Confidence is everything when you’re presenting yourself and especially when on camera to a wide audience. You’ve heard it time and time again. And in the new age of the sports media industry, where producing video content is almost necessary, there’s a lot of pressure on creators to be at their best.
But confidence isn’t always inherent. Especially when you’re new to the video content field, it’s something you have to gain. It’s something you have to work for. And it’s something you have to hone over time – so that your presentation voice helps the listener buy in from the first moment.
How do you gain confidence when presenting yourself and your content for videos and podcasts? Here are a few simple but incredibly effective tips that can get you off the ground.
3 Ways to Gain Confidence as a Presenter
1) Come Prepared
The more prepared you are, the easier it is to speak with confidence.
Practice like you play. Before each podcast or video appearance, you should do your homework. If you’re an analyst covering a sport, watch the film to develop in-depth opinions. Dive into the data and spotlight numbers that support your case. Segment quotes and anecdotes. Write down any eye-catching lines that come to you in your research and practice your presentation.
When you’re highly prepared for an on-camera opportunity, the information you’re tasked with communicating flows much easier. And you’ll find that you’ll be able to continually build on that bank of information, and your results will follow suit.
2) Be Authentic
This step is much easier when you do the prep work ahead of time, but if you want to be confident when you’re there on the screen, just be yourself. Be authentic.
What does that mean? Just be your natural self in an engaging and conversational matter. If you make a mistake, take it in stride. No one is perfect. If you fumble on your words, be comfortable making light of it and carrying on. You’ll find that recovering quickly will help your confidence and ensure it happens less often.
3) Get Live Reps
When it comes to building confidence on video and on podcasts, you can do all the right things. You can outline your brand, your audience, and you can do as much prep work as you need – but eventually, you simply need to get live reps. You can’t build confidence sitting on the sidelines.
Engage yourself in the video space as much as you can – whether it’s hosting your own podcast or appearing on others and collaborating with other creators. Immerse yourself in the video and recording format so much that, eventually, your experience will make presentation second nature.
Playbook
- Come prepared
- Be authentic
- Get reps
