By some estimates, 65% of a message is transmitted by body language. A presentation must be emotional. Body language is an emotional tool enhancement available to any speaker. Your body has to communicate that you passionately care about the topic. Imagine someone who did not move their body nor made facial expressions while speaking? Wouldn’t that be strange? It almost wouldn’t be human.
What is Body Language?
Body language includes eye contact, facial expressions, hand gestures, your stance and your movements around the stage.
The use of body language is a personal preference. It is not something that should be forced as it is simply an outward expression of an inner feeling. The audience will detect faked or timed gestures. Physical gestures are personal and should not be imitated. For example, Bill Clinton used hand gestures to make his body speak. He often looked as if he were a conductor of a symphony. Other speakers such as Abraham Lincoln did not use the hands. Lincoln moved his head from side to make his body speak. Body language is a personal preference and there is no template for public speakers.
Eye Contact
The value of eye contact is no different on a stage in front of 1000 people than it is in a one-on-one conversation. Eye contact creates an air of honesty, confidence and inclusion. Obviously, you want to create an image of credibility. You want your listeners to believe your message and to believe in you as a person.
Eye contact is not simply bouncing your eyes from person to person. Rather, you want to look at one person and finish your thought while maintaining eye contact. After that point, you move your eyes to another person. Another key thing to remember is not to simply focus on the same handful of people. You want to experience eye contact with as many people as possible. On a subconscious level at the very least, people who have not received your eye contact will feel ignored.
You want to make your eye contact appear natural. Thus, you need to choose eye contact partners on a random basis. Look to the left of the room, and then look to the front of the room, and back to the left of the room and out into the back of the room etc. You do not want to have your eyes move in a perfectly circular fashion like a lighthouse beam into the ocean. Your eye contact must look spontaneous.
Facial Expressions
On stage you are a performer. Your face will convey a message the same way that an actor uses facial expressions. A face of sorrow and a face of ebullient joy are totally different. Even a toddler can distinguish between the two types of facial expression.
The most common mistake that speakers make is that they do not use any facial expression. This conveys no emotion. The second type of mistake is that the facial expression is not consistent with the message. Often I see speakers smiling as they are going over a point that requires persuasion and a face of aggressiveness.
The Way You Stand
You want to appear confident. This means that you want to stand feet shoulder width apart with your body weight on both feet. You want to roll your shoulders back as most people slouch forward. Push your chest out slightly. Rocking from side to side is a common tendency for nervous speakers. Their foot movement almost looks as if they are slow dancing without a partner.
There is a great example of proper upright posture in this video of a presentation by “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki. You can notice that even though he is standing up perfectly straight, he does not look stiff. The air or message created by his posture is sheer and utter confidence. Obviously, if you are promoting financial literacy books this is exactly the type of posture you would want to have.
The Way You Move
Eyes are attracted to movement. This is why a litigator moves around a courtroom while he or she speaks to the jury. You do not want to nervously pace around the room but rather move with purpose. Your movement should be consistent with your presentation. When you move forward toward the audience it is because you want to emphasize a key point. You may shuffle a few steps after finishing a point to stimulate more attention.