Setting aside for a minute the old claims that speaking in public is the greatest fear of the greatest number of people it’s certainly true that for a significant number of people it’s a difficult thing to do. Standing up in front of a group of people is - to be blunt - setting yourself up as a target. By standing at the front you’re self-proclaiming that you’re an expert and that you know more than your audience does. As Terry Pratchett would say, that’s akin to standing on a tall mountain in copper armour in a lightening storm, waving your sword high in the air and shouting “All gods are bastards”! 
Or is it?
Well it’s the perception of many of the people I train, certainly. They tend to be people who don’t want to be presenters: they want to be engineers, or managers, or accountants or…. whatever, but they find that for one reason or another they have to be engineers and presenters, or managers and presenters or….. You get the idea. They don’t want to be there and they assume the audience doesn’t want them to be there either. They may be right, or they may not, but either way I want to suggest a radicle alternative mentality here - the idea that by being at a presentation the members of the audience accept some form of responsibility for it.
Think of it as a contract.
Rather like in the theatre, there’s an implied contract between the actors and the audience: the former implicitly agree to speak up and the latter implicitly agree to listen. My wife will tell you - she’s a teacher - that teaching is a game with known contractual rules. The teacher agrees to teach and the pupils agree to learn. When that contract is broken by one side or the other there’s a degree of dis-harmony results.
As a presenter, the responsibility is certainly on you to present - and to do so in a way which is suitable for the audience. However, there is also the responsibility of the audience to pay attention, at least at first, long enough to see if you’re keeping your side of the bargin.
That mentality is tremendously empowering for presenters because it means they don’t shoulder the entire responsibility for a presentation. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying they don’t shoulder the lion’s share and I’m certainly not saying it’s not their responsibility to sort it out if it’s going wrong. What I am saying is that the audience signs up to the implied contract of being attentive and having goodwill, at least at first, by the very act of them being there for your presentation.
(I’m assuming that they’re not attending under threats here, obviously! )
Once you realise that as a speaker, you begin to understand that the audience is on your side and that they want you to do well. Otherwise, they’re going to feel slightly foolish for having agreed to “work with you” albeit implicitly.
That should help your nerves considerably, shouldn’t it? People often tell me that the first few minutes of a presentation are the worst: what I’m saying is that this is exactly the time that the audience is on your side by default. I’m not saying don’t be nervous but I am saying that there’s less need for it than you might realise.
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