Would you be satisfied?

Probably not. You would likely join the angry crowd in rushing the stage and demanding a performance. Or you would head for the exit and try to get your money back.

If you are slated to give a speech or a public presentation, you are asking a group of people to invest their time and attention in you. You don’t have to be as entertaining as Mumford and Sons, but you need to do more than simply read your speech. You need to remember that a speech or presentation is a performance. Bring whatever it is that makes you unique and special to your presentation. Make it something worth watching and listening to. Make it something that no one else could replicate.

I had a fellow professor once scoff at this notion. He said, “I’m a teacher, not a performer. I’m here to instruct my students, not entertain them.”

I told him he was wrong. He is a performer. That’s how students learn. They don’t need us to stand in front of the room and read the textbook. They don’t want us to tell them something they could just read on their own. They are there because we are offering them a unique experience they can’t get from the textbook or from watching an online video. We are giving them a performance, and so are you every time you give a speech or presentation.

Own the presentation. Don’t waste your time thinking that someone else is more qualified to talk about this or that they could do a much better job. They’re not there. You are. So it’s up to you for those few minutes to perform–to instruct, entertain, enlighten, and educate.

What makes a presentation so powerful is that it happens in real time: you and your audience are occupying the same space and time. For some students, this is too much, so they attempt to cocoon themselves by not making eye contact, by reading their speech quickly, by getting the attention off of them as soon possible. But it doesn’t work: all eyes are still on them, and they are doing a terrible job. If you at least try by making eye contact and giving a performance, ultimately it won’t matter if you didn’t do a great job, it will still be ten-times better than if you just nervously read your speech and sit down. People, especially fellow students, will respect and admire you for trying, even if you do make a fool of yourself.

A quick story. Several years ago I was at a teaching conference in Atlanta. On the first day, I was nervous about a presentation I had to give the following morning, so I attended a panel session entitled, “Teaching the Art of Elocution.” I hoped to pick up a few tips for my own presentation, but I also wanted to learn some new ways to teach public-speaking to my college students. The panel discussion began when the moderator introduced the four speakers, and then she turned the time over to the first speaker. Just like in the picture below, the four of them were sitting at a table with a screen to their side. The only thing projected on the screen was the name of their presentation. The man–a college professor in his thirties–picked up a stack of papers, positioned the microphone, and began reading. I laughed and looked around, thinking it was a joke. Clearly he was showing us “what not to do” when it comes to elocution and public speaking. But he was dead serious. For twelve minutes he sat there, leaning into the microphone, reading his speech. When he was done, he scooted the microphone to the woman sitting next to him. Likewise, she read her speech, as did the other two. By the time they were done, I was furious. During the Q&A, I wanted to stand and say, “Shame on you! You’re college professors, rhetoricians, and so-called experts in elocution. You should know better.” But I didn’t. I left, and the next morning, I sat in horror as the first speaker on my panel did the exact same thing. When she was done reading, she slid the microphone to me, but I stood up. I walked to the front of the audience and told them I had an uncomfortable relationship with microphones. I used my big-boy voice and walked around the front of the room and up and down the aisles as I taught the crowd about my research into family-history writing. I had a few sample books I passed around. I answered question in the middle of my presentation. And when it was over, people applauded, and a few even stuck around to tell me it was the best presentation they had attended all conference. So maybe I did learn something from those awful elocution “experts” the day before: don’t sit and read your speech. Nobody wants that. I promise you, there is nothing interesting enough in all of the universe that you could read it sitting down and captivate the audience. My material wasn’t that great, but what set my speech apart was the human element. Rather than being a reader, I was a performer. And even with my ums, and likes, and my monotonous, mumbling voice, the audience was captivated for those few minutes. We shared a moment, and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

Often, your nervousness will pass after a minute or two. The worst are those moments right before you speak. But then you get up there and start yammering, and you realize you’re doing just fine, and the nerves begin to subside. Before the presentation, just keep reminding yourself that you are prepared. And remember that the audience is there to hear you, not to judge you. They want to hear what you have to say and to learn what you have to teach.

It can also help if you think of your audience as individual people. They’re not a scary, all-knowing mass. They are fallible humans just like you and me.

It’s okay if you want to spend a few seconds telling the audience a little about yourself, or if you want to break the ice with a joke. But don’t spend the first few minutes talking about things that have nothing to do with your topic. This is usually a product of nervousness, lack of preparation, or lack of confidence. Just get to the point.

I’ve heard a lot of speeches over the years where the person tells me all about their speech-writing process: how they came up with the topic, how they wrote their speech and then changed their mind, how they panicked at 2 am last night and finally settled on a topic. Don’t do this. People really don’t care how you wrote the speech, and telling us the process is similar to apologizing.

Provide Visual Aids (When Appropriate)

You can keep your slides simple by using images, a few words or short phrases, or bullet lists. But don’t just cut-and-paste your whole speech onto the slides. Nobody wants that.

You don’t want to make any individual listener uncomfortable by gazing into their eyes for ten seconds at a time, but you do want to maintain eye contact with the audience as you speak. If there are a lot of people in the room, try to make eye contact for just a second or two and then move onto someone else. Don’t lock eyes, and don’t only make contact with the same two or three people.

Some people try to stair at the back wall while they speak, but this just looks weird. No one really thinks you’re making eye contact with anyone back there. Some of my students suggested that if you don’t feel comfortable with eye contact, you can simply look at people’s foreheads, eyebrows, or scalps. Give it a try.

If you are reading your speech, still try to pause every few seconds to make some eye contact. It will make the speech feel less stuffy and more natural. You could even highlight or mark the places you want to make eye contact, that way you can easily find your place again when you look back at the paper.

Don’t clutch the podium or lectern. Don’t put your hands in your pockets. Act like a normal person talking to other people. If you’re able to, move around the front of the room. Walk up and down the aisles. Use your hands and be a bit more expressive than you normally are. If you have ever acted in a play, you know that normal gestures go unnoticed on stage and everything has to be exaggerated. But to the audience, it doesn’t look exaggerated, it just seems normal. So don’t be afraid of being too expressive. Move around. Use your hands and arms and face.