HOW TO PREPARE FOR A conference speech
- Ivan Vrdoljak
- Feb 5
- 5 min read
"But well, it's easy for you, you deal with it every day."
This well-intentioned comment was made to me by an entrepreneur after my recent lecture on the "cost of stage fright." At a business conference in Zagreb in late 2025, I spoke about the financial cost that individuals and organizations suffer from avoiding performances, often without realizing it.
I smiled at that "good for you." Why? Because I think the opposite. When you stand on stage and talk about how to overcome stage fright and how to be a persuasive speaker , you have to practice what you preach far more precisely than other speakers from other industries.
My preparation for those 30 minutes took almost 8 hours. I'll share the entire process with you from start to finish. Maybe it will help you in some future opportunity . Was it worth my time investment? It definitely was. The return on that investment was strong: mentally, emotionally, and financially. But let's start with the basics...
500 MINUTES OF PREPARATION
What few people know is that in those 30 minutes of lectures I did more than 300 minutes of test performances . Exactly 10 rehearsals , each about 30 minutes.
And those are just the rehearsals: I spent another three or four hours preparing the content and creating the slides. This brings us to a total of 500 minutes (or almost 8 hours) of preparation for a 30-minute lecture.
Why so much preparation? Well, I knew what I wanted and what I didn't want. No mincing words, no evasiveness, no nervous shifting from foot to foot. No empty sentences or boring parts. Everything has to be clear, interesting, structured and convincing .
What was the preparation process like? Exactly as I recommend to my clients. Here's how to prepare for a conference speech, step by step.
GOAL, AUDIENCE AND core MESSAGE
The title of the lecture was “How much does stage fright cost you?”.
The audience was mostly made up of people from HR departments of various companies.
The goal was simple: to convince them to educate more and encourage their people to speak out publicly, so that they could progress as individuals and organizations.
The point of the lecture or the main message : to prove to companies and employees that stage fright and performance avoidance are like a hidden tax on a career - because in the long run they lead to business stagnation and reduced revenue.
DEVELOP YOUR CONTENT
I wrote on paper:
ideas and facts
own examples and experiences
results of some research
Anything that could help me get my message across and support my point. Although we all assume that stage fright is bad for your career - I needed facts to back it up. I found relevant research that clearly shows: if you avoid speaking opportunities, meetings, presentations - in the long run, your chances of:
college degree - 10%
higher salary – 10%
managerial position – 14%
The numbers themselves don't mean much - I wanted to reinforce them with personal examples and experience. Because, in our reality, the damage from stage fright is often even greater. Therefore, I decided to highlight three real examples of clients from my practice in my lecture. They contacted me for help only after they felt the consequences of avoiding performances.
A director from a company threatened to make public appearances. He was bypassed in the election for a member of the board. He was told that a candidate "who can adequately represent the company in public" was chosen.
An entrepreneur and industry expert was invited to appear on a national TV show. He backed out due to nervousness, citing travel as an excuse. He recommended a competitor. The result? Every time the TV station called that competitor, who soon attracted more customer interest.
A client from an international company had extreme nervousness: once during an online presentation, she faked technical problems and disconnected herself from the call until she could collect herself. She had a presentation coming up in front of management that she couldn't avoid...
STRUCTURE: FORM the MESSAGES AND SEQUENCE
I translated the key ideas into powerful messages. I also saw a few opportunities for off-the-cuff humor (you don't want to be a stand-up comedian, but you don't want to be dead serious either). Then I framed it all into a meaningful story, and I had the skeleton of the lecture:
concrete introduction: addressing the audience's pain point
body of the lecture: argumentation of the problem and solution
strong conclusion: I called for the desired action
It was only then that I started making slides.
4. CREATE SLIDES
I arranged them according to the same principle that I teach:
as little text as possible
as many visual elements as possible
only information that adds value
Once the slides were ready – the real work began.
5. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!
I turned on the stopwatch and started. You must say the content out loud. This is fundamentally important.
First rehearsal: 38 minutes. Too long.
I shortened some parts.
Second try: 32 minutes. Better.
Third try: 30 minutes. Goal.
But I didn't stop. There are 7 more rehearsals left – all to hone:
rhythm
speech dynamics
breaks
body language
Only then, after about 500 minutes of preparation , was I ready to stand on stage and deliver a 30-minute lecture. What did that lecture bring me? Primarily, a sense of satisfaction because several people came up to me afterward and said that I had inspired them to make a positive change - to perform more often.
Secondly, the lecture also brought me business, or rather financial, benefits. Representatives of Croatian and international companies were also sitting in the audience. Several of them approached me during the break with a proposal to arrange specialized group public speaking training for their employees. The total value of all training and engagements contracted on the basis of that one lecture is measured in a 5-digit amount in euros.
I am writing all this to prove to you that a successful and interesting lecture is not a talent . It is not charisma either. It is not “easy for you”. It is a process that, if the performance is important enough to you - can be prepared for, learned and practiced.
All the participants I have prepared for strategically important performances in my career "had to" practice their performances at least 5 times, and for top results, 10 times.
After that - stage fright becomes your ally. Nervousness becomes your turbo drive of positive energy. Doors and opportunities open up for you that you didn't even know existed before.
Want to take your public speaking to the next level? Need to prepare your team for more successful presentations? We're just a message away. Schedule a free consultation.
