Follow these 3 tips. You’ll lower your stress, boost your confidence, and wow your crowd.

The next time you’re speaking at a meeting, in front of a group, or maybe on a land line–use your phone to record yourself and listen back afterwards. You can use the voice memo function or start a video with the camera facing down (so you just focus on the audio).

So, take a breath, pause and truly engage with your audience, making eye contact to see if they’ve received your message. Imagine that there’s a thought bubble that appears after each major thought that asks: “Did you get that?”

So prepare as best you can, do lots of run throughs, and cut yourself some slack. Try to have a sense of humor, and expect a stumble here and there.

Ask yourself beforehand, what do you want your audience to do, think or feel? What verb that captures that?

The effort you put into making a positive first impression lays the groundwork that gets results. The thought bubble in the head of your audience says “this is someone I’d like to work with,” and everything from there on out becomes much easier.