If you are feeling apprehensive about public speaking or presenting, typically at the root of the anxiety is fear of embarrassing yourself. With careful preparation and focus on delivery, it can be easy to avoid embarrassment in a monologue style presentation. But what about when you open up the floor for questions and comments?

Audiences can be tricky: Even if they're your peers, co-workers, or experts in a certain field, everyone has their own agenda and emotional logic. By giving a presentation and soliciting feedback, you are inviting a variety of different personalities to listen and comment on your work. Audience member responses can range from boredom to outright hostility for reasons that may be unclear to you. To conquer a difficult audience, follow these tips:

What to do with the hands baffles most presenters. There are many schools of thought that offer conflicting advice. A recent leadership article in The Washington Post spotlighted what’s most impactful when it comes to presenters’ gestures. Below we summarize the recommendations:

Imagine yourself standing with over 200,000 others on the steps and grounds of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, as Martin Luther King repeats the hypnotic refrain, “I have a dream!” You are swept away by the power of the message and the impact of that historical moment.

All the key ingredients for the making of an unforgettable speech were there: the substance, the style and the staging. All speakers who must make an impact on their audiences need to pay attention to these three factors.