The Accidental Communicator

Is The Telephone Really A Stage For A Speaker?

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:00:26 +0000

How Can You Make The Phone Work For You, Not Against You?

When we are on the stage giving a speech, even if this is not easy for us to do, at least we know what we need to do. We can learn how to keep the audience’s attention, we know how to communicate information effectively, and basically we understand the importance of public speaking. We also understand how to interpret all of the signals that the audience is sending our way. All of this knowledge may be contributing to why so many speakers do such a poor job of communicating with groups when a telephone is involved…

Why A Telephone Is A Scary Thing

So why do we speakers have such trouble when we have to participate in a teleconference? I think that it all stems from one simple thing: we don’t know what to do. We’re used to being the star of the show and having everyone stare at us and that’s awfully hard to do when you are on the other sides of a telephone. No presentation tips are going to help you here!

Got Notes?

The first thing that you can do to make your next teleconference go better is to learn to take notes. Look, you’re not standing up on a stage and so nobody’s know that you’ve got a pad of paper and a pencil on the table in front of your phone.

If you take the time to jot down some notes about what’s been said on the teleconference, then when it comes your time to speak, you’re going to sound like the smartest person in the room – even if you’re the only person in the room! You don’t have to take detailed notes. Just note down enough to trigger your memory when you glance at the paper and that should do the trick.

No Robots Allowed!

If there’s one thing that we all hate is when we have to listen to one of those “robot” answering machines when we call companies. What you need to realize is that since the other people on a teleconference can’t see you, the sound of your voice is all that they have to go off of. The last thing the world that you want to be doing is to be trying their listening skills!

This means is that you need to be careful to not talk in a monotone. The use of vocal variety (changing your voice’s pitch and rate) becomes very important when that’s the only way that you have for a teleconference audience to “see” you.

Let Your Telephone Audience “See” What You Mean

Although we don’t quite live in the era of Dick Tracy’s video conferencing wristwatch, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make visuals part of your next teleconference. The easiest way to go about doing this is to distribute your slides or other visuals before the call starts. Then while you are talking, you can reference your visuals and the audience on the line can follow along.

Know When To End The Show

One of the basic rules to giving a good speech also applies to hosting a successful teleconference: wrap it up on time. Nobody will think kindly of you if you run over the time that you scheduled for the call (in fact, they might just hang up); however, they’ll all love you if you can wrap things up a bit early and give them some of their precious time back.

Wrap It Up So That They Remember What You Said

You can make sure that the teleconference was worth everyone’s time by wrapping it up correctly. You do this by taking a moment at the end of the call to review what was covered and to make sure that everyone knows what the important points were. By doing this you’ll be assured that everyone leaves the call with the same view of what was discussed.

What All Of This Means For You

When you place a speaker on one end of a telephone and his or her audience on the other end, all of the rules that we’ve learned as speakers seem to go flying out the door. We need to learn how to do a better job.

It turns out one of the benefits of public speaking is that it’s not that hard to conduct an effective teleconference if you go about it in the correct manner. This means that you’re going to have to take notes so that you don’t get lost, you’re going to have to use as much vocal variety as you can in order to retain interest, and you’ll have to review what you’ve said before you wrap things up on time.

In the world of the 21st Century in which we find ourselves living, more and more often we’re going to have to communicate with groups of people using the telephone. What this means for us speakers is that we’re going to have to adjust how we talk. We can still be effective, but only if we are the ones who change in order to meet the needs of our audiences.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: How long do you think that a teleconference should run – how long is too long?

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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

As public speakers, because we know the importance of public speaking, we try very hard to be as comfortable as we can be on a stage in front of an audience. If we try hard enough and get enough chances to speak to an audience (whom we hope have good listening skills), then we have an opportunity to get good at doing this. However, this can all fly out the door if we find ourselves in a TV studio someday staring at a teleprompter. What is this thing and how do we use it?

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Dr. Jim Anderson To Speak At 16th Annual Pink Conference

Dr. Jim Anderson — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:01:26 +0000

Dr. Jim Anderson has been asked to deliver two speeches at the 16th Annual Pink Conference. The role that Blue Elephant Consulting plays in the IT industry has been recognized as being a thought leader and the organizers of the Pink Conference have asked Dr. Anderson to share some of his insights with the conference attendees. Dr. Anderson will be delivering two speeches at the conference in Las Vegas on Monday, February 20th.

The first speech that Dr. Anderson will be giving will be giving is titled “The Secret To Knowing Where You Are Going“. In this speech Dr. Anderson will be discussing the Balanced Scorecard management technique and showing the audience how it can be applied to an IT department. Dr. Anderson’s goal will be to build a complete IT balanced scorecard during his presentation. He’ll also be showing how a single balanced scorecard can be used to monitor a department’s performance, communicate it’s strategy, and even ensure the proper execution of its strategy.

Dr. Anderson’s second speech is called “Secrets For Getting Them To Listen“. In this speech Dr. Anderson will be covering the common mistakes that IT professionals make when they are asked to deliver a presentation. It’s not that they don’t know the material, rather it’s how they create their presentation and how they deliver it. Dr. Anderson will address both of these issues by using his presentation to create a complete IT presentation the correct way. He’ll introduce and use the Blue Elephant Presentation System to create an effective presentation that the audience will be talking about long after the presentation is over.

You are invited to join Dr. Anderson and attend both of his presentations — all you have to do is sign up for the 16th Annual Pink Conference. Here’s the link and I hope to see you there!

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How To Give A Great Speech Even When You Aren’t There

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:00:40 +0000

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Who Ever Said That You Had To Show Up To Give A Good Speech?

Hey speaker, how good of a speaker are you when you don’t get a chance to show up? I’m not talking about blowing off a speaking gig, rather I’m talking about that virtual stage that all of us find ourselves occupying all too often: the teleconference. You might not view this as an opportunity to give a speech, but it is!

Why Nobody Likes Teleconferences

We all seem to spend a lot of our time in teleconferences, why does nobody seem to like them? It is my personal belief that despite the fact that most of these calls are designed to give a speaker an opportunity to share information with everyone else on the call, this rarely happens.

For some odd reason, most teleconference speakers don’t seem to do a good job of giving a speech that is designed for the teleconference environment. They can’t use the common presentation tips to make what they are saying have more impact. It might be that all too often the presenter is sitting alone in an office somewhere and they are just talking to a phone. This may allow them to forget that they are talking to a group of people and are trying to convince them of something.

Perhaps what we should do is to take just a moment and review what speakers need to do in order to make their next teleconference a success.

How To Solve The #1 Problem With Teleconferences

The biggest problem with teleconferences is that they are, after all, teleconferences. What this means is that everyone on the call is going to be unable to use their most valuable asset: their eyes. Instead they are going to have to rely on their imperfect listening skills.

You may be the most magical speaker out there, but even you would benefit if your teleconference audience could see you. That’s why it’s important that long before the teleconference starts you do some checking to see if you can change it from being a teleconference into a video conference. There are a lot of ways to do this: WebEx, Skype, etc.

Always Start With Enough Time To Finish

All speeches need to be able to fit into the allocated time. This means that you are going to have to clearly communicate to everyone that you can’t see just exactly what is going to happen during the call.

The simplest way to go about doing this is to create and distribute an agenda before the teleconference starts. This way everyone will know who is talking (you) and they’ll know how long you’ll be talking.

A Positive Attitude Is Required

I really shouldn’t have to say this, but your attitude is key to how your message is going to be received. If you start out with a positive attitude, no matter if you are talking about a change that has already happened or if you are talking about changes that may be coming, you’ll capture your audience’s attention.

You need to keep in mind that you can’t see your audience. Since you want them to focus on what you are saying, and not be working on their email, then you need to be delivering a message that they’ll want to hear. Being positive is a key part of doing this well.

It’s Not All About You

Many of us are used to getting up on a stage, delivering a speech, and then getting off of the stage. It turns out that a teleconference is a different type of beast. You need to find ways to include your audience in what you are saying.

One simple way to do this is to ask questions while you are talking. You may or may not want to get people to speak up with answers, but in today’s modern office environment you can get people to instant message or even email their answers to you even while you talk. Find ways to include your audience and they’ll be even more interested in what you are saying.

Always Know Where You Are

One of the most powerful things that a speaker has going for him or her when we are on a stage is that our audience can’t leave. Well, actually they could, but social pressure causes most of them to stay in their seats while we’re talking.

However, on a teleconference your audience can easily drift away while you’re talking. In fact, if you talk for too long, then they will almost undoubtedly leave and you may end up talking only to yourself.

The best way to prevent this from happening is to keep track of your time. Respect the fact that your audience has other things to do and other places to go. Make sure that you end early and leave plenty of time for questions about what you’ve said at the end.

What All Of This Means For You

So it turns out that really doesn’t matter what you think about teleconferences – they are here to stay. As a speaker, you need to start to look at these events as an opportunity to give a phone-based speech. This is a unique situation that truly shows the importance of public speaking skills.

However, there are a lot of different ways that a speaker can miss out on taking full advantage of this speaking opportunity. When your audience can’t see you or when you try to pack too much information into too short of a time, you’re going to be doomed to failure. You can boost your odds of success by starting with a positive attitude and making sure to include your remote audience. Finally, although it’s always important, it’s even more important while on a teleconference to keep track of your time.

Speakers have a skill set that most other people don’t have – we know how to effectively communicate information to an audience. One of the benefits of public speaking is that we’ve done this before. We need to remember all of the speaking skills that we’ve developed when we are on a teleconference. If we can do this, then just maybe next time our audience will be looking forward to their next teleconference with us.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: What do you think that the maximum time that a teleconference should run is?

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Stop! Public Speakers Need To Step Away From The PowerPoint…

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:00:13 +0000

Image Credit

Sometimes using PowerPoint is the wrong decision to make…

When somebody asks you to give a speech do you start thinking about the PowerPoint (or Keynote for you Mac users) slides that you’ll have to create? Do you ask the person how long the speech needs to be just in order to determine how many slides that you’ll need to make? Stop! Maybe it’s time that we all take a step back from the keyboard and those books about PowerPoint presentation tips and instead spend a moment thinking about when it’s appropriate to use PowerPoint – and when it’s not!

When Should You Use PowerPoint?

We all like to make fun of PowerPoint – have you heard the phrase “death by PowerPoint”? Even though we dread going to presentations that other people are going to be showing us their PowerPoint slides, we have no problem creating volumes of slides to use at our presentation.

This all leads to the interesting question: maybe we should all stop using PowerPoint all together? Well, maybe — but probably not. PowerPoint was created and has caught on for a reason – it’s very good at doing what it was intended to do.

What PowerPoint does well is to help a speaker to boost the importance of their public speaking by helping them to visually display information. Things that could require a long explanation in order to make our audience understand what we are talking about can be quickly communicated using PowerPoint. It gives us the ability to share graphs, charts, photos, and even videos as a part of a speech. This is powerful stuff.

When Should You Not Use PowerPoint?

With all that being said, you might be lead to believe that every speech needs to have a bit of PowerPoint added to it. Now there you’d be wrong. Many of the speeches that we give, such as motivational speeches, are really all about the speaker – you. These kinds of speeches call for your audience to use their listening skills, not their eyes in order to learn. Adding PowerPoint, or even worse the wrong kind of PowerPoint, to this type of speech can take away from your main message.

What’s going on here is that we all need to learn how to take a step back and make a decision about using PowerPoint with a speech long before we sit down at a keyboard and start to pull our next slide deck together.

The first thing that should come into your mind is the simple fact that you need to decide on what the purpose of your next speech is. What is the strategy that you’re going to use to get your message across to your audience? Once you know this, then you can consider if PowerPoint will help or hinder your ability to accomplish it.

If you do choose to use PowerPoint then you’ve got another decision to make. You’ve got to determine how many slides you want to use. You may be surprised to learn that the correct answer is “as few as possible”. You want to use just enough slides to help you get your point across and not one more. Create a slide deck and then go through it cutting out as many slides as you possibly can. When you can cut no more, then you’ve got the right number of slides.

What All Of This Means For You

PowerPoint is a powerful tool that public speakers can use to communicate information visually – after all, isn’t this one of the benefits of public speaking? However, if we’re not careful we’ll end up using it when we really shouldn’t.

If you are going to be giving a speech in which your goal is to communicate information, then using PowerPoint may be a good idea. As always, you need to take steps to make sure that your slides don’t overwhelm the message that you are trying to convey.

If instead of communicating information, you are trying to inspire or motivate an audience, then think twice about using PowerPoint. Create the strategy that you want to use with your speech and identify the message that you want to get across. Then determine how many, if any, slides you’ll need in order to accomplish this task.

As with all powerful tools, PowerPoint can either help or hinder your next speech. When asked to speak, spend your time thinking about what you want to accomplish and then determine if PowerPoint can help you do this. Not the other way around!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: Do you think your speech could be more powerful if your audience is expecting you to use PowerPoint slides and you don’t?

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Learn How To Get Over Your Fear Of Pecha Kucha

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:00:52 +0000

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Don't let the strange name keep you away from this presentation style…

So how hip and cool are you? If you are both hip and cool, then I don’t even have to tell you what “Pecha Kucha” is because you already know. If, however, you are like the rest of us, then you might be scratching your head right about now and saying something like “I’ve never heard of it and, by the way, how do you even pronounce that?” I’ll answer your questions in reverse order. It’s pronounced “Paw-Chalk-Ahh-Cha”. Now what it is will take just a bit longer to explain…

Live Life Fast – Say Hello To Pecha Kucha

So here’s an interesting question for you: how did the last meeting that you attended in which the presenter used PowerPoint (or KeyNote for the Mac users out there) go? I’m willing to bet that it didn’t go all that well: boring slides, boring delivery, and it was probably just waaay too long. There are no clever presentation tips that are going to change this around.

The world has been dealing with this situation for quite some time now. What seems to have happened is the arrival of the ability to project a slide onto a wall has allowed “slide abuse” or perhaps I should say “audience abuse” to run rampant. Despite the importance of public speaking , the number of slides that presenters use in a vain attempt to get their point across has grown almost out of control.

The problem isn’t with the presentation software that they are using. Rather, the problem is with how it’s being used – or really overused. What we all need to do here is to take a step back and try to recapture the benefits of public speaking – we need to see if we can come up with a better way of doing this stuff.

I think that we can all agree that when we are giving presentations, less is truly more. The real question is, how much less? One slide? Two slides? 100 slides? Oh, and then there is the issue of how long we should be talking for. Some of us could go on for hours even if we only had a single slide. Hmm, if only there was some way to standardize all of this stuff. Perhaps Pecha Kucha can show us the way…

How You Can Use Pecha Kucha To Become A Better Speaker

Good news! There is, sorta, a standard for how we can improve our presentations. Now right off the bat, I need to tell you that this novel approach is not right for every presentation; however, it’s at least worth a consideration when you are asked to give your next short presentation.

The presentation technique is called Pecha Kucha. It’s designed to allow a fair amount of information to be delivered quickly. There are only two rules involved when you are giving a presentation using the Pecha Kucha technique: you can only use 20 slides and you can only spend 20 seconds on each slide. Do the math and you’ll realize that your presentation is only going to last 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

I can already hear some of you starting to complain: “No way, my material is too important to fit into that time period.” Hmm, maybe it is. However, the real question is what are people taking away from your presentations? If they aren’t getting out of your presentation what they need to be, then perhaps it’s time to consider making a change in how you are delivering the information.

What Pecha Kucha can do is to turn any presentation into a dynamic flow of information. 20 seconds is not a very long period of time. You are going to be unable to use slides stuffed with lots of words. You are going to have to trim your speech down so that you can get one point across per slide. You’ll only have 20 slides to work with so you are going to have to be crystal clear about what the point that you’re trying to make is.

Using the Pecha Kucha presentation format is not an easy thing for those of us who are used to taking our time to get our point across. It’s sorta like changing over from jogging to running a 1 mile race. Sure you can do it, it’s just that it’s so different that it’s going to cause you some getting started problems. Take the time to use this new way of presenting once and then you’ll be able to make the determination as to if Pecha Kucha is a presentation style that you should start to use more often.

What All Of This Means For You

If you liked the world the way that it used to be, sorry about that. Things change and we all have to change along with them. The Pecha Kucha presentation style has arrived and things will never be the same.

This presentation style is not right for every presentation that you might be asked to give (thank goodness!) However, its popularity should be sending all of us a clear message: our audiences are tired of having to use their listening skills and still ending up being bored. They want us to get up there, tell them what we have to tell them, and then move on.

Use this message to speed up both the flow of your speech as well as any multimedia that you use in it. Next time you have a chance to give a presentation, consider bringing Pecha Kucha to the meeting!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: What types of presentations do you think that Pecha Kucha would not be appropriate for?

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Learn To Write Better Speeches In 5 Simple Steps

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:00:53 +0000

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Use these tips to get your ideas across to your audience

You’ve just had the best idea that you’ve ever had for a great speech. You can see it in your mind’s eye so very, very clearly. Now if only you could write a speech that would allow you to get this idea across to your audience as clearly as you see it. Hmm, perhaps there is a way. I’ve got 5 speech writing tips for you that just might help you turn your idea into your audience’s idea…

Don’t Change The Way That You Speak

When we go to write a speech, we often change both the vocabulary and the tone of the words that we use. We start to write to impress, instead of focusing on trying to inform our audience. The next time you write a speech you need to be careful to not do this – no matter how good your audience’s listening skills are, they won’t be able to pay attention to what you are saying if you use the wrong words.

Instead, try to use the words that you normally use in conversation and make the flow of your words match the way that you normally talk. Doing this will make your speech sound more natural to your audience and it will be that much easier for you to read it.

Use Understandable Words

More important than any presentation tips that you use, your ability to connect with your audience is going to be based on the words that you use in your speech. Since you have a limited amount of time to both give your speech and to keep your audience’s attention, make every word count.

When you are writing your speech use precise words. Back up the statements that you make with concrete data. Doing this will make it easy for your audience to understand and to accept the points that you make.

Build On Your Audience’s Experiences

The audience that sits before you during a speech probably shares something in common – that’s why they are there. Take the time while you are writing to picture your audience and ask yourself what it is that ties them together.

Once you know what this is, work it into your speech. Use their shared experiences as a building block for the points that you are going to be making. Doing this helps them to more easily accept what you are saying.

Variety Is Your Friend

The importance of public speaking is something that we all take for granted – it’s important and so that’s why we’re doing it. This also means that the one thing that your audience doesn’t want to be is bored. Take the time to make your sentences different from each other. This means that you need to make your sentences different lengths, and they need to use different structures.

The one thing that you need to be very careful about is introducing too much variety when it comes to the words that you use. If you make your audience have to think about what a word means, then they’ll spend their time doing that and not paying attention the message that you are trying to get across to them.

Write An Invisible Speech

Finally, the best kind of speech is the one that your audience can’t even see. If you do a good job of writing your speech, then your audience won’t be able to remember that they are listening to a prepared speech, they’ll just think that you are up there talking to them.

The key to doing this well is to go light on the number of facts that you include in your speech. Too many facts and you’ll end up reminding your audience that you are reading a speech to them. Just enough facts and they’ll accept you as an expert in the area that you are talking about!

What All Of This Means For You

Speakers who want to connect with their audience need to write speeches that will clearly communicate the points that they want to make – this is one of the benefits of public speaking. In order to make this happen, the next time you write a speech you need to use the 5 tips that we discussed here.

These include writing the way that you speak, you should use precise terms, you should build on the experiences that your audience has had, make use of variety, and write in a way that your speech doesn’t get in the way of your message.

Take the time to use these suggestions the next time that you are writing a speech and you’ll create a masterpiece that allows you to truly connect with your audience and change their lives.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: What’s the best way to test a speech that you’ve written to see if it will really work with your audience before you give it?

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5 Secrets To Writing A Better Speech

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:00:04 +0000

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Before you can give a great speech, you have to write it

We’d all like to be seen as being great speakers. We imagine ourselves as the next Tony Robbins, standing in the middle of a huge stage with a large audience hanging on our every word. I fully support your dream, but perhaps we need to have a talk about how you are going to go about achieving it. Before you can give a great speech, you are going to have to learn how to write a great speech.

Keep It Short!

The first rule that you’re going to have to both learn and live will be to change how you write your sentences. How long should you be making your sentences? Speech writing author Philip Yaffee suggests that you shoot for sentences that are between 15-18 words. He points out that some of your sentences can be longer than this, but on average this is the size that works best for audience retention.

Keep It Simple

When you are choosing the words that you are going to use in your speech, make sure that that “word of the day” desk calendar is nowhere that you can see it. You don’t want your audience to have to work to understand what you are saying. Instead, you want your words to be immediately understood and your ideas absorbed.

Keep It Familiar

This one is pretty simple – don’t go getting all fancy with your speech just because you can. Yeah, yeah – they’ll know what the word means, but it’s going to come out of you sounding funny – they’ll be wondering what boarding school you went to.

Keep It Lean

When we are writing speeches all too often we get into a mode where we stop writing to be heard and start writing to be read. Nobody is ever going to read your speech so don’t do this. Trim out all of the fat – drop any word that is not absolutely necessary.

Keep It Active

When you are giving a speech, you want to be able to reach out to your audience and motivate them to come around to your way of thinking. If this is going to happen, your words are going to have to motivate them to make a change. This means that you’re going to have to use a lot of verbs – this is going to make your message very, very clear.

What All Of This Means For You

In order to become a great speaker, you are first going to have to learn how to write a great speech. The good news is that this is something that any of us can learn to do if only we follow the rules.

When writing your next speech make sure that you write your speech to be heard, not read. This means that you’re going to have use short sentences, keep it simple, keep it familiar, cut out the fat, and make sure that you use a lot of verbs.

It’s not that hard to write a speech that will create results. Follow these five rules and you’ll be well on your way to writing speeches that people really want to remember long after you are done.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: What’s the best way to find out what words can be eliminated from the speech that you just wrote?

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Dr. Jim Anderson To Be Featured On Iowa NPR Radio Show “The Exchange”

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:22:29 +0000

Iowa NPR Show The Exchange - "Inspirational Presidential Speeches"

On the day of the 2012 Republican National party’s caucus in the state of Iowa, Dr. Jim Anderson will be participating in a discussion of political speeches, past and present.

Here’s how the Iowa NPR radio station describes the discussion:

Do inspirational words of the past fit into the politics of today? We attempt to answer that question by examining some of the most influential presidential campaign speeches of the 20th century. Ben’s guest is Michael Cohen, whose book Live from the Campaign Trail brings to life the words that have shaped American politics over the last century. Consultant Jim Anderson joins the conversation to reveal the science of successful speech writing.

You can listen to the program both live (Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at 1:00pm – 2:00pm EST) or in recorded format. Click here for the link.

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Merry Christmas – Take The Week Off!

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 04:01:57 +0000

Here's Hoping That You Name Shows Up On The "Nice" List This Year!

Loyal readers & subscribers, here’s hoping that this upcoming Christmas season week is a great week for you – I’m taking it off! Blogging will resume next week…

Everyone seems to celebrate something different this week, but I’m hoping that no matter how you choose to spend your time you enjoy yourself. The world can wait, let’s spend time with friends and family and we’ll get back to the madness next week.

Have a happy and safe week no matter where you are and we’ll talk next week.

- Dr. Jim Anderson

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This Is How A Speaker Is Supposed To Make Good Eye Contact

Dr. Jim Anderson — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 09:00:12 +0000

Image Credit

Hey Speaker, How You Doing On That Eye Contact Thing?

As speakers we are always being urged to “connect with our audience”. Now this sounds all fine and good; however, as with everything else in life the devil is in the details. Just how is a speaker supposed to connect with a room full of people who are staring at him or her? It turns out that you already know the answer – you need to use your eyes. As simple as this seems, all too often we do it wrong…

The Right Way To Make Eye Contact

What’s so funny about eye contact is that as speakers we’ve always been told that it’s important to make eye contact with our audience; however, we’ve never really been told how to go about doing this. In fact, a lot of us do it incorrectly.

All too often speakers decide that what they need to do is to make eye contact with every single person in their audience. Many times. This leads to what I like to call “machine gunning your audience”. The speaker quickly, and all too often in a very predictable sequence, quickly makes eye contact with each member of the audience. The effect of doing this is that you make no real contact with them, but you do succeed in creeping everyone out as they wait for you to come back around to them again.

So what’s the right way to handle this eye contact thing? Here’s what you really want to do. It turns out that your audience can’t really tell exactly who you are looking at. When you pick someone out of the audience and gaze into their eyes, the 20 or so people sitting around that person all think that you are gazing into their eyes.

Once you’ve located a person in the audience, look at their eyes and make your point. This should take anywhere from 10-30 seconds. You are not trying to stare them down, rather you are looking at them as though you were having a conversation with them and them alone.

When you do this, you achieve what every speaker is looking to do: you become intimately connected with your audience. The members of your audience feel as though you are talking directly to them and nobody else.

How To Tell If Your Message Is Getting Across

Making a connection with your audience is a critical skill to have, but it is really only half of the story. Not only do you want your audience to hear what you are telling them, but you want them to be able to tell you if they are comprehending what you are saying.

The best way to go about doing this would be to halt your presentation, take a trip down off the stage and out into the audience, pull up a chair, and have a chat with your audience to see if they are really “getting” the points that you are trying to make.

Since in most cases this really is not a practical thing to do, we need to come up with a different plan. It turns out that if you know how to pay attention to it, your audience is already telling you if they are understanding what you are saying.

What you need to start to do is to read your audience. Their eyes and face will be telling you all that you need to know about how your speech is being received. You need to pick up on everything from smiles to frowns, boredom to excitement. This steady stream of information from your audience to you gives you the information that you need in order to adjust the speech that you are giving on the fly in order to become a more effective speaker.

What All Of This Means For You

They say that our eyes are the windows to our souls. I’m not sure if that’s really true, but when it comes to your audience their eyes are the key to understanding if they are understanding what you are telling them.

As speakers we need to ensure that we are making good eye contact with our audience. This means taking the time to connect with individual members of the audience – not attempting to connect with everyone all the time. We also have to take the time to read what our audience’s eyes are trying to tell us.

So much of our daily human communication is based on what the other parties’ eyes are telling us. When we get up to speak, the same rules apply. We just need to learn how to read what’s in our audience’s eyes.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™

Question For You: How long do you think that you can continuously stare at one member of your audience?

Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

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