You’ll ooze confidence if you use your voice to engage your audience and convey your message powerfully. Speech variation is key. Skilled presenters can gain, hold and regain attention by changing their volume, pace and pitch and using pauses deliberately.

Be aware of the speed at which you speak. In a stressful situation you will naturally speak faster, so make sure you take a breath, pause and speak more slowly. This is especially important if any audience members have a different first language.
 
Here are some other useful techniques to use during your delivery, some of which you may need to practise in advance:
- For each point, identify the key words or phrases that will help the audience understand and remember it
- To make your delivery sound natural, imagine you’re addressing each point to an individual audience member
- Explain essential technical terms and avoid unnecessary jargon and acronyms
- Speak more slowly and in a lower voice to emphasize a point; talk faster and at a higher pitch to create excitement
- When you’re making an important point, raise your volume a little, then pause for a few moments to allow the significance of what you’ve said to sink in
- Pauses also give you time to think and help you control your rate of speechIn face-to-face meetings, if people are talking amongst themselves, simply pause, look at them with a neutral face and wait for them to stop. If they don’t take the hint, say something like, 'Is there an issue you’d like to discuss?’