Public speaking is a fear of many people. They let nervousness take control of their mind and body, and their message is lost. Knowing what is causing the fear is key to addressing it.

The three areas that cause nervousness are:

• Self – the pressure we put on ourselves to perform
• Situation – what is riding on the presentation
• Someone else – the pressure your colleagues put on you to perform

Managing your nervousness is about managing different areas:

• For the self, it’s about managing the physiology and psychology.
• For the situation, it’s about managing expectations of yourself and others.
• For the someone else, it’s about managing the relationship.

Identifying what is causing your nervousness is key to providing the right solution to the problem.

As always, I would love your thoughts on this, leave a comment below in the comments section.

Many good leaders weaken their message by the way they deliver it. They write a strong sentence which they deliver a tentative message. The biggest culprit in this is the inflection they place at the end of the sentence. Do they finish their sentence with their voice going up, down or no change at all?

• An upward inflection is tentative – it’s asking a question.
• No inflection is a statement – just giving information.
• A downward inflection is a command – telling someone what to do.

If you constantly have an upward inflection, it will tell your audience you are not sure of your message. If you use a downward inflection too often you can be seen as bossy.

A powerful combination is to ask a question with a downward inflection. This gives the politeness of asking a question with the subtle command of ‘just do it.’

As always, I would love your thoughts on this, leave a comment in the comment section below.

Influencing your audience, customers or staff, is as much about how you look, as well as what you are saying. If your look is not congruent, then people will pick up on it. They may not know what it is, but they will detect something.

Body language is the first thing that we notice in a speaker. We unconsciously ask questions such as:

• How are they carrying themselves – are they confident or are they nervous?
• How much are they fidgeting – a lot, or not at all?
• Are they looking at the audience or the floor, at the ceiling or out the window?

We ask these and many other questions to gauge how confident the speaker is. If a speaker is not looking at the audience, it is easy to assume that they are lacking confidence or don’t want to be there. If the speaker is fidgeting, it is fair to say that, they are uncomfortable, and would rather be somewhere else.

Controlling the way you come across is about awareness. Pay attention to what you are doing in everyday situations. Do you fidget while sitting at your desk, are your legs always bouncing or are you always twirling a pen in your fingers?

These are signs of fidgeting.

While they may not be a problem at your desk, related fidgets will emerge when you are on stage. This creates the impression that you are nervous.

When you are speaking to influence an audience these small signals will reduce your positioning as a leader in the eyes of your audience. This reduces their desire to follow your message.

As always, I would love your thoughts on this, leave a comment in the comment section below.

One of the reasons we have meetings is to look people in the eye, and see if we trust them. We get to turn our BS detector on, and assess everything about the person who is speaking. We look to see if they are fidgeting, sound confident or make sense.

We may not be able to put our finger on exact behaviours, but if something doesn’t look right we will spot it.

The three areas we focus on are your looks, how you sound and the words you use.

For the Look it’s all about:

• How you carry yourself – are you confident?
• Fidgeting – shows level of control
• Gaze – looking people in the eye or out the window

For sound it’s about:

• Volume – can we hear you?
• Speed – shows nervousness
• Inflection – confidence in message

For words it’s about:

• Answering the question – not avoiding the topic
• Sticking to set lines – we can all spot them
• Adapting message – changing your message when evidence suggests you should

If you want to be more influential when you speak, pay attention to how these elements come across in your message.

Would love your thoughts on this, leave a message below in the comment section.

Many experts reduce their ability to influence by deferring to others. They don’t own what they know, and why they know it. This deferring is subtle but has a massive impact on your ability to influence.

It’s a function of the university idea of standing on the shoulders of giants. While it is important to reference where your material comes from, the way you reference can have a massive impact on your positioning.

I was working with a commodities trader to help him deliver his message one-on-one with clients. In part of his presentation, he said, “BHP tells us that in the next twelve months, China will use more steel than the USA has used over the last 100 years. You need to invest in iron ore.”

This is a strong statement on the value of his argument. But it’s not as strong as it could be. The reason for this is he is riding on the coattails of BHP. BHP is the entity with the knowledge and he is repeating it.

To make it more powerful, we re-structured his message. We changed it to, “In the next twelve months, China will use more steel than the USA has over the last 100 years”. This positioned him as the source of the information. Should he be challenged on where that information comes from, he said, “BHP tells us that.”

The difference between the two statements is subtle but powerful. In the first statement, my client was repeating the knowledge others had given him. In the second, BHP was supporting his argument. This is what his end clients wanted.

Would love your thoughts on this, and how you can use it to influence others.