Eye contact with your audience: how to tell if your story is landing

Some coaches advise speakers to look over the audience’s heads. That way, you cannot see their faces, which is supposed to help with nerves. I think that is bad advice. The most important thing in a presentation is genuine contact between the speaker and the audience. Eye contact is the most important way to make that happen, and anyone who avoids it is effectively presenting to a wall.

Communication goes both ways

Communication involves sending and receiving. Most speakers spend almost all their preparation time on sending. Which words should I choose, in what order, and which slide? Receiving gets hardly any attention, even though it is just as important.

By looking at people, you can see whether your message is getting through. Are they frowning, nodding, looking at their phones? That is information you can use straight away. You can add an example, take a step back or move more quickly through a section everyone already knows.

The common mistake

The mistake I see most often is not that speakers fail to look at anyone at all. It is that they keep looking at the same person. Usually someone in the front row who is nodding encouragingly. Understandable, because it feels safe. But the rest of the audience switches off, and that one person feels uncomfortable after ten minutes.

Small group, large auditorium

In a small group, you make contact with everyone. Once there are around fifty people, that is no longer possible. Then you work with fixed points.

1. Choose a few people spread across the room: left, centre and right, both near the front and at the back.
2. Share a thought or a sentence with one of them, then move to another point for your next thought.
3. Use those people as a barometer. If you see confusion on their faces, there is a good chance others are struggling to follow too.
4. Also make a point of looking at the back rows now and then. People there are often the first to switch off.

A welcome side effect is that the whole room feels as though you are looking at them. Even the back row.

Just a conversation

It is about normal eye contact, the kind you make in a conversation. Do not stare, and do not tick off the room like a list. Look at the people and tell them your story. A presentation is ultimately a conversation with lots of people at once. It is not a performance you have learnt by heart and deliver regardless of what is happening in the room.

Unsure? Just ask

If you see confused faces, ask whether it is clear. They will not bite, usually. A short question such as “Are you still with me?” takes five seconds and often gives you the best minute of your presentation.

What this means for the organiser

Eye contact requires light in the room. At many events, the stage is brightly lit while the audience sits in the dark. The speaker can no longer see anyone. Ask the technical team not to darken the room completely, especially when a chair or moderator needs to respond to the audience. Those roles only work if they can see what is happening. In the article about the differences between the roles, you can read why.

For the speaker without a big name

A client booking an unknown speaker often wants someone who makes genuine contact rather than simply delivering a talk. Eye contact is the simplest way to show that. It costs nothing, you can practise it, and you can see the difference in the questions you get afterwards.