Your palms are cold, clammy and sweaty. Your throat is dry and tight. Your temperature is rising. Your muscles are tense and your heart’s racing like you're on the rail at Churchill Downs. Your hands and knees tremble and the butterflies are flocking in your stomach. Your pits are soaked. And that’s just when you get out of bed in the morning!

Look, everyone gets nervous when speaking in public, particularly for work-related presentations.  And you, as you rise up the chain of command, are put in positions where you’ll be asked to present, either internally to your colleagues and management or externally, to customers or at a conference.  This is a good thing.  It means you’re on the move and are being recognized as an “expert” in an area.  So while you may get nervous before a speaking situation, it doesn’t mean that you should get scared.  Some good public-speaking tips on how to really speak to an audience are all you need to knock it outta the box.

Of course people get scared that they’ll be laughed at or found out to be a complete idiot or worse yet, a fraud.  Hell, I get that way myself.  And that’s why I prepare, not just what it is I want to say but how I intend to say it.  You are selling you, not just what you’re saying, and if you can’t deliver yourself as a man with authority and knowledge, the audience ain’t buyin’.

Be Better Guys can’t write your presentation for you, but we’ve got some real-world public speaking tips from experience on presenting it like a champ.

What’s That You’re Saying?!  Ever notice if you’re in a meeting and there’s one guy who speaks up loudly from the audience and everyone else in the room wakes up and snaps to attention?  Even if it isn’t your boss, any person who uses his or her voice effectively understands that projecting with good volume (not shouting, mind you, you’re not a televangelist) gets and holds the audience’s attention.  So speak up and don’t mutter, mumble or swallow your words.

Modulate, Brother, Modulate - When you speak, use your voice like that air guitar you like to jam on – play it like an instrument.  Your voice should get a little louder to emphasize key points and can get quieter for nuance.  Same for your pitch – when you have a conversation with someone, your voice isn’t a flat monotone.  It shouldn’t be for your presentation either.  You can also emphasize your message by s-l-o-w-i-n-g d-o-w-n when you get to the key points that you want to drive home.  Bottom line – treat speaking as you would any normal one-on-one conversation, with modulation in volume, pitch and pacing, and not as a stiff “Formal Presentation To A Business Audience.”

You Don’t Have to be Chappelle - But you should try to use humor in your presentation, where applicable.  Yes, if you’re delivering your forecast to your boss’ boss and you’re short by several million bucks, that’s a pretty sobering conversation and humor might get you kicked out of the building.   But otherwise, humor does two things – it keeps the audience perked up and it encourages them to like you (read: they’ll listen to you).

No Bedtime Stories - Don’t put ‘em to sleep from the outset. Get up there and start with a story.  It can be any story that you can apply to the theme of your presentation, even if it’s a stretch.  Just make the connection with the people in the room.  Like humor, it wakes up the audience and gets them to like you…particularly if the story’s funny.  And practice your story a lot so you deliver it like a pro.

Stand to Be Heard - Body language sells. When you speak to an audience, your head is up, looking out over the room and moving from side to side (comfortably, not like a bobblehead).  Also, shoulders are back, your back is straight, legs slightly spread, arms by your side at the ready (not jammed deep in your pockets or jangling your change).  This way, you convey authority in actions and in your words.

Lay Your Hands On Me - Your hands can be an effective tool or they can make show the audience how completely nervous you really are.  Don’t put a deathgip on the lectern and keep your hands by your side or folded behind you if they’re shaking like a leaf, not jammed deep in your pockets like you’re four years old.  Keep your notes on the lectern so your hands are free to make points.  And don’t over-gesticulate to keep people interested by waving your arms around with each sentence.   Just use your hands to emphasize main points and use them as an effective, calm, assertive tool.

Get Up, Get Down, and Get Close - You know what I hate?  A speaker who stands behind a podium like the speaker’s trying to hide from you and is as motionless as a statue in Central Park.  Wrong.  Instant glazed-over audience.  Moving and circulating around the room, which in conjunction with effective voice modulation, keeps your audience alert and interested in you.  And it’s ok to get up close to your audience to keep them engaged, don’t be afraid.  They won’t bite.  They probably won’t spit either.

Death By Powerpoint - Know what else I hate? A presenter who kills the crowd with another stinkin’ slide deck. Next time you speak to a group, put your presentation away and speak to the people. Why?  Because when you put up your slides, people neither read them fully nor completely listen to you. They’re somewhere in a netherworld, zoning out, and you’ve lost ‘em. Keep them focused on you, use only the slides you absolutely have to have and put the rest of that cruddy deck in the trash.

Don’t be a Ramblin’ Man. Keep your presentation topics brief and get to your points.  The idea of droning on to fill up a time gap makes my head throb. Plus, no audience ever shouted out to a speaker, “Don’t finish early, please keep talking! Make this meeting last the whole day! We beg you!!”

Yo, Over Here!  Speak to everyone in the group or room. Don’t just favor one person, like your boss, unless that person asked you a direct question.  Though even then, it shows real confidence if you respond to a question by addressing first your boss with the first part of the answer, then the entire group with what else you have to say.

I know it’s hard. It’s hard for me and I’ve been on stage with a band for years and I still get way nervous. The thing is to be in the moment. Get yourself prepped, practice if you want, and concentrate on what’s coming out of your mouth. Don’t fixate on what your hands are doing or someone nodding off, an error in your slide deck or Cindy from Marketing. There’s time for that later. You’ve got a presentation to deliver so think of yourself as Roger Clemens and pitch it with power.