“I’m terrified of talking to groups. I always write out a script because I easily freeze and don’t know what to say.” 

Mariela was talking to Janet, our Lead Trainer, who was preparing her to be coached by me in front of 300 people.

I had been asked by their senior exec to give a one-hour presentation on virtual presentation skills during one of their Town Halls. I always get volunteers for me to coach live so the audience can see dramatic “Before” and “After’s”, see the principles that I’m talking about in action, and also get a clear idea of how they can apply them to their own lives to transform their own presentation abilities.

Mariela was brave. I admired her courage, not only for being willing to do this in front of 300 people, terrified as she was, but being willing to be coached.

Imagine 300 people you work with watching you do something that terrifies you, while someone coaches you in front of them. It takes a lot of courage.

What terrified Mariela was the sheer number of people. One person doesn’t terrify her. A couple of people don’t either.

People have a number where they get terrified.

Does talking to one person terrify you? 100? 1,000? 10,000? 50,000? Everyone’s got a number.

It’s a rare bird who stays comfortable no matter how many.

Mariela’s number was certainly way under 300.

And now we were live. The meeting started with fabulous music, a wonderful video, flashing lights, a rousing introduction by the charismatic senior exec, motivating speeches by other leaders, and now Mariela was on, all eyes on her.

I had Mariela give a two-minute presentation so the audience could see her starting point. Everyone has a starting point. When I’m coaching you, I meet you where you are, beginner, intermediate or expert, and coach you from there.

Mariela raced through her two minutes, relieved when it was over. I’m sure she had rehearsed it numerous times the night before.

Despite her fear, you could clearly see that Mariela was intelligent, bright, professional, knowledgeable, that she is very likable, that she has integrity, and has something truly worthwhile to say.

The problem is that you don’t know what it is. It goes by so fast, it’s gone before you can grasp it.

Terror, fear, even a little anxiety, makes people talk too fast. When you talk too fast, your words lose their meaning. Correct pacing is the hallmark of a professional speaker.

There was one thing that Mariela was doing that was causing ALL the problems I just mentioned. She was talking to EVERYONE.

It seems logical. You have 300 people in your audience - you should talk to 300. Right?

This is the worst thing you can do.

It creates more problems than I could list, including dreadful fear. I will address only two of the problems you’ll endure: you’ll completely lose your focus when you try to talk to “everyone”, and your audience will not experience the very thing each person in your audience needs to feel in order to stay engaged with you, and that is the feeling that: “You are talking to me.”

The first coaching I gave Mariela was to say, “Mariela, look at my picture on your computer screen.” My picture was big. The producer had arranged it so only my picture and Mariela’s were showing on the screen for everyone. We had a split screen with only our two faces.

“Look at my picture.” Mariela did. I smiled at her. She smiled back. She looked beautiful.

“Now talk to me as if we were alone.”

And I had Mariela give her presentation again, but only to me. It took very little coaching for Mariela to catch on. Instead of telling “everyone”, Mariela was just telling me.

Everything about Mariela changed when she thought she was talking to just me alone. Every muscle relaxed, she leaned in, her eyes were bright and alive, she was FOCUSED.

Mariela is naturally a very warm person and all her warmth came out when she was just talking to my smiling face. I could feel she really cared about me as she was speaking. It was not a “presentation” now. It was corporate content of course, but it was NATURAL and it was PERSONAL. Mariela was lovely.

The best part – by focusing on one person, me, Mariela had her focus back. And that enabled her to really get her message across.

I asked the senior executive of the group to give Mariela feedback and it was glowing with admiration. Mariela was radiant.

Next I taught Mariela how to maintain this incredible personal focus while looking at the camera, which is a much higher level of communication ability, but vital when you’re virtual. Your relationship with your camera is incredibly important when you’re virtual. You want to learn how to make your camera love you. When the camera loves you, the audience loves you.

It’s the ability to know how to look at your camera as if it’s a person, to see a person‘s face as if it’s really there where the camera lens is, and to reach the heart and soul of the person you see.

Mariela looked straight into the camera lens and spoke. Now when she spoke, you felt, “She is talking to me.”

Once the audience feels this, they’re captivated, they lean in.

You also had the strong feeling, “She really cares about me.”

Once the audience feels this, they open up and love you.

You have an audience that is captivated, leaning in, opening up to you and loving you.

I could also now see that Mariela had no fear. None. All of it had dissipated, it was gone. She was beaming, she was radiant. I wouldn’t call it confidence. I would call it joy. A much better feeling.

When I asked her to comment on what she had just accomplished, Mariela said with tremendous confidence, “I have no fear.”

What a victory for a beautiful, intelligent, valuable woman. I know the audience was stunned to see how dramatic this incredibly rapid transformation was. And I know that 300 people were simultaneously filled with strong admiration for her.

This is what doing it right does for you. This is what the absence of fear, self-doubt and anxiety do for you. This is what is supposed to happen. You’re supposed to be free.

I would say that Mariela hit it out of the park, but the truth is, she hit it out of the galaxy.

The feedback Mariela received was absolutely outstanding. She’ll be getting floods of it for a long time. The admiration from the audience was exuberant.

Mariela has skills she’ll be able to use for the rest of her life. With the ability to communicate there’s nothing you can’t do. Nothing you can’t accomplish.

When you’re presenting to a large audience, if you can truly talk to ONE of them, you can reach them all.

Be the cause!