Tips and Tricks #58: Tips to overcome your presentation nightmares

Tips and Tricks #58: Tips to overcome your presentation nightmares




“All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

It is natural to feel anxious before delivering a speech. Whether you're an expert or a novice, everyone experiences presentation jitters. But if you master the three important P's—Plan, Prepare, and Practice—you'll have an easier time overcoming these jitters to deliver a successful presentation.

 

Here are a few tips for conquering your presentation nerves:

 

1. Preparation is key:

 

Begin by deciding on an appropriate topic for your audience. While designing the slide deck, use visual appeal to capture your audience's attention. You won't be able to cover every important point in your slides, so prepare a script to follow the flow of your presentation. While working on the script, focus on starting and ending your speech with the same energy to keep the audience engaged throughout the presentation. Also, be prepared for possible questions from the audience. While presenting, always assume your audience knows more than you—this will motivate you to be thoroughly prepared.


 
2. Content is king:

 

Good content, when presented well, will make your audience remember your presentation. To create high-quality content, you must identify your target audience, understand their needs, and shape your presentation accordingly. Make sure you're familiar with the topic you choose to present. If you're not, spend time researching your topic. Gather enough information to validate your content wherever necessary. If you're confident in the information you're presenting, the audience will be able to tell.
 

3. Practice makes perfect:


Practice every time like it is the first time. Your audience will remember how you begin and end your presentation. So deliver the first and last sentence of the presentation confidently. Carry small notes to ensure you don't skip any important points. Be your own critic—record yourself and watch the video back to identify any parts of the presentation needing improvement. You can also practice in front of the mirror. This will help you observe and correct your body language. Try practicing with different audiences to ensure you're comfortable speaking in front of any crowd.


 


4. Always have a Plan B:

 

Technical glitches are beyond our control, and might include mic dysfunction, network issues, or a laptop freeze. While it is advisable to carry a spare laptop, rehearse your presentation without the deck so you have a backup plan if something goes wrong. It's helpful to have some facts or interesting information on your topic prepared in case you need to fill time while technical issues are resolved. You can also use downtime to recap everything you have covered so far or to lead a brief activity.


 

5. Get a good night's sleep:


Your brain needs sleep to function properly. A well-rested person is known to have less stress and stronger concentration, and make better decisions. Being properly rested can help increase your creativity. Good sleep also improves your memory. This will help you remember everything you've practiced.

 

No one is born a good presenter; it takes regular preparation and effort. We hope these tips help give you the confidence to ace your next presentation! 



    • Sticky Posts

    • Tips and Tricks #08: Lock and unlock objects in Zoho Show

      Hello everyone, Here is a tip about just one of the many interesting tools in Zoho Show.  Let's say the marketing and design teams are working together on a product launch. With multiple people working on this shared presentation, and rushing to get it

    • Tip and Tricks #01: Take your text for a spin

      Hello folks, Zoho Show's all-new, clear, contextual interface was a great update to an already great product, so we thought you might appreciate some help putting it to good use.  Following this release, the Zoho Show Community is happy to launch  Tips

    • Tips and Tricks #06: Animate text at the paragraph level on Zoho Show.

      Hi guys!   We're back with another Show tip! Before we jump into it, let's read through a quick scenario first.    Say you have a slide with a list of bullets and paragraph levels to present to your audience. The second it's on the screen, your audience

    • Tips and Tricks #05: Add pictures as comments within a slide.

      Hello everyone,   We're back with a new Show tip.  In today's post, we'll look at a more interesting way to comment and collaborate on a slide in Zoho Show. ​ No matter where your colleagues are in the world, using comments to share opinions or give feedback is

    • Tips and Tricks #07: Crop a Picture to Fit a Shape

      Hello everyone, Whether you're designing an adventurous photo collage, your company's brochure, or simply a team introduction for new hires, images always play a crucial role in making your presentation look interesting and interactive.    To help spruce

    • Recent Topics

    • Migrate Your Notes from OneNote to Zoho Notebook Today

      Greetings Notebook Users, We’re excited to introduce a powerful new feature that lets you migrate your notes from Microsoft OneNote to Zoho Notebook—making your transition faster and more seamless than ever. ✨ What’s New One-click migration: Easily import

    • Meet Canvas' Grid component: Your easiest way to build responsive record templates

      Visual design can be exciting—until you're knee-deep in the details. Whether it's aligning text boxes to prevent overlaps, fixing negative space, or simply making sure the right data stands out, just ironing out inconsistencies takes a lot of moving parts.

    • Deluge sendmail in Zoho Desk schedule can't send email from a verified email address

      I am trying to add a scheduled action with ZDesk using a Deluge function that sends a weekly email to specific ticket client contacts I've already verified the email address for use in ZDesk, but sendmail won't allow it in its "from:" clause. I've attached

    • Zoho Campaigns - Why do contacts have owners?

      When searching for contacts in Zoho Campaigns I am sometimes caught out when I don't select the filter option "Inactive users". So it appears that I have some contacts missing, until I realise that I need to select that option. Campaigns Support have

    • First day of trying FSM in the field.

      What we found. 1. with out a network connection we were unable to start a service call? 2. if you go to an appointment and then want to add an asset it does not seem possible. 3. disappointed not to be able to actually take a payment from within the app

    • Bigin Android app update: User management

      Hello everyone! In the most recent Bigin Android app update, we have brought in support for the 'Users and Controls' section. You can now manage the users in your organization within the mobile app. There are three tabs in the 'Users and Controls' section:

    • Importing data into Assets

      So we have a module in Zoho CRM called customers equipments. It links to customers modules, accounts (if needed) and products. I made a sample export and created extra fields in zoho fsm assets module. The import fails. Could not find a matching parent

    • Email Integration - Zoho CRM - OAuth and IMAP

      Hello, We are attempting to integrate our Microsoft 365 email with Zoho CRM. We are using the documentation at Email Configuration for IMAP and POP3 (zoho.com) We use Microsoft 365 and per their recommendations (and requirements) for secure email we have

    • One Contact with Multiple Accounts with Portal enabled

      I have a contact that manages different accounts, so he needs to see the invoices of all the companies he manage in Portal but I found it not possible.. any idea? I tried to set different customers with the same email contact with the portal enabled and

    • All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

      The address field will be available exclusively for IN DC users. We'll keep you updated on the DC-specific rollout soon. It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition. Managing addresses

    • End Date in Zoho Bookings

      When I give my appointments a 30 minutes time I would expect the software not to even show the End Time.  But it actually makes the user pick an End Time.  Did I just miss a setting?  

    • Choosing a portal option and the "Unified customer portal"?

      I am trialling Zoho to replace various existing systems, one of which is a customer portal. Our portal allows clients to add and edit bookings, complete forms, manage their subscriptions and edit some CRM info. I am trying to understand how I might best

    • Zoho Commerce

      Hi, I have zoho one and use Zoho Books. I am very interested in Zoho Commerce , especially with how all is integrated but have a question. I do not want my store to show prices for customers that are not log in. Is there a way to hide the prices if not

    • email forwarding not working

      Your email forwarding service does not work. I received the confirmation email and completed the confirmation, after that nothing and nothing since no matter what I have tried. Shame as everything else was smooth. I spose it's harder to run one of these web based internet mail services than you guys thought!!! can you fix the email forwarding asap PLEASE!

    • Zoho Desk KB article embedded on another site.

      We embed KB articles from Zoho Desk on another site (our application). When opening the article in a new tab, there is no issue, but if we choose lightbox, we are getting an error "To protect your security, help.ourdomain.com will not allow Firefox to

    • Can a Zoho Sites page be embedded into another website (outside Zoho)

      Hi All, We have a request from a client - they'd like to take one of our information pages created in Zoho Sites and embed it into their own website? I was told through an email with Zoho that this was possible >>Thank you for your patience regarding

    • Support new line in CRM Multiline text field display in Zoho Deluge

      Hi brainstrust, We have a Zoho CRM field which is a Muti Line (Small) field. It has data in it that has a carriage return after each line: When I pull that data in via Deluge, it displays as: I'm hoping a way I can change it from: Freehand : ENABLED Chenille

    • Enable Locations for Expense

      Hi, please enable Locations (ex Branches) for Zoho Expense so that there is consistency between this app and Zoho Books. Thanks in advance.

    • Currency abbreviations

      Hello, Im stuck, and need help. I need the currency fields for example, opportunity value, or total revenue, to be abbreviated, lets say for 1,000 - 1K, 1,000,000 - 1M, and so on, how should I do this?

    • Losing description after merging tickets

      Hello, We merge tickets when they are about the same topic from the same client. It happens sometimes. We recently noticed that after the merger only the description from the master ticket is left in a thread. And the slave-ticket description is erased.

    • in the Zoho Creator i have File Upload field get the file on submission of the form Get the File and upload to Zoho Books

      in the Zoho Creator i have File Upload field get the file on submission of the form Get the File and upload to Zoho Books . how I get the file From zoho creator and upload to Zoho Books . using Api response = invokeUrl [ url: "https://www.zohoapis.com/creator/v2.1/data/hh/l130/report/All_Customer_Payments/"+input.ID

    • Generate a link for Zoho Sign we can copy and use in a separate email

      Please consider adding functionality that would all a user to copy a reminder link so that we can include it in a personalized email instead of sending a Zoho reminder. Or, allow us to customize the reminder email. Use Case: We have clients we need to

    • Syntax for URLs in HTML Snippets

      What are some best practices for inserting a URL in an HTML snippet? I've looked at Zoho Help articles on navigation-based and functional-based URLs, but I'm still unclear on how to incorporate them in an HTML snippet. For example, 1. How do I link to

    • Rate Limiting in Zoho Flow (OpenAI API)

      Hi Everyone, We are facing some issues when using Zoho Flow as we have a deluge script running which is making external calls to OpenAI endpoint. Sometimes the response takes more than 30 seconds meaning the script will timeout. We want to implement a

    • Placing a condition before converting the LEAD

      Hi,  I need some assistance with Lead conversion. I need to place certain conditions before allowing the user to convert the lead.  For example: up until the certain status's doesn't equal "green" don't allow to convert lead.  I tried creating this using

    • it is possible to open a widget via deluge script function

      I have one function that is workflow action I call my fucntion I need to call the internal widget it is possible to open or it have to please tell me the solution

    • Creator - Portal Custom Domain

      I will pay $100 in crypto to anyone who can actually get my Creator Custom Domain to function (actually tell me how you got yours to).  Domain verifies, Nothing. I've been fighting it a week, multiple chats to customer service. Clearly I'm doing something wrong.  Some datapoints Domain name itself unimportant, can be a string of numbers.  I need to know what registrars are working for you because GoDaddy does NOT.  Do I need hosting? I've tried both ways and nothing works.  I pushed through Cloudflare

    • Translation support expanded for Modules, Subforms and Related Lists

      Hello Everyone!   The translation feature enables organizations to translate certain values in their CRM interface into different languages. Previously, the only values that could be translated were picklist values and field names. However, we have extended

    • Transitioning to API Credits in Zoho Desk

      At Zoho Desk, we’re always looking for ways to help keep your business operations running smoothly. This includes empowering teams that rely on APIs for essential integrations, functions and extensions. We’ve reimagined how API usage is measured to give

    • steps and options to change Domain DNS/Nameservers settings

      Please share the options or steps to change  Domain DNS/Nameservers settings 

    • Unable to explore desk.zoho.com

      Greetings, I have an account with zoho which already has a survey subscription. I would like to explore desk.zoho.com, but when I visit it while logged in (https://desk.zoho.com/agent?action=CreatePortal) I just get a blank page. I have tried different

    • Employees in Leave Policy exceptions

      In the Leave Policies we should be able to add specific employees to the exception list So it will be like All Employees except A,B,C in the exception list, currently we can only add departments etc

    • Searching customer field

      Hello, When entering a receipt, we select customer information. The customer information is synced with Zoho CRM. However, we can't find the customer information because it searches for words that begin with the entered value. It needs to search for words

    • Transition Criteria Appearing on Blueprint Transitions

      On Monday, Sept. 8th, the Transition criteria started appearing on our Blueprints when users hover over a Transition button. See image. We contacted Zoho support because it's confusing our users (there's really no reason for them to see it), but we haven't

    • Unified task view

      Possible to enable the unified task view in Trident, that is currently available in Mail?

    • How I set default email addresses for Sales Orders and Invoices

      I have customers that have different departments that handle Sales Orders and Invoices. How can i set a default email for Sales Orders that's different than the default email for Invoices? Is there a way I can automate this using the Contact Persons Departments

    • Modular Permission Levels

      We need more modular Permissions per module in Books we have 2 use cases that are creating problems We need per module export permission we have a use case where users should be able to view the sales orders but not export it, but they can export other

    • When dispatched to crew, assigning lead missing

      Hello, For the past two or three weeks, whenever an officer assigns Service Appointment to a team, the lead person is missing from the assigned service list. Therefore, we have to reschedule the SA and then the lead person becomes visible in the assigned

    • Kaizen #157: Flyouts in Client Script

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting edition of our Kaizen series, where we explore fresh insights and innovative ideas to help you discover more and expand your knowledge!In this post, we'll walk through how to display Flyouts in Client Script

    • Bigin, more powerful than ever on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and watchOS 26.

      Hot on the heels of Apple’s latest OS updates, we’ve rolled out several enhancements and features designed to help you get the most from your Apple devices. Enjoy a refined user experience with smoother navigation and a more content-focused Liquid Glass

    • Next Page