It’s supposed to be one of the most scary experiences… making a public speech. It’s pretty weird that this is one of our biggest fears… I mean, what could possibly happen. To put it in contrast lots of people pay big money every winter to woosh down a mountain with a pair of boards strapped to their feet with the risk of death and serious bodily harm. And that’s just one of the many things people do that are really dangerous (another example is driving a car)

And even though I’ve never seen a headline saying ”Ceo killed by Public speaking”, for most people it’s way more scary to stand up in front of a group and do something they do every day… TALK! In fact unless you are sitting alone in a room talking to yourself, then ALL speaking is public speaking.

But I can definitely relate to fear of public speaking, because I used to be incredibly scared of it.
I started out in life very very shy and even the thought of asking a stranger for directions was a daunting task for me. I’ve overcome shyness and the fear of public speaking… actually MORE than overcome it. Now I’m almost addicted to it and if I overcame it you can too.

There are deep psychological factors for why we have fear of public speaking, but im going to cover those is a later article. For now we are going to look at a few things to do about it. So here are 4 ways to overcome fear of public speaking.

Considering what’s at stake when people make sales and funding pitches it is incredible how little time they take to understand even the basics of how to make a good pitch. Some mistakes are made over and over again and I’m going to cover some of the most common mistakes I’ve seen in hundreds of pitches and presentations.

Common Pitching pitfall #1: No overview in the intro (or no intro at all )

Without an intro that gives a short precise overview that can capture their attention and their imagination your audience will not pay nearly as much attention throughout the rest of the pitch. Your intro needs to grab their attention and in VERY few sentences (preferably ONE) explain what they are going to get out of listening to your pitch or how your product and service can change their life for the better.

I many times get the question if there is a difference between the skills you need for pitching, general presentations and public speaking. It’s a very good question.  And yes even though there many similarities there is a HUGE difference.

Whether you are pitching or doing a general public speech you need to be good at connecting and create trust with your audience and to grab and keep the attention of the audience.

But the big difference is that when you pitch you are going for the very specific outcome of getting people to pull out their wallet, credit card or check book and pay you for your products or services or give you the funding for a startup business. With more general public speeches or presentation you typically only need to inform, entertain and maybe educate and inspire.