Eyes: Connecting With Your Audience

Eye contact is like an electric current that keeps audiences tuned in and connected to you. Turn off the current and you disconnect their involvement. If you don’t pay attention to your audience, they will find it difficult to pay attention to you.

Steady, direct eye contact communicates honesty, warmth and authority. Eye contact is essential. When there is eye contact, a highly personal exchange takes place. It is with your eyes that you ‘connect’ with your audience and keep their interest.

Good eye contact is not a fleeting glance; nor is it sweeping your gaze back and forth across an audience like some form of human searchlight. Look into people’s eyes as if you are having a one-to-one conversation. This usually involves keeping eye contact for five to ten seconds before moving on to another person. It may help to imagine you are giving that person a little present, a present of information, and you want that person to feel special, to feel you are actually talking to him or her.

In a large audience when you look at one person, people in the vicinity of that person will also feel you are talking just to them. In a large group talk to individuals all over the room as a way of making everyone feel the presentation belongs to them. Keep your head up and vary the direction of your gaze.

Nervous people are likely to want to look anywhere but at the audience. The ceiling, the floor, the screen all become more preferable than the terrifying prospect of looking into someone’s eyes. As a rule, aim to speak to someone all the time, accepting that you may need to break eye contact to look at your notes, pick up a prop or read a passage.

Think twice about handing out props or handouts. You might be competing with them for the eyes and interest of your audience.

Some Dos And Don’ts

Do:

Don’t:

Fig. 10. Tips for improving eye contact.

Voice: Developing A Conversational Tone

Your voice is the vehicle you use to convey your message. You can have an ‘old banger’ that rattles along or a smooth, finely tuned Rolls-Royce. You may have the most fascinating and radical ideas but, if you present in a dull, flat, monotone way, your audience is likely to turn off and not hear those life-changing ideas.

To encourage a conversational voice, use notes or a storyboard – anything that just triggers off ideas for you to talk to your audience about. This not only allows you to appear professional but also allows your personality to shine through.

When you are nervous, your breathing is shallow and the muscles in the throat tense. The voice is deprived of its power and range and loses animation. Deepen the breathing to provide fuel for the voice.

A keyboard that plays only one note is not easy on the ear. Add interest to your voice by varying the tone, pace and volume. Speak softly or slow down for emphasis. This is a bit like verbal highlighting. By using your full range of vocal ‘notes’ you will be easier to listen to.

Fig. 11. Tips for developing an interesting voice.

When you want to impress deeply on your audience, you may want to look directly into their eyes and pause. This has the same effect as a sudden and loud noise: it attracts attention and people are more alert to what you have to say next.

Some Dos And Don’ts

Do:

Don’t:

If you dry up:

Clothes: Dressing For Success

Clothes don’t just cover the body – they communicate and provide a self-portrait of you. What you wear tells your audience something about how you feel about yourself and how you feel about this group. Shirts and blouses speak volumes: colours make announcements and shoes talk. Dress to convey confidence and credibility, and you may want to dress in clothes that allow you to feel good.

The Importance Of Sincerity: Never Sayanything You Don’t Believe In

Why? Because the audience will know. People have a sixth sense – they will be sensitive to those subtle changes (that you probably won’t notice) to voice tone, to your eyes and to your body that lets them know how you are feeling. Something inside them will tell them you are lying, giving a sales pitch, nervous or your smile is phoney. Always assume your audience will know.

Keeping It Simple

Rather than plan your gestures, pauses, movements and smiles, let it all come from your heart, out of your belief and enthusiasm for your topic. Believe:

Now you will pause, gesture and move naturally. An ounce of spontaneity is worth a ton of rules. Your speaking persona is not something you can put on like a dinner jacket.

Summary

"You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.
Confident people stand tall and move purposefully.
Gesture as you would in an animated conversation.
Keep eye contact with your audience and they will keep contact with you.
Speak in a conversational way.
Dress to aid your credibility.
Speak from your heart and you will do a lot of things right."