Don’t worry this happens to everyone. One minute you are sitting getting on with your work and the next your manager comes along and says you will be giving a presentation at the next staff meeting on Monday, or to a prospective new client at the end of the week.

What happens next? Your heart beats like it is literally going to break out of your rib cage, your hands start to sweat and the panic rises until you can’t concentrate on anything else. The fight or flight response has just happened to you.

It doesn’t have to be like that. This is just about having the confidence and a few of the skills to be in control and make the presentation work FOR you and your company, rather than AGAINST you.

Here is one tip you can take away from this article though and which might help overcome those fears. Just remember one thing. Everyone wants you to succeed. No one wants you to fail. Think about it. Why would people in your staff meeting want you to fail? If you succeed then they get the information that they need. Clients or prospects want you to succeed so they can evaluate effectively how much help your service or product will be and they want their time to be well spent.

Once you realise that everyone is behind you, supporting you, then it is very easy to overcome those fears.

For anyone interested, I have developed a 1/2 day course that helps with this which can be followed with a another 1/2 day course in how to present better if you wanted. What does the course contain? Well it looks at why we fear public speaking in the first module, then it goes on to show you that you CAN speak in public, and finally it looks at some basic skills to make sure you do a good job next time. I can be hired by organisations to come and deliver this training, just contact me to check my availability.