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Connect with Eye Contact
Related to the importance of facing the audience is establishing good eye
contact. Maintaining natural eye contact with the audience is crucial, which
is one of the reasons I advise against reading a script or relying on notes—it’s
hard to look into people’s eyes when your eyes are looking down at notes. Your
eye contact should appear natural, and you achieve this by looking at actual
people in the room. If you instead gaze out at the back of the room or to a
point on either side of the room, your audience will detect this at some level
and the connection will be weakened.
If your audience is relatively small, say, under 50 or so, it may be possible
to actually look everyone in the eye at some point during your talk as you move
deliberately to different parts of the room. For larger audiences in a typical
keynote-style presentation, it is still useful to pick out actual people to lock
eyes with as you speak—even people who are sitting toward the back. By
looking at one person, others near that person will feel as if you are looking at
them as well. This is a technique that professional singers use when playing
larger halls. It is important not to just glance at or scan general areas of a room
but rather to briefly establish actual eye contact with people in different parts
of the room.
Put Energy in Your Voice
It’s true that the best presentations seem more like good conversations, but
there is a difference between speaking with two or three people over coffee
and standing to present to an auditorium of 500 people after lunch. Your tone
should be conversational, but your energy must be cranked up several notches.
If you are enthusiastic, the energy will help project your voice. Mumbling is
absolutely not permitted, and neither is shouting. Shouting is usually not
sustainable and it’s very unpleasant for the audience. When you shout, the
volume may go up but the richness of your voice, the peaks and valleys of
your unique intonation, are lost. So stand tall, speak up, and articulate clearly,
but be careful not to let your speaking evolve into shouting as you speak with
energy and project your voice.
Should you use a mic? If your room is a regular-size classroom or conference
room with space for only 10 to 30 people, then a mic may not be necessary.
But in almost every other case, a microphone is a good idea. Remember, it is
not about you, it is about them. Giving the audience even just a slight bump
242 Presentation Zen