3 Ways to Not Freak Out Before a Speaking Engagement

Getting ready to deliver a presentation and feeling a little nervous about it? Guess what? That’s normal.

Butterflies in your stomach before you take the stage is a completely normal reaction. Even though I’ve been speaking for a long time, I still have a little anxiety before I take the stage (no matter the size of the platform).

Whether you’re giving a presentation to a room of 2 or 200, if you’re like most speakers, you will feel a little nervous in the 60-90 minutes prior to taking the stage. For some, this feeling (or fear of this feeling) will take them out of the game. For others, they know they want to power through but don’t know how to handle it.

As an entrepreneur, I believe that speaking is one of the fastest ways to get your message out to your most ideal clients and to use it as a marketing strategy to grow your business. But some entrepreneurs are newer to speaking and being afraid to speak will stop them from doing the very thing that can generate more business for them right now.

Maybe this is you right now and you’re thinking…“I’ve been doing all this other marketing and it’s not working fast enough…maybe it’s time to start speaking.”

But maybe you’re feeling a little nervous. Maybe you’re not sure what you’re going to talk about. Maybe you’re not sure how to find speaking gigs.When you couple all of that with being willing to do it, then it’s time to get out there and start speaking. But there’s still going to be one thing that may get in your way (even if you’re willing)…and that’s your fear.

Now I’m curious. What’s getting in the way of you using speaking as a strategy to grow your business? If you’re using it already, what’s in the way of you having great success in using it to generate more leads, clients and sales? Let me know in the comments below.