Making good eye contact in
presentations is a really challenging
thing for a lot of people. So we're gonna
look at a couple of tips to help you
improve your eye contact.
Welcome friends.
I'm Alex Lyon and this is Communication
Coach. The channel that helps you
increase your impact and lead your teams
with more excellence. If you're a team
leader, front-line supervisor, front-line
manager, everything on this channel is
for you. If you haven't yet subscribed, I
encourage you to do so. Today's topic is
presentations. Specifically, how to make
good eye contact in presentations. It's
really hard and a lot of people make
terrible eye contact. They look at the
slides. They look at their notes. They
look over people's heads, off to the side,
on the floor. Anywhere but directly into
people's eyes. And it looks really bad. If
you're a leader, you've got to get this
skill right. There's also a lot of bad
advice out there about eye contact, like
literally look over people's heads or,
you know,
picture them wearing their pajamas or
underwear and then it gets a little
easier. Even, this is not terrible advice,
but sometimes people say only look at
the people that you know and that you're
already friendly with. Well, that might
help break the ice but I can tell you
right now that's not what really skilled
presenters do. That's not what
professional level or strong people, when you
see someone, like wow they're a great
public speaker,
they're not doing any of those things. So
here's what they are doing. Tip number one.
Your goal should be to make direct eye contact
ninety-nine percent of the time. So if
you have to look at your notes, you have
to look at your slide, for whatever
reason, you're just bouncing off and
you're right back onto people.
Ninety-nine percent of the time should
be your goal while you're presenting.
It's a little different in conversations
and we have another video about how to
make eye contact in pres- in
conversations and I'll put the link in
the description below to that one, but
when you're presenting, ninety-nine
percent of the time you're locked in.
So what does direct eye contact look like?
You want to talk long enough directly at
a person, look directly at them
long enough for you to finish a sentence.
That's basically the guideline, long
enough to finish a thought. Once you feel
a little bit of a connection, then you
move on to the next person. And, third. It
should be your goal to look at every
single person in the room. Let's say
you're presenting to 10 people. You're
going to look at every single person
numerous times. If it's a little bit
bigger group, 25-30 people, you can still
do this. Let's say in a 10-minute
presentation, you're speaking to 30 or
even 40 people, you should be able to
look at every single person in that
10-minute presentation numerous times. If
it's bigger than that, then you probably
already know how to handle it. So you're
talking to a group of a hundred people,
then you're going to pick out certain
areas of the room. But, for most of us,
were speaking to groups of around 10 or 20
maybe 30 people. Every single person. And
when you do so, I don't recommend you
scan around in a robotic way, like you
look at one person then you move on to
the next person in a line. You want to
bounce around a little bit so that
you're looking at different locations in
the room. It will feel a little more
natural that way and it won't feel as
robotic like you're trying to mow people
down. I sometimes see people do it that
way. So the goal is 99% of the time,
long enough to finish a whole
sentence or at least a thought, and then
you move on, and you want to look at
every single person in the room. If you
can do these three things your eye
contact will be off the charts. People
will look at you and say, wow that's a
good presenter. Presentation skills are
really crucial part of leadership.
If people see you're presenting well
they're going to, in their minds, say that
person is a good leader.
There's a connection that people make
between public speaking and leadership.
So, it's one of the great ways for you to
stand up and demonstrate your skill and
it's worth the struggle. At first,
I'll tell you, it seems easy, "long
enough to finish a thought," "one sentence."
At first, this can be a real struggle and
you have to exercise these muscles to
make it feel more comfortable. So
practice this skill make it one of your
little hidden goals every time you
present, to make better and better eye
contacted. Before you know it, you'll be
really locked in. And they'll feel that connection.
They'll buy your message. They'll be
on board that much more. As I mentioned,
if you haven't yet subscribe to the
channel encourage you to do so.
Question of the day for you in the
comments section below, What are YOUR
tips to make great eye contact in
presentations? I would love to hear from
you. So thanks. God bless. And until next
time, I hope you get to use the tips here
in your very next presentation.