How can you overcome nerves when pitching your creative content?

The two words I think that are most important here: research, and practice. In terms of research, find out what are the biggest priorities of your client and tailor your content to reflect that you understand that. This is hard sometimes, but worth the effort. Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. Pretend they were listening to you and based on what you know about them, what would be most important to them? The second thing, of course, is practice. Don’t wing it unless you have a lot of practice winging it. :-) Write out your presentation. Read it. Read it out loud. Even record it and listen to it. Some counterintuitive advice: Memorize to unmemorize. That means, practice it enough so it sounds natural and spontaneous.

"No" is the second best answer you will get. With a "yes" you win the opportunity. With a "no" you have the chance to learn why it's not a good fit. That only helps you get more Yeses. The only true failure is never asking. Then you get neither "yes" nor "no."

Instead of going about the presentation like a child playing a scary video game, imagine YOU are the monster in the video game. Overcome your nerves by going straight at it 100%. One perk of the human brain: it is incapable of telling the difference between anxiety & excitement (most of the time). Of course, we want to be mindful of real & immediate threats around us. But for the most part, on a low resolution scale, the brain can sometimes struggle to differentiate "good" anxiety & "good" excitement. This means you can apply the same mindset by thinking of a potentially big prospect (eg public speaking) and turning it into something fun. Something you've never done before. And something you hope to spearhead into before everyone else.

I still get nerves before a major presentation of research findings to senior managers. First know the information Second practice Third believe you got this and know your subject matter Finally if they start to raise objections. Understand why. In the end these are customer perceptions. Showing verbatims from major customers helps For creative posts, I don’t get nervous at all and will take a counter view to current thinking many times

One method I use to induce relaxation is the 4-7-8 breathing method. You inhale for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 7 seconds, then exhale for 8 seconds. Done correctly for 4 minutes, it induces a parasympathetic reflex which relaxes your whole body almost immediately. You can do this before going to bed. I've had great results falling right asleep with this method. But you can also use this trick to calm your nerves before a big presentation. Helps a whole lot.

One thing I have found always helpful is really believing in what you present. The authenticity of this comes across to your audience- guaranteed!