Gestures, eye contact, voice
When you make the mental shift from talking to presenting, you are entering The Zone. The Zone, one of my favorite topics, is made up of all the non-verbal, psychological, emotional, and physical parts of your presentation. Your gestures, eye contact, and voice are all important parts of The Zone.
Gestures
Gestures are an outside expression of internal attitude. They create the first visual imprint for the listener and will elicit the first instinctive response: positive, negative, or indifferent. With gestures, the four most important attributes are: calm, open, balanced, and definitive.
Your gestures should be comfortable, natural, deliberate, open, extended, emphatic, and meaningful.
When you use gestures, keep your hands and gestures open: no finger pointing, crossed arms, or clenched fists. Always remember this succinct little rule: movement matches meaning. Think of hands as relaxed mittens, not gloves. Do not separate out your fingers, which is a subconscious indication of tension. Make sure your hand gestures are not “below the belt” so that the listeners’ eyes are not drawn downward, reducing visual distractions.
Eye contact and connection
Eye contact is a non-verbal signal that creates a connection, or bond, with a listener. (Again, we are building rapport through connecting with the audience.)
Look people in the eye. Forget the old speech class adage to look at people’s hair or above their heads, or to visualize them naked (if you visualize your audience naked, it makes it even harder to look them in the eyes!). Do not look at the foreheads of your audience members. (Have you ever seen an actor portray a blind person? They do so by looking at their acting partner’s forehead.)
Make a connection with the individuals in the audience with your eyes. When you do that, you will feel an electric zap…a click. Arrive at a natural breaking point in your thoughts, feel the click, and move to another audience member.
Voice
A voice can subconsciously repel or attract an audience. The most important suggestion for the use of voice as a persuasive tool is to be your conversational self when you present. Be prepared, organized, and a rehearsed– but be yourself. Present with energy, emphasis, and variety, and you will control an audience’s attention.
Projection
Your breath is the source of a well-projected voice. What is “projection?” First of all, it is not synonymous with volume (“loud or soft.”) It is the force with which we speak, which affects the FORCE of our message. To help you project your voice, picture a large red circle on the back wall. Your goal is to send your voice on a wave of air to hit that circle, and then bounce your voice off the walls! Energy will then fill the room . . . and people will listen and be engaged.
Enunciation
If you want to have a crisp, professional, and articulate speaking voice, here’s a trick: make sure that you pronounce your consonants clearly. This is referred to as clear enunciation. To improve enunciation, read aloud from the newspaper five minutes a night for two weeks, emphasizing precise pronunciation of consonants. Force lazy lips and a lazy tongue to work at sounding all the letters in a word, not just the vowels. Emphasize the last consonant of each sentence. Consonants carry the force and structure of a message; vowels carry the emotion.
Speed
Am I racing and spilling one word into another? Do I need to slow down, because, as a Southerner once said about a northern friend, “He talks faster than I can listen”? Conversely, am I talking too slowly, lumbering along and sapping my energy – and my audience’s energy — with too many lengthy pauses?
Pitch and tone
Is my voice too high, like a cartoon character’s voice, or is it too dull, low and monotonous? Is it too high or a cavernous drone? When I speak, do I send my air though my nose rather than my mouth? Do I sound breathy, like Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday Mr. President, or do I sound strong, forceful, and confident?
In sum, your gestures, eye contact, and voice will indicate your energy level, preparedness, stress level, and confidence – or lack of it.
