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I used to worry about speaking in public. I’d get nervous and imagine that everyone would see immediately that I was basically a bit of a fraud.What changed this for me was watching a video back of a talk I gave. I remembered very clearly just how nervous I was before stepping onto the podium.But watching myself speak in the video made me realise that I looked and sounded a lot less nervous than I knew I was.Don’t get me wrong, there were still things I didn’t like, my tendency to say ‘you know’ for example. But realising that despite the nerves I was feeling I came across as more confident than I felt, was a real turning point.I do a lot of public speaking in my role as CEO these days. Here are some more tips that I’ve picked up along the way.Write your own presentation. I’ve found that if I’m talking to slides that someone else has prepared, I feel much less comfortable than if I’ve written them myself.Break down what you want to say into a series of bullet points. I start with pen and ink on a blank piece of paper.Throw it all down and then put into an order that is logical and flows well.Use PowerPoint or Keynote to summarise each of the points you want to make. As you gain confidence you’ll realise that a picture can act as a prompt for you just as easily as words. That might make your talk a bit more interesting too.Never write long paragraphs on the screen and never read out what you’ve written. If you do have to put up some text let the audience read it while you talk.When you’ve written your presentation, fire it up on your laptop and speak out loud to each slide so you get the hang of the way it’s going to flow. You might find that you’ll change the slides as a consequence.Run through it the night before your talk. If you do this late in the evening, I find that works really well. The following day it’s looping around in the back of your mind, and you don’t have the stress of trying to absorb it on the day.For written pieces, where you need to make an argument or build a case to persuade people about something, I find the following works well.Jot down the basic outline of your proposal. Don’t worry about structuring it yet.I use MindNode to do this which is a mind-mapping tool.Once you’ve got all the points you want to make down, then decide which points belong where.I like to use an SBAR to organise my thoughts. This is a tool which came out of the Navy, and was used to communicate important information in a structured way. It stands for Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation.I usually put a short introduction at the front of my document to summarise what it is about.I hope that helps. You can read about the system I use to take notes efficiently here, which you might also find useful.