It’s Called Presenting, Not Talking Out Loud Page 5
the best advice I can give is to be natural. Be
comfortable in your own skin. This takes practice for
some of us and comes a bit easier for the rest of us.
And again, when you own your content, you feel
comfortable. You have ful command of the room.
Here are some general take-aways on body
language:
• I tend to walk around the room a bit. Obviously,
this also depends a bit on the logistics of the
room. Just make sure it’s not arbitrary. If done
properly, this can be very purposeful. Walking
around the room at times keeps people’s eyes on
you and it literally keeps the air in the room
flowing and fresh. In a larger room, it also gives
your audience the feeling that you’re giving all
sides of the room attention.
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• While there may be times when you have no
choice but to speak behind a podium, my advice
is to avoid them. Don’t hide behind podiums!
Show yourself. With some exceptions, podiums
are for those who don’t like to speak.
• While I don’t put much emphasis on whether you
have your shoulders parallel to your feet, etc.,
I’ve noticed that some men tend to have their
feet glued to the floor and they end up rocking
their bodies back-and-forth. I’ve never
understood that, so just please avoid it.
• To be an equal opportunity critic for a moment, I
sometimes see women cross their feet. This can
be a sign of nervousness or taking the
presentation too casually. Please also be mindful
of this and try your best to avoid it.
• Make sure that you don’t have any “lazy” head
movements. I’ve seen head movements that just
don’t coincide with anything. People notice that
sort of thing, believe me.
You want to create a balance between running the
presentation and physical y connecting with your
audience.
It’s also worth mentioning how crucial your physical
proximity to your audience is. I’ve seen many
presenters stand near the wall and away from their
audience. I don’t believe this in intentional, but it
does send the wrong message. Even if you don’t
walk around the room and choose to stay stationary,
try not to be physically distant. You don’t want to
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breathe down people’s throats, but at the same time don’t be shy. Get a little close. Show some warmth.
FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND
MISCONSTRUED INTENT
Facial expressions are clearly important. But I think
there’s something about them that needs to be
addressed. I’ve seen some presentations over the
years where the intro was meant to be fairly
straightforward, but the audience began laughing. In
a case like that, I’m critical of the presenter. If it was
meant to be straightforward, then they didn’t do
enough to keep it straightforward. If it was, indeed,
meant as a joke and the audience started laughing,
wel the presenter “got away” with their poor facial
expressions and the audience gave them a freebie.
They got lucky on that one.
So make sure that you can control your facial
expressions and they relate back to your intent. If
there’s something poignant you are sharing at one
point in your presentation, for example, don’t be
afraid to open your eyes wider than usual – or
whatever the occasion may call for.
THE POWER OF A SMILE
Don’t underestimate the power of a smile. If you’re
doing a presentation that doesn’t call for a smile,
whether because of a hostile audience, a sad
situation, etc., then obviously don’t. In general,
though, a smile can go a long way. Granted women
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might be naturally a bit better at this than men.
When a presenter smiles, it causes audience
members to smile and that’s powerful.
Have you ever noticed that when you’re walking
down the street by yourself, thinking of something
positive and you are naturally smiling, strangers
passing in the other direction wil give you a smile or
partial smile back? You’re radiating positive energy.
If it works on the street with strangers, trust me, it
wil also work in a control ed environment like during
presentation or speech.
EYE CONTACT
While also overstated, effective eye contact is a
prerequisite for effective presentations. Poor eye
contact can sometimes indicate either a lack of
confidence or lack of interest. Over the years I’ve
noticed and categorized three general patterns:
Good eye contact
People with good eye contact have the ability to look
at others while they’re speaking, even when it
speaking to crowds of people. When you give your
audience good eye contact, you are “in the
moment,” truly connecting your eyes with your
audience as you deliver your presentation. The key
is to provide as equal of an amount of your eye
contact to the entire audience, to the extent that it
makes sense, of course.
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Limited eye contact
Limited eye contact means that people are utilizing
effective eye contact techniques, but only for a small
range of their audience. For example, in a room of
20 people, they might be providing good eye contact
to only about 3 or 4 (25 percent). This is quite
common. Perhaps you’re in eye contact of those you
trust or find pleasing. You’l need to practice not
relying on that all of the time and be more
democratic.
No (or poor) eye contact
This one is obvious. People with no eye contact do
two things— essentially, they either look at the floor
the entire time or look/read from their slides. At
times, poor eye contact may appear to be eye
contact when it really isn’t. This occurs when people
stare blankly, essentially looking at nothing or
looking “through” the audience. Don’t look through
people, look at them.
Another sign of poor eye contact is when the speaker
attempts to look at the audience but instead he/she
looks at the adjacent wall at about eye level. By
looking at the adjacent wall, they are essentially
looking at nothing.
IMPROVING EYE CONTACT
I’l be honest, there’s no overnight solution for those
with poor eye contact, but it’s fixable with the right
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techniques. There are several things you want to first figure out about yourself before you can identify
exactly what needs improvement in your
presentations.
Are you the type who walks down the halls of your
company and puts your head down when someone
you don’t know walks by? You have to be honest
with yourself. If so, you may have a general lack of
confidence. That’s most likely a larger issue than just
prese
nting and outside the scope of this guide. What
about when you watch someone else speak? Do you
get uncomfortable when someone with good eye
contact makes eye contact with you?
If you don’t get uncomfortable when others speak
and make eye contact with you, that’s a good start.
Perhaps you’re concerned with how long you make
eye contact with them. Your poor eye contact might
stem from a fear that it may come across as though
you’re staring, or maybe even creepy? If the length
of time is what is holding you back, look at their eyes
for a few seconds before you look at another part of
their face and then go back to their eyes, etc.
You don’t have to “gaze” into someone’s eyes in
some type of romantic way to provide good eye
contact. In other words, you don’t have to be
intense about it as though you’re trying to profess
your love for them. Remember, you’re not staring,
you’re looking. You don’t have to look directly into
someone’s pupils if you’re not comfortable. Instead,
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you can look around and near their eyes before you get more comfortable.
If you’ve practiced this and are now more
comfortable on an individual level, things should get
easier for presentations. You want to provide equal
amount of eye contact with everyone, especially for
smaller audiences of 40 or less. Some people may
tel you to practice by making a pattern in your mind,
like a “Figure 8.” Do this only if you really need it.
But I wouldn’t recommend this for two reasons:
1. It seems like that would take more brain power
than it should, brain power that can be used
elsewhere for better purposes.
2. If you’re truly doing a pattern, do you really want
to be doing a “continuous loop,” like a robot?
While presenting to large audiences, actual eye
contact wil probably only happen with certain
people in the audience. You’ll stil want to divide the
room up, in thirds or quadrants, and practice the
concept of giving each section approximately equal
amounts of eye contact.
Once you begin to get better at this, I think
ultimately the best eye contact should be natural. If
you’re sitting in the audience, wouldn’t you want the
presenter to give you some of their attention from
time-to-time via eye contact? I think most people
would say yes.
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As I previously said, when you’re giving a
presentation you’re working for the audience. You
have to work!
YOUR “POKER” FACE
Whether in a corporate or classroom setting, I can
guarantee your audience is not going to be made up
of equally-attentive listeners. That’s just a fact. In
any audience, whether we know them or not, we
have people who wil give us more of their attention,
give us consistent eye contact, tune in to what we’re
saying, etc. We wil also have audience members
whose negative body language suggests that they
don’t care or are indifferent. They may be
distracted, not even looking, etc.
I know what you’re thinking: Not only is it
disheartening when we are up in front of an
audience giving an important talk and we don’t
receive the attention we feel we deserve, but we
may have a natural tendency to ignore them too.
Unfortunately, you can’t do that. Let’s be realistic.
The audience members that give you positive
attentiveness are the ones who you’l probably make
more eye contact with and be in close physical
proximity. However, you can’t ignore the less
attentive ones. You have to create a “poker face”
and, while you may not be thril ed—and believe me,
this has happened to me in both corporate and
classroom situations— you wil stil need to give
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them eye contact and some of your positive body language as wel .
Whenever you’re in a speaking position, you’re in a
leadership position. That’s on you. If they stil don’t
respond, at least you did your part. Honestly,
though, if your presentation is long enough (a few
hours in total, etc.), you have a chance of winning
over some of those inattentive audience members.
IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT YOU
Sometimes audience members who appear
inattentive and as though they don’t care may be
having a bad day or may be distracted for completely
different reason unrelated to you. Perhaps they
have a headache; maybe they just got off the subway
in the middle of a July heatwave and need a few
minutes to cool off. It’s even possible that their
natural disposition causes them to appear
withdrawn, but they are actually listening intently.
Therefore, you want to be aware of those audience
members but not jump to any premature
conclusions. If you write them off by ignoring them,
then they may truly be turned off. So, don’t read too
much into it. Be a little patient and, more
importantly, be a leader. Not always, but
sometimes, you’l be pleasantly surprised at the
outcome.
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INFLECTION, TONE, PITCH
Being monotone is a universally bad thing. I’m sure
you’ve heard this. Speaking in a monotone way
means that there is no pitch variety. Everything you
say sounds the same. Have you ever known
someone to suffer from the fol owing issues?
• They’re trying to be sarcastic, but it comes across
as serious?
• They have something exciting and positive to say
but it’s tough for them to convince you that they
are excited?
• They have some bad news to share but they
don’t seem upset?
• They always sound tired when they speak?
Honestly, I’m don’t want to be harsh, but no one
wants to listen to a monotone speaker. There should
be a natural element to adjusting your pitch as you
speak. Sometimes we need to exaggerate a little.
Sometimes A LOT! Sometimes we need to
remember to emote. Our voice should have rhythm
to it and you need to allow it to go up and down as
needed.
The good news is that I simply don’t believe that
people who are monotone can’t do anything about
it. If you were to take each monotone speaker and
observe them in their personal lives, or at least in a
non-presenting capacity, I bet you would see them in
a different light. I would bet money that they are not
monotone.
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It might be easier than you think to help improve this if you’ve been accused of being monotone.
Remember there are really only three ways your
voice can go. Up, down, or level. Al three are
necessary. But you need to practice when to use
them in harmony.
Consider this: Would you necessarily say the
fol owing senten
ces in the same exact way?
• Tomorrow is garbage day. Make sure to leave
the garbage curbside.
• I just got an offer for my dream job. I’ve been
interviewing with that company for months and I
final y got it.
I would hope that you’d have more expression in
your voice with respect to landing your dream job as
opposed to reminding someone to take out the
garbage.
I once observed someone giving a really solid
presentation, until he began speaking about his
subject being involved in scandals and sex tapes. He
presented it in a flat way, unfortunately. He said the
words “scandals and sex tapes” in the same way that
you would say a word like “door knob.” He was
trying to make a point, but his voice had no impact.
What a miss!
Also, don’t make the mistake of simply raising your
volume. If all you do is raise your volume, now
you’re stil being monotone, only louder. You’ve
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probably made it worse and more painful for the audience.
If you’re not a loud talker, it doesn’t necessarily
mean you are monotone, so for those of you who
speak more softly, your style may be perfectly fine,
as is. I’ve witnessed many presentations where
people have a naturally softer voice, but they stil
deliver a great presentation. The highs and lows in
their pitch stil exist.
EXAGGERATION
It’s perfectly acceptable to dramatize your speech in
parts that call for it. Just don’t go overboard.
Sometimes folks go in the other direction and end up
too emotive. It comes across as disingenuous and as
if you’re overcompensating.
Al ow me to indulge for a moment and qualify what I
mean by excessive exaggeration. There used to be a
perfectly fine word that unfortunately no longer
seems to exist – “amazing.” The word was useful
and had purpose. Some things in life were amazing.
Overcoming adversity, climbing Mount Everest,
winning the little league championship when no one
thought your kid’s team ever had a chance, etc.
But the true meaning of that word disappeared, and
now everything these days is A-MAAAZING! Getting
a sandwich from the corner deli is apparently A-
MAAAZING! See my point?
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Please do yourself, me, and the entire world a favor and stop abusing that word. Pretty please? If
everything is so A-MAAAZING, from you being proud