No.

Anyone can be a great presenter. Presenting well is not a rare talent, like playing concert-level violin, or shooting 6 under par on a golf course. Presenting well is a skill that anyone can learn with a little focus; it’s more like making tasty Toll House Chocolate Chip cookies, if you follow the recipe and pay attention, you will create a satisfying final product.

If you have ever had a single interesting conversation with one other person, then you already have all of the technical skills you need to be an excellent presenter. You already know how to talk, engage and be understood. So for most people, when learning how to become a great presenter, they do not have to learn a new skill set such as when learning how to play polo where you have to learn out to ride a horse, swing a mallet, aim a ball through a goal, etc.

For most people, fear and nervousness mess them up and psych them out of delivering a good presentation. Once they learn how to stop their nerves from screwing up their presentation, the speaking comes easy because all they have to do is throw in a little organization and add some stories.

I see average executives and salespeople transform into great presenters every day in my training studio here in midtown Manhattan and in conference rooms around the world where I coach people. But don’t take my word for it. Just look at some of the most well-know and well-regarded speakers in History.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. received a grade of “C” in public speaking class while in college.
President John F. Kennedy was such a nervous speaker that people who sat behind him saw his legs shake while he spoke.
Conservative radio talk show Rush Limbaugh host barely passed his college public speaking course.
Reverend Jesse Jackson had a horrible stutter as a child.
Joe Biden (at the time of publishing Biden will either be the Vice President of the United Sates or the 2008 Democratic nominee for Vice President) had a horrible stutter well into his college years—and yet spoke his way into the U.S. Senate at age 29!

Excellent presenters are made; they are not born.

However, becoming great at presenting is a lot easier than becoming great at, say, playing basketball. Just look at the competitive landscape. Every single day millions of young boys and girls around the country and world practice their basketball skills for 1 to 5 hours a day. Millions receive formal instruction from paid coaches. That is a lot of competition. I hate to sound pessimistic, but chances are slim- to-none that you will become a good enough basketball player to play professionally for the NBA. You might even be dedicated enough, fast enough and hard working enough, but if you aren’t nearly 7 feet tall, you just don’t have the raw material needed.

Luckily, presenting isn’t like that. People don’t grow up practicing their presenting skills. People don’t get coached daily for years on their presenting skills. So you and I as presenters have very little completion! The reality is that most presenters are awful, untrained, unrehearsed, boring and ordinary. So you don’t have to do that much to seem great in comparison.

It’s easy to seem great in anything if your standard of comparison is bad enough. For example, I am an awful golfer—I shoot around 150 for a par 72 course. I don’t play a lot of golf and I have no great confidence in my golfing abilities. But imagine if you told me I had to play in a golf tournament against people who had never seen golf before, never held a club before, never heard of golf and didn’t know what clubs to use or even that the goal is to hit the ball in the hole.

Next, imagine you give me 24 hours to prepare, go to the driving range, and perhaps get a lesson. Now it’s time for the golf tournament. You would probably be willing to place a bet on me winning the tournament and I would too. Because in this environment, I would be “great” compared to everyone else. I might even break 140 while everyone else is shooting 200. Tiger Woods doesn’t beat his competition by that great a margin! This should be your mindset when it comes to seeing yourself as a great presenter.

It is crucial for you to realize that you already have all the talents and abilities you need, not to be a competent presenter, an OK presenter or above average presenter. You have everything you need in order to be a great, foolproof presenter.