Formal Presentation Day is the culmination of all your preparation. During the weeks preparing for orals, you evaluated your team, the customer, and the competition. You carefully selected and prepared your presentation package and script. You practiced and rehearsed alone and with your team.

If you weren’t an expert in your subject area before this process, you are now. You have become the expert in your area for your team. No one else, including the customer, knows your material, rationale, and supporting evidence better than you. You have every reason to feel relaxed and confident.

However, everyone has situations that make them nervous, and some of us are more nervous than others about presenting to a small group or a large audience. It’s natural to have butterflies. Your goal is to get them to fly in formation!

Remember that nervousness is your friend. It is energy. It is essential for success. Channel your nervous energy into animation, conviction, and passion for your message.

Eleanor Roosevelt, former first lady of the United States, gave this wise advice: “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you look fear in the face. You must do that which you think you cannot do.”

Dealing with Nervousness and Distractions

Get the Butterflies to Fly in Formation

The most successful antidote for nervousness is ample preparation. Too often people spend way too much time worrying and fretting, instead of putting that time into more preparation and rehearsal. Lack of preparation will add to your nervousness. Focus your energy and efforts on what you want the customer to learn and understand, instead of worrying about yourself. The more prepared you are, the less nervous you will be. Preparation promotes confidence.

Interestingly enough, the small things that we are frequently most concerned about (that contribute to unnecessary nervousness and worry) don’t really matter much because the audience rarely notices or cares about them. An example of this is the frequent worry of, “What do I do with my hands?” If this truly concerns you, then let your hands go naturally to their default position, the place where they naturally are when you aren’t using them. Just let your hands go there and forget about them. The same applies to your feet.

One technique to help reduce nervousness is to identify what you are specifically anxious about. When you have done that, try to separate yourself from the anxiety and then logically and objectively analyze the cause for those concerns, worries, or fears. Does it result from lack of practice, lack of preparation, uncertain content, mind blanks, knee or hand shaking, or something else? There are tricks, crutches, hints, and solutions for addressing each of these issues.

As you discover the sources of your nervousness, your coach will help you address each one. Reassuring yourself that you are, in fact, well prepared can often eliminate the majority of your fear. The more you prepare and practice, the more confident you will become. In parallel, you will reduce your nervousness and your fears.

To further help you deal with fear, make a list of everything that could hypothetically go wrong during your presentation, and then rationally determine the odds of each of these things actually happening. You will realize the majority of your fears are extremely unlikely occurrences. If you feel there is a high likelihood of some of these happening, then for those few, identify contingent actions to mitigate them. Mentally or physically rehearse the scene of these occurring, so that if they do occur, you will be prepared to deal with them.

Since nervousness while presenting is a common challenge, Mastering the Art of Oral Presentations has collected a variety of fear-management techniques that have proven useful for controlling nerves to prevent them from controlling the presentation.

• Have a strong, well-founded personal commitment to your subject.
• Be convinced that what you have to say is valuable to the customer and their decision-making process.
• Be assured that you are an expert on your topic. You are the best person to present this material.
• Remind yourself over and over that senior management believes that you are the best person to speak on this topic, or you would not have been asked to be part of the team. No one has the same experience, background, judgment, knowledge, education, and successes that you do.
• Spend ample time rehearsing the team member introductions.
• Knowing your first two phrases inside out will carry you through your initial nervousness and into a confident and comfortable flow.
• Once you get past the opening, your nervousness will dramatically subside.
• Many people experience nervousness about giving a presentation based upon their personal expectations of absolute perfection. Know and accept the fact that this is not going to happen. No one is perfect.
• If you make a mistake during your presentation, quite often it will not be noticed, so don’t broadcast it. If you must correct the error or provide clarification, do so simply and quickly. Don’t belabor it. Let the situation go. Your teammates must not react to the mistake either, or they will bring unnecessary attention to it and detract from your presentation.
• If a genuine mistake is made or something goes wrong during the actual presentation, the audience will watch how you handle it as an indicator of how you will handle mistakes on the job. Take a brief time to compose yourself and resist the urge to correct or address the issue too quickly. Think fast (we’re talking seconds here), but do think through the issue and decide how you will address it before proceeding. If you are facing a complex issue or problem, you might say something like, “Please give me just a moment to think through this issue and ensure that I give you the correct answer.”
• Understand the value of physical movements in coping with fear. Excess nervousness is often the result of uncontrolled and unchanneled physical energy. Well-proven techniques to deal with this include:
  • – Before presenting, squeeze your thumb against your index finger in an isometric fashion, subtly, for the count of ten. Repeat this with each of the other fingers against the thumb.
  • – Tighten various muscle groups, and then relax them. Wiggle your toes, clench your fists, and discreetly perform other muscle isometrics. Do this subtly so that you do not appear silly.
  • – Inhale deeply and slowly through your nose, exhale slowly through your mouth, and concentrate on your breathing. Repeat three times, and then smile.
• When you feel nervous, talk to the “friendly” faces in the audience first. As you gain more confidence during the course of your presentation, you will be able to move to other faces as well, until you cover all the customers. Remember that feeling nervous can work to your advantage.

As you are mentally preparing to present, remind yourself to be more concerned about your audience than yourself. As you begin speaking, focus on your message, and not on how you sound or look. Remember how many times you have rehearsed with your teammates, how far you have come, and how well you have done in the past. At this point, no one is better prepared to present your material to the customer than you. Remember that nervousness is natural and normal, and if you don’t have it to a certain degree, your presentation may not contain the vitality, energy, animation, and conviction that it needs.

Certain biological manifestations of nervousness, such as sweaty palms, dry throat and mouth, butterflies, shaky knees, are very normal. Believe it or not, they will decrease and even disappear when you ignore them and focus on your presentation. Forget your fear and deliver. If you are well prepared and well coached you will do a superb job. In fact, when you finish and look back on your presentation, you will be very pleasantly surprised at how well you have done.

Guidelines for Interacting with the Customer

Your Future Is in Their Hands

The customer is unquestionably in charge during your formal oral presentation. They will have been schooled by their contracting officers, legal department, and/or buyers on treating all presentation teams equally. They will have been instructed not to react either favorably or unfavorably during your presentation and Q&A session.

However, there will be time before and after your official presentation when you will be in a position to interact with the customers. In these situations, don’t discuss the proposal. No matter how well you know the customers, this is the first time they will see you in your proposed position. Show them the utmost respect. Remember, a new contract equates to a new you.

Greet customers as they enter the room, firmly shake hands while looking the customer directly in the eyes, and introduce yourself (name and bid position) if necessary. Be polite and cordial to everyone. Introduce team members if appropriate. Introductions create the all- important first impression. Address customers according to their knowledge and position. Beware of making any of them feel left out and beware of condescension. Attend patiently and politely whenever a customer speaks. They hold your future in their hands!

Formal Presentation Day Emergency Kit

Be Prepared for Murphy’s Law

If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail. Prepare for the unexpected and make sure you’re ready for anything that may happen. To help you be prepared, Mastering the Art of Oral Presentations recommends that you take the following items with you on Formal Presentation Day. At some point in our experience, an orals team has been exceedingly grateful that they brought each of these along.

Personal Hygiene

• Aspirin/pain relief tablets
• Cough drops
• Antacids
• Nondrowsy antihistamine (for allergy attack)
• Adhesive bandages
• Dental floss
• Toothpaste and travel-sized toothbrush
• Breath freshener spray/drops
• Tissues
• Deodorant
• Lip balm (for dry lips)
• Lemon hard candy (for dry mouth)
• Bottled water

Personal Appearance

• Makeup kit with basics (lipstick, blush, mascara, blemish cover-up, touch-up nail polish)
• Extra neutral-colored necktie
• Extra shirt/blouse
• Extra hosiery and/or underwear
• Lint remover
• Sewing kit
• Safety pins
• Comb or brush
• Nail clippers/nail file/emery board
• Small scissors
• Small mirror

Tools

• Air freshener spray
• Tape
• Scissors
• Pens, pencils, highlighters, markers
• Notepad
• Sticky notes

Final Preparations

It’s Your Day!

Many orals teams spend the night before their presentation at a hotel near the presentation location. This mitigates the impact of both traffic emergencies and foul weather. Regardless of whether or not you spend the night at a nearby location, check the weather forecast and be prepared.

Get a good night’s sleep. Resist the urge to eat a big, heavy dinner or overindulge in any way. Being well rested and as sharp as you can possibly be is critical for success. There will be plenty of time for celebrating after you finish your presentation!

The day of your presentation, meet somewhere easy to find and arrive at the presentation location as a team. Turn off all mobile phones and personal electronic devices.

Be ready to start on time — do not be late! Arrive more than early enough to allow time for security/access requirements, setting up and testing all equipment, and distributing handouts.

Give yourself a pep talk before the presentation begins. Gather as a team and remind yourselves that your team is the best team for the job. You are the experts. You are prepared. Picture yourself presenting perfectly. Breathe deeply. Smile. You are supported by your teammates. You will perform well. Relax and enjoy the day — it will be one that you will never forget!

The After-Presentation Action Review

Capture Your Thoughts While They’re Fresh in Your Mind

As soon as your presentation is complete, get your team together in a quiet place to objectively review what happened. Discuss and document the following items:

• Action items you may have taken that require follow-up with the customer. Assign one person to be responsible for coordinating the action response with the team. Assign individuals by name to specific action items.
• All questions that the audience/customer asked and how you answered each of these. Note if any of the written materials (charts, written proposal, etc.) are affected by the answers.
• General impressions that team members noted when they were not presenting.
• Feedback that individual customers may have provided during non-presentation times such as breaks, pre- or postmeeting talks, and so on.
• Errors on written materials.
• Lessons learned.
• If a follow-up written response of any kind is required of you, ensure that each response is reviewed with, and agreed upon, by the entire team. Also ensure that the response language is clear, well written, and error free.

Celebrate!

Celebrate Success with Your Presentation and Support Team

You have worked long and hard to get to this point; now it’s time to celebrate. Never pass up the opportunity to celebrate major accomplishments such as completion of a rigorous oral presentation. Celebrations can be simple or extravagant affairs. Pick whatever best suits your team and acknowledge the hard work that everyone has put into making your big day a success.

By all means, don’t forget to formally acknowledge all the supporting people who helped you out along the way. Be sure to include graphic artists, technical and management experts, administrative assistants, subcontractors, vendors, IT people, technicians, contributing superiors/executives, and anyone who made contributions. They will appreciate being recognized and enjoy the opportunity to celebrate your success right along with you.