VANESSA BIRD
SOMETHING TO SAY?
Aesthetic consultant Vanessa Bird, reflects on her early days of public speaking and provides practical tips for those scared to step on stage
VANESSA BIRD
Vanessa Bird, The Aesthetic Consultant, is a globally recognised business consultant with over 17 years of industry experience. She works with clinic owners, aesthetic practitioners, and international brands to strengthen practice performance, commercial confidence, and long-term sustainability
My first attempt at public speaking was the stuff of nightmares. I worked for a medical device company and we were exhibiting at a conference. I was six weeks into my new role and still finding my feet. My boss, deep in discussion with her EMEA counterpart, beckoned me over.
A company KOL was stuck in traffic. Someone needed to step up and deliver his presentation. To my horror, it had been decided that I would be that person. To cut a long, anxiety-inducing story short, a laptop was shoved into my green hands, and I was given 10 minutes to familiarise myself with the content before stepping onto stage. I would share more, but I appear to have blocked most of the experience from memory!
Many years later, public speaking is now something I enjoy, and I speak regularly on conference stages around the world. So how did I go from sheer panic about presenting to genuinely enjoying it, and how can you do the same?
FACE YOUR FEARS
Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, affects approximately 25% of the population and for those who do suffer, it can feel insurmountable. If you don’t have a fear of public speaking, skip to the next section. For everyone else, the first step is understanding what you’re actually afraid of.
Write down everything that worries you about speaking to an audience. Include rational concerns such as your slides malfunctioning, losing your train of thought, or running out of time. Then write down any irrational fears, such as falling off the stage, having your audience laugh at you, or suffering a wardrobe malfunction.
Set aside the scenarios you consider genuinely unlikely and focus your attention on those that feel both plausible and disruptive. For each remaining fear, write down a contingency plan. How would you handle skipped slides or people chatting in the audience? What would you do if you had a wardrobe malfunction? Could you deal with it confidently, if not comfortably? Having a plan of action just in case brings back a sense of control, and often that’s all that’s needed to give you the confidence to face your fears and step on stage.
Confidence on stage is something you can develop with preparation, practice and experience.
TURN NERVES INTO ENERGY
A dry mouth, nausea, butterflies in the stomach and a racing heart are all natural responses to public speaking. As you wait to step on stage, these physical symptoms can trigger a loss of confidence, negative self-talk and even catastrophising. Yet it’s important to recognise that the physical symptoms of nerves are almost identical to those of excitement, and your body doesn’t really know the difference. Reframing nervous feelings to excitement can help boost your confidence and calm you down. Telling yourself that your racing heart and butterflies are signs you’re ready to perform helps change your perspective.
As a quick fix, use breathing exercises to lower your heart rate and spend time before your talk visualising yourself delivering a successful presentation to a smiling audience. Write down all the things you do well, give yourself a pep talk and reset your mindset.
SHARPEN YOUR SKILLS
In the interests of brevity, I’ll focus on a few core skills that I recommend developing to help you become a more proficient public speaker.
1. Practice timing. It’s vital that you can deliver the information you want to share within the allotted time without feeling rushed. If, despite practicing, you still can’t keep to time, review your content. What can you abbreviate without losing the message? What can you remove altogether?
2. Deliver content clearly and in a way your audience understands. Rehearse with someone outside your industry. If your grandmother or your son understands what you’re saying, you’re doing it right. Content is only useful if your audience can understand it.
3. Focus on your cadence, pace and delivery and don’t be afraid of pauses or silence. Record yourself presenting and watch it back so you can improve.
4. Prepare well in advance. Check your assignment. What is the recommended font size? How much time do you have? What format should the presentation be in? Have you checked for spelling mistakes and font irregularities? When do you need to submit your final presentation by? The more logistical uncertainty you remove in advance the less there is to worry about on the day.
5. Limit your bio slide to one. If people want to know more about you, they’ll research further. I once sat through a 10-minute presentation where the first seven slides were all about the presenter. By the time she reached slide four, most of the audience had zoned out.
STOP LISTENING TO YOURSELF
This may seem at odds with advice I shared earlier, but it’s one of the biggest lightbulb moments I had in my own journey and I can always tell when others suffer from this too.
In the early days of public speaking, the same pattern would emerge. I would start my presentation, breathe a sigh of relief that the slides were working (I still always worry they won’t) and begin talking. By slide three or four, my mind would pipe up with something reassuring such as “This is going well, Vanessa, you sound great...,” and I would start to relax.
Usually, one of three things would happen. The microphone would glitch or boom and throw me off, I’d start consciously listening to how I sounded, or I’d suddenly fixate on a word or phrase I’d stumbled over. Regardless of what distracted me, I found myself immediately trying to assess what I was saying as I was saying it. I can only liken it to watching TV reports from overseas when there is a short satellite delay before the person speaks. The result? I was so busy trying to listen to myself, I slowly ground to a halt and lost my train of thought completely. Cue silence on stage and a sense of rising panic.
So as tempting as it is to check in on yourself to ensure you sound OK, I recommend you don’t. If you say something wrong, move on. The audience doesn’t know what you intended to say. Most people won’t even notice unless you point out the mistake. I’ve stopped listening to myself now, and when I do say something wrong, I just carry on with confidence.
ENJOY THE MOMENT
Had you told the version of me standing backstage with only 10 minutes to learn someone else’s presentation that one day she would actively enjoy public speaking, she would have rolled her eyes at you. Yet confidence on stage is something you can develop with preparation, practise and experience. If you do decide that public speaking is for you, invest time and energy developing your skills and honing your style. It may take a few attempts to find out what works, but it’s a skill worth developing.