Three Pillars of Confidence

When landing key messages, moving the audience to action, and winning business are the desired outcomes, three things matter:

Confidence in your presence

How do you show up when it comes time to present important messages, solutions and ideas?

Confidence in the story structure

How does your content show up in your presentation?

Confidence in the audience needs

How does what you do show up in relation to what the audience needs?

What I see getting in the way and holding back performance is:

• Over-investing in superficial speaker skills rather than focusing on presentation presence

• Missing the importance of the story structure and how content shows up at showtime

• Skipping over the audience's needs and leading with content that distracts, confuses and loses attention.

Here is an easy way to remember what needs to be in balance:

• You

• It

• Them

To pitch like a pro, you must build confidence across all three pillars. Each complements the others, making you stronger and increasing the impact of your delivery. Being great in any one of these alone will never be enough.