Practice is absolutely the best thing to do but this little trick worked for me in my early days so I thought I'd pass it on. Get someone you're really close t

Practice is absolutely the best thing to do but this little trick worked for me in my early days so I thought I'd pass it on. Get someone you're really close to like a best friend or a spouse and have them sit in the absolute middle of the audience (or in the middle of the area where you can make out faces). When you start the talk focus directly on them and give the speech as if you were talking to that one person. Once you get a few minutes into the speech and you've gotten over the initial hump start looking around the audience and trying to connect to other people as well. But if you start to feel nervous again go right back to your "safe" person and focus on them for another couple minutes. Then repeat the process until you can connect with the entire audience and be calm doing so. It sounds weird but it worked for me every time.