What are the best techniques for helping clients overcome nervousness when presenting?

2 Use breathing and relaxation techniques

One of the most common symptoms of nervousness is physical tension, which can affect your client's voice, posture, and gestures. To help your client relax their body and mind, you can teach them some breathing and relaxation techniques that they can use before and during their presentation. For example, you can show them how to do deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, or visualization exercises. These techniques can help your client lower their heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels, and increase their oxygen flow and endorphins.

3 Adopt a positive mindset

Another way to help your client overcome nervousness is to help them adopt a positive mindset. This means that your client should focus on their strengths, achievements, and goals, rather than their weaknesses, mistakes, and fears. You can help your client develop a positive mindset by using affirmations, feedback, and reframing. Affirmations are positive statements that your client can repeat to themselves to boost their self-esteem and motivation. Feedback is constructive criticism that you can give your client to help them improve their skills and performance. Reframing is a technique that helps your client change their perspective and see the positive aspects of their situation.

4 Engage with the audience

One of the best ways to reduce nervousness is to engage with the audience, rather than seeing them as passive or hostile observers. To help your client do this, they can smile and make eye contact with members, ask questions or invite comments, use humor, stories, or anecdotes to connect with the audience, use gestures and vocal variety to express enthusiasm and interest, and adapt to the audience's feedback and reactions. All of these techniques can help create a more engaging and positive experience for both the presenter and the audience.

5 Practice and prepare

The final technique that you can use to help your client overcome nervousness is to practice and prepare. This means that your client should rehearse their presentation several times, preferably in front of a mirror, a camera, or a friend. This will help your client become more familiar with their content, delivery, and timing, and identify and correct any errors or weaknesses. You can also help your client prepare by providing them with tips and resources on how to design, structure, and deliver an effective presentation. By practicing and preparing, your client will feel more confident, competent, and ready to present.