Engaging our audience can be a challenge for many speakers and presenters. One of the most effective tools that we have in our Speaker’s Tool Box to do that is eye contact. Learning good eye contact techniques can be a game changer for a speaker/presenter.
Good eye contact techniques can keep your audience engaged throughout your presentation. There a couple of things to keep in mind. you don’t want to favour one part of the audience over another and you certainly don’t want to focus too much on any one person. Your eye contact should be balanced across the entire audience. Scan from left to right, front to rear and alternate. As you scan pause for a second and focus on an individual. If you are speaking to a large audience others around that person will think you are looking at them. This will create the perception of eye contact. If your audience is large it will be impossible to make eye contact with everyone. So it is important that you create the perception.
Some audience members will drift from time to time. Eye contact is an effective way to bring them back into your conversation. This is a time when you would attempt to make eye contact with a specific individual and it may require a couple of seconds. It is important that you don’t spend too long and risk losing other audience members. Once eye contact is established you know they are back into your presentation.
Are you leveraging this power tool?
Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!
Want to learn the 5 Tools (you already have) to become a confident, engaging and effective speaker? Click the link for FREE video training. The Speaker’s Tool Box
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