation. When you start to fake the confidence and eventually feel the confidence, you realize that there is nothing more influential to your audience than the power of your presence and ideas.

Want To Be Confident During A Presentation And Hold Investors’ Attention But Not Sure How To Fake The Confidence You Need To Get Through Presenting?

Quiet your feelings that plague so many before giving a presentation and learn how to be confident during your presentation. Learn how to fake confidence and look the part! Your audience only responds to what they see and what they hear. You’ll soon find out that when you start to fake confidence you start to feel confident.

 

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