Developing Stage Presence

The first time I was asked to speak at a public event was at Percolate’s client summit in November 2013. In that moment I immediately had a flashback to my first college design critique. Where I was standing in front of a class with 30+ people staring at me and waiting for me to speak. My heart was pounding and my palms started to sweat. I imagine this is a feeling many of you had when you began public speaking?

Over the last couple of years I’ve been on stage three times. Once at the New Museum in 2013, Digital Dumbo in 2014, and most recently at The Times Center in 2015. Each of these events required something different from me as a public speaker, and helped me grow and develop my stage presence in unique ways. Along the way, I’ve learned some important lessons to help you get ready for your next speaking engagement. I also have a cure for presentation jitters that I will talk about later as well.

Let’s look at how I developed my stage presence.

Taking Control of My Nerves

Percolate’s first Client Summit back in 2013 was the first speaking engagement I had of that caliber. That day in November I spoke to an audience of 100+ people at the New Museum. In this presentation I walked through a demo of our Marketplace product.

Leading up to the event I was really nervous about speaking clearly and slowly so the audience would understand our product. I decided the best way for me to deal with my nerves was to be prepared, so I powered up Google docs to write my script. Once I had this in a good place I started to rehearse. I did a few practice rehearsals with the team and I made my husband and our friends listen to me until they were blue in the face. During these sessions the main piece of feedback was that I was speaking too fast. I was letting my nerves dictate my pace.

When it came to the day of the Summit I was still rehearsing from my script until I got a piece of advice from our design director Dom,

“You’re the expert, tell them what you know.”

It continues to stick with me, even today. It was a reminder that while I was new to presenting, I wasn’t new to speaking about design. I put my script to one side for the final few hours and focused on the product details I would be presenting.

Looking back, I think I did pretty well. My delivery was in control, but my presentation came off too impersonal. While memorizing the script helped calm my nerves, it also made me sound robotic. I came away knowing that next time I needed to be more relaxed on stage.

Moving from Scripts to Prompts

I was asked to speak at dd:IMPACT conference in 2014. The event was created as a half-day conference to explore digital design trends. I focused my presentation around the 7 principles that guide product design at Percolate.

The above image is a slide from the deck I presented at the conference. It’s a scene from the movie ‘Hoosiers’ where high school coach Gene Hackman is giving his team at pep talk before a state championship game. Hackman tells the team what they need to do to win. This image was the perfect prompt to tell a story about how good design can coach users. I asked the audience to consider if their product designs did a good enough job of helping users understand the actions they can take.

I found the tactic of using visual prompts helped me be a more relaxed and conversational presenter. It really took the pressure off , let me loosen up, and allow my personality shine through. To further this thought, I think you’ll like this analogy from MetaFilter founder Matt Haughey’s in his piece An Introvert’s Guide to Better Presentations. The passage that stuck with me the most was this:

“The next step is to realize that those hundreds of pairs of eyes aren’t there to kill you, but to learn from you. They’re not lions and you’re not a zebra separated from the pack, they’re all monkeys and you’re the prettiest monkey and they desperately want you to tell them where the best bananas are located that will turn them into pretty monkeys as well.

You’re a pretty monkey, and you know where all the bananas are. That’s what I tell myself before I go on stage to hundreds or thousands of people. I really do. It makes me laugh and it calms me down. If that sounds too ridiculous, instead repeat to yourself something like: I’m here because everyone wants to hear my story. I’m just a person on stage sharing lessons with other people. That’s all this is, and it’s going to be great.”

Matt’s point here is not revolutionary, but it is something we easily forget when our nerves kick in. It’s a good reminder that the audience is here because we have something to share with them and they want to hear what we have to say.

Own your Posture

Fast forward to last month, at the Times Center for Percolate’ 2015 Client Summit with 300+ people in attendance. This was the biggest stage I’ve been on so far. This public speaking engagement asked me to explain how Percolate’s new architecture would solve for the challenges marketers are facing with an ever increasing number of channels to reach their audience on. The products I spoke about were some of the most sophisticated ones we took to the stage that day.

In order to get all the presenters ready we held multiple rehearsals at a mock venue with members from design, marketing, sales and our co-founder, Noah. Each of these rehearsals helped to refine the story I was telling and my behaviors as a presenter.

During our last rehearsal, Yuanbo Liu from our sales team gave me a great piece of feedback. She noted a nervous behavior of mine was swaying back and forth as I spoke. Yuanbo suggested that instead of swaying take a step forward or to the right, so it looked purposeful.

That night when I got home I dug up an old Ted talk by Amy Cuddy about how Your body language shapes who you are. Amy discusses how ‘power posing’ — standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident — can affect chemical levels in the brain, and could even increase our chances for success.

This was really helpful because it was such a simple action. Before I took to the stage I reminded myself to own my posture. It really soothed my jitters and improved my stage presence.

The old adage practice makes perfect applies really well to public speaking. The more you do it, the better you get. Make sure you surround yourself with a mix of disciplines to get diverse feedback that helps you grow.

Last but not least, don’t let your nerves stunt your growth as a public speaker. I know I will take every public speaking engagement that comes my way. I’ll be sure to come off every stage, big and small, and enjoy that exhilarating feeling of sharing my experiences.

A version of this post was published on blog.percolate.com