3 BODY LANGUAGE MUSTS FOR YOUR NEXT PRESENTATION

Your body speaks… Actually, more than your mouth…

We’ve probably all heard Dr Albert Mehrabian’s classical breakdown of communication:

55% communicated through body language

38% communicated through tone of voice

7% communicated through words spoken

These stats may or may not be true... But here’s a fact – your body language matters, especially when you’re delivering a presentation.

Whenever you’re delivering a presentation, you’re trying to persuade and influence. Your aim is to grab your audience’s attention, and convince them with your message.

The way you move, stand and hold your body has a huge baring on your ability to influence. So here are 3 key tips to keep in mind for your next presentation.

#1 – MAINTAIN GOOD EYE CONTACT

Maintaining eye contact is delicate. It’s about finding the balance between simply glancing at people for 1 second, and staring at them like a stalker. The truth is, you need to be consistent and even handed with your eye contact. You should be looking around the room and consistently catching people’s eyes as you make a point.

One way to make sure that you are even and fair with your eye contact distribution is to hold one person’s eye contact while you make a small point, and then move on when your narrative changes. However, you do it, it’s something that you need to engage in.

If you’re looking down at the floor, you look like you lack confidence.

If you’re looking at the ceiling, you look like you’re making stuff up.

If you’re eyes are flicking all around the room, you look nervous.

If you’re considerately engaging your audience with eye contact, and then moving onto the next person, you look calm, confident and in control. And most importantly, your audience feels connected to you.

#2 – KEEP THOSE PALMS OPEN

Open palms say “I come in peace”. When you keep your palms open and facing your audience, subconsciously it’s telling them that you are there to help them and add value. There is a very human and deep-rooted reason for this. It literally shows that you bear no arms, and that you have nothing on you that can harm them.

Think about one of the most universal greetings in the world – the handshake. That is when two people both present their palms to each other, saying, I come in peace, and am here to help, not harm you.

Therefore, when you’re speaking, keep those palms open and facing the audience. Clearly, this may be uncomfortable if you have to do so for the entire time. Plus, if you keep your palms facing that way, you way look like you are slightly robotic. So, feel free to move your hands and gesticulate, but make the open palms your default position. Make sure your audience knows you come in peace.

#3 – SMILE!

You’ve managed to get yourself onto a stage, or at least ion front of people who are willing to listen to what you have to say – that’s something to be very happy about! It means you are respected. It means you know what you’re talking about. It means you should be happy, so smile ??

More than this though, smiling is powerful. When someone sees you smile, then they see you are happy. This conveys confidence, and will mean they see you as an authority. Moreover, they are likely to start smiling too – you see smiling is infectious. As a speaker, having an audience of people smiling back at you is one of the best feelings you can have – this will only happen if you smile first!

“But some of my content is very serious.”

OK, I understand, and each piece of content should be treated with the emotion required. Therefore, if you’re talking about the deaths of thousands of people, it’s obvious that smiling won’t go down well. However, I’ve found that this material is few and far between. Moreover, very few speeches purely consist of dark and serious material. If your next speech only has very serious content in it, then you should probably review and add some light parts in too.

Give yourself and your audience a reason to smile – it’s the least you can do when you have their attention.

These are 3 small body language tips. The truth is, everyone has their own style. However, remember these as they are universal. You can work on your content and delivery as much as you want, but if your body isn’t saying the right things, your message just won’t land ??