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  • Martin 
  • 7 min read

How to manage my stage presentation and perform with confidence!

stage presentation

“All the worlds a stage.” Shakespeare describes life as a series of stages, and a stage needs a performance

A presentation is a performance; the moment between you and your audience is the stage. 

 

The stage can be a conference centre with 2000 seats, a meeting room in an office, over a coffee and online. 

To perform on stage, you need good posture; it is good to start with

01 Power-pose – Stance

02 The W – Eye contact and movement 

03 Feeling – Engagement and flow

What is a stage presentation?

Examples – my stages

Let me share two presentation stages I am very familiar with to illustrate how the power-pose, the W and feelings influence a stage presentation.

My stage #1

Training webinars, as a pitch coach I am hosting presentation skills sessions and coaching attendees during practice loops. My stage is connecting from my device to theirs, my audience online, and my performance is virtual. Remotely I need to inspire people with energy; standing in the power-pose is the best way to do this and make eye contact with the camera and guiding my energy flow with the W.

My stage #2

My 3yr old twins are pitching to me why they should wear their swim clothes to school. And I am pitching why they should wear unicorn trousers instead. Our stage is the bedroom floor. Their pitch is often better than mine. They create more feelings in their audience😭🙄.

How to improve your stage presentation? With body language!

“All the worlds a stage”, so you need excellent stage presence. How do you improve?

Power-pose – Stance

Adopting the power-pose and having good posture and stance is one of the most important considerations for your stage presence. Both your physical posture and mental posture. Your mindset towards the view that “all the worlds a stage.” My three-year-old posture is focused determination with a clear goal of what they want.

Posture for great pitching includes 

#1 Power-pose – Stance

#2 The W – Eye contact

#3 Feeling – Engagement and flow

 

On a physical stage, you need to be the focus. From this position, engage your audience. No matter if you are working the stage, standing front and centre addressing the room, or at a podium, have a posture of intention. 

The W – Eye contact and movement 

From all stage positions, think of the letter W. Map this W to your audience and then use the shape of the letter to guide your engagement and flow. 

Look and perform to the audience on the left, middle and right. The W stops you from talking to just one zone and ensures you speak to the whole room.

 

You can walk the W. 

Walk from one side of the stage to the other for a big audience. Move with intention whilst staying natural. With smaller audiences, scale the engagement down to a comfortable level.

 

The goal of walking the W is to flow on stage and connect to your whole audience.

Think of mega music stars on stage in a stadium; the lead singer works the stage performing their socks off connecting to all their fans. Onstage you need to dial-in the appropriate level of stage presence to connect with your audience.

Engagement and flow

Our stage can be large or small; in-person or remote, fully engaged, present.

So how we make people feel from our stage presence is crucial. 

Strum a tune with stories, share experiences and values.

A goal of mine is to enjoy pitching. My mindset is to enjoy the moment because of who I am talking to. Share useful stories and information, have bright, bold slides, engage and teach what I know about pitching. 

 

When you enjoy pitching, your audience enjoys listening, and your ideas grow. 

 

When ideas grow, people know there is something in it for them, which is our goal. 

 

We want to create a sense of shared ownership and transform this into permission, motivation and action.

 

I want you to feel confident at pitching and the mindset to grow.

Overview

#1 Power-pose – Stance

#2 The W – Eye contact

#3 Feeling – Engagement and flow

Teqhniques for improving stage performance and presentation [Explained]

#1 The Power-pose

Stand in the power-pose, feet shoulder-width apart, a slight bounce in your knees, spring in your arms and hands. Be relaxed and suitable for the moment. Move around naturally with clear intention. Being too static is robotic and uncomfortable; moving too much is busy and confusing. A performance is intentional, whether rehearsed or improvised.

Audience

#2 The W

Make even and natural eye contact with your audience and avoid reading a script. No matter the format, a pitch is a conversation with someone and part of a good conversation is exchange. We need to look at people and build rapport first before sharing anything they are willing to accept. With an audience of one, look people in the eye yet always break contact as you tell stories and return to looking at them. Be natural and make eye contact changes part of the overall performance. 

Feeling

03 Engagement and flow

Connecting with your audience is the goal, and this comes from a presentation that gets sparks flying in your audience’s imagination and exceeding expectations. Finish the presentation leaving a strong impression. Stories are the most effective way to do this as we have characters and situations we can relate to. Your stories are the bowstrings to how your audience feels at the end. Stories need to strum a tune for each member of the audience.

Conclusion

My stages are online webinars, linking my stage to a remote audience and my three-year-old twins pitching to me why they can wear swim clothes to school.

Adopt the mindset of “All the worlds a stage” and have the correct posture.

 

Make the most of it for your audience and you. 

 

Enjoy the spotlight.

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