Eye Contact is Critical

The reason most speeches read from notes fail is not because the information is boring; it is because the speaker keeps breaking eye contact to read the notes! If you have ever been speaking to someone who keeps glancing over your shoulders at someone behind you, you know how off-putting it is. Whatever is stealing their attention is more important than you. We connect to people through their eyes, so make sure to use this tool when speaking. If the group is small enough, you can easily make eye contact with each person. In bigger groups, you can single out the occasional person while also doing a general “gentle sweep” of the room where you linger only for a split second on each face. Even if you are talking to a darkened room with bright lights in your eyes, you still need to imagine you can see each face.