One of the fundamental steps in improving your presentations is to realize that you are the expert. Regardless of what industry you are in or what background you have, you first have to realize that you are the expert at that thing. The knowledge that you have is valuable to others. When you understand this, your presentations, and really your communication in general, will improve dramatically.

Public speaking fear and self-consciousness will sometimes come from not understanding this basic truth. Our internal monologue may be saying something like, "Why would anyone care what I have to say?" or "There are so many other people who know more about this than I do." If that were actually true, then THEY would be the ones speaking in the presentation.

You Are the Undisputed Expert. You Just May Not Realize It.

When I was 14 years old, my dad owned a home remodeling company. Every winter, I crawled under houses helping him repair frozen pipes that had burst. After a couple of Christmas breaks, I had so much experience doing this, that I could do it in my sleep. So as a teenager, I was an expert at repairing ruptured PVC pipes.

A few years later, I worked at a fast-food place when I was in High School. I started out on the "board" which is where the sandwiches were assembled. My boss showed me a few things, but it was my coworker, who had only been there a few weeks longer than I had, who showed me the ropes. That coworker was an undisputed expert on the process -- that is, at least compared to me.

After I graduated from college, my first real job was working for an oil company doing title work. After a couple of years, I had not only gotten pretty good at it, but I had also trained a number of new people. Compared to them, I was the expert at this process.

In my third year in the training industry, I generated a half-million dollars worth of sales for the first time. That same year, I also received a couple of awards for outstanding instruction. It took me five years as an entrepreneur to attain my first million dollars, but it only took about eight more months to generate my second million.

With each of these accomplishments, I became the expert, because I had information that the general public didn’t have (even when my expertise was repairing frozen pipes).

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You Are the Expert. Now, Use Your Presentations to Prove It.