How to present confidently (even when you’re not!)

This article is based on Rebecca Mackenzie’s talk at the Product Marketing MisUnderstood virtual event. As a PMA member, you can enjoy the complete recording here. For more exclusive content, head over to your membership dashboard.

I absolutely love presenting. I’ve been doing it throughout my entire career, both in my current role as Global Director of Product Marketing at Salesforce and in earlier roles. I can’t get enough of it. 

What I love most about presenting is the confidence it creates in every other part of your life. I’m passionate about presenting, but I’m also passionate about helping others become more confident presenters. I’ve seen the effect it’s had on my life, and I love seeing others step into their confidence and deliver great presentations.

Here’s a sneak peek at what we’ll cover in this article:

• How to tailor your message to your audience
• How to prepare for a presentation
• How to practice your presentation
• How to appear more confident while presenting 
• Key takeaways and extra resources

I hope all of these tips will help you prepare and become a more confident presenter for your next presentation.

But before we get started, I want to remind you all that to be a master, you first have to be a disaster. 

What does this mean? It means before you’re good at something, you have to be bad at it. If you’ve seen someone presenting and thought, “Wow, I wish I could present like them,” you can. They weren’t always amazing presenters; everyone started somewhere. 

You can become a confident presenter. It just takes time and practice. So, if you’re not confident right now, that’s okay. Embrace that feeling of not being very good; that’s the first step to becoming good at something.

Now, let’s dive into how you can become a more confident presenter.

How to tailor your message to your audience

Before you give a presentation, you need to learn about your audience. That way, you can tailor your content to address their interests and concerns, and you can walk into your presentation confident in the knowledge that your audience cares about what you have to say.

Here are three key questions you’ll want to be able to answer:

1. Who has been invited to the event or meeting, and why? 
2. What do they want to get out of your session? 
3. What do you want the audience to do after your session? 

By answering these questions, you’ll be better prepared to deliver a presentation that resonates with your audience and achieves your goals. 

So, how do you answer these three questions about your audience? I have four tips that can help you find the information you need:

1. Ask the organizer: Gather information about the audience’s roles, levels, and expertise. This can provide valuable insights into what they might expect from your session.
2. Talk to your network: Identify people with the same persona as your audience, and ask for their input.
3. Poll the audience: If you have a small audience, send out a poll about their expectations. Ask questions about what they hope to gain from your presentation.
4. Explore online communities: Look at discussions and questions in relevant online groups. This will help you to gauge their interests and knowledge gaps. That way, you can address their specific concerns or interests during your presentation.

Let’s see what this looks like in practice. 

I’ll share a personal introduction with you. This is just a 20-second introduction, but you can easily apply these principles to a 20-minute (or longer!) presentation.

Here’s my intro, where I’m talking about who I am, what I do, and my value:

“Hi, I’m Rebecca McKenzie. I’ve been working in marketing for over 10 years, and I’ve been at Salesforce for six of those years. 

“I’m a Global Director of Product Marketing at Salesforce. I lead our Service Cloud keynotes globally, as well as the content strategy for our Heart of Service Summit events, and our analyst relations strategy. 

“I help brands and professionals tell their stories. Today, I’m using my presenting experience to teach you how to become a more confident presenter.”

Now, imagine I’m getting into an elevator, the doors open, and Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, is inside. He asks, “Hey there, what do you do at Salesforce?” How can I tailor my personal intro to this specific audience? 

Marc Benioff is the CEO of Salesforce, so he wants to know what I do at his company, maybe how long I’ve been there, and he’d probably be interested in learning something interesting that I know about Salesforce customers based on my role.

So, here’s how I might tweak my original intro to tailor it for Marc Benioff:

“Hey, I’m Rebecca McKenzie, and I’ve been at Salesforce for six years. I’m Global Director of Product Marketing. I lead our Service Cloud events content strategy across all our global events. I’ve noticed that our new AI messaging is really resonating with our customers – our session scores are higher than ever.”

Notice how I’ve made it much shorter – we’re in an elevator and don’t have much time, so I’ve focused on the key things he’d want to know:

1. My name and tenure at the company
2. My role and main responsibilities
3. A valuable insight about customers’ responses to our messaging

I’ve cut out information about my background before Salesforce and my passion for helping others become confident presenters. Instead, I’ve provided value by sharing something interesting about customer reactions that he might not know.

This example shows how you can tweak your message based on what your audience wants to hear, not just the information you’re most excited about sharing.

How to prepare for your presentation

So, you’ve done your research on your audience and put your content together. The next step is preparing to deliver that content.

Know your key message

Don’t try to memorize your presentation word-for-word. That can be nerve-wracking because you might worry about forgetting your script. Instead, make sure you have your key messages down.

To do this, you’ll want to make sure you know your key messages on two levels:

1. The three key points you want to get across in my whole presentation
2. The three key messages you want to convey on each slide

For example, on the slide above, these are the points I want to get across:

• Don’t memorize, but know your three key messages
• Use visual cues
• Tell it like a story

Here’s why this is useful: if you start to get nervous or stumble over your words, you can take a breath and go back to your three key messages. If you go off script a little, you have something to return to and you can regain your confidence.