There you are, you’re giving that presentation, there’ve been a few slight hiccups but you’re on a roll, you’re speaking like you wanted to, people seem to be reacting well, you manage to finish and you reckon you did a pretty good job all things considered. Promotion here we gooooo…
You go and speak to Jim, your co-worker in the office, and ask him what he thought of your presentation. Your ego is ready for the polishing it no doubt deserves after that masterful performance.
“Eh, it was alright, felt a bit awkward, I think it was alright though.”
ONLY ALRIGHT?! What did I do wrong, was the content not good enough? Was it not interesting, did I not make it easy to understand?
“I’ll be honest mate, I was finding it difficult to concentrate on what you were saying. You weren’t really looking at us and you kept kind of fidgeting and dancing on your feet? I was trying to figure out what you were doing.”
Now, maybe this is something you’ve either been a part of yourself or you’ve seen someone do. Either way, I think we can all agree, its not a good style, but do you know why?
Whenever we speak to someone we will subconsciously split up how we take in the information that they are giving us. You may have seen this before but it is an imperative piece of information for everyone to know.
Through interacting with a person we split it up into (approximately);
55% Body Language
38% Tone of Voice
7% Verbal Content
Now let’s just look at that for a second, over half of the information we give off to a person is by what our body is saying and has nothing to do with the actual content we are providing.
That is HUGE!
That is telling us is that if we don’t sort out the signals our body is giving off then we are fighting a losing battle before we’ve even started. You can literally have the best content in the world but if you don’t sort out how it comes across, ain’t nobody gonna buy it.
Bloomin ‘eck, no wonder the presentation didn’t go well, over half of their attention was immediately gone!
Now there are hundreds of things you can do to improve your body language, but I’m sure you’ve got places to be and you want to know the more impactful things right?
One of the biggest things you can do to positively impact on your body language is to control your movement when you walk.
Let’s say you are giving a speech in front of a group of people. I assume you would want to keep your audience engaged whilst at the same time letting the information you are giving them land and impact upon them, right?
Well in order to do that we need to keep our movements just varied enough that people’s minds stay focused and don’t drift away, but not so varied that they start wondering what dance we must be attempting to replicate.
This means none of that bobbing around you see people doing. This is a clear indicator to others that you don’t know what you’re meant to be doing. It shows you are nervous and all that extra energy that doesn’t know what to do with itself is coming out as you jig about on the spot.
You have to line your words up with what you’re saying. By this I mean, if you are telling a story, walking and talking from one end of the stage to the other is great! Make your movements precise and thought out, as opposed to moving for the sake of moving.
On top of that, rooting yourself to the spot is a good technique for if you have to make a serious point, or if you want to emphasise a single area in your speech. If it is used in conjunction with your other, precise, movements, then you’re onto a winner!
Your audience will be following you through your story, their minds focused on you as you keep them engaged, walking from A to B. At that moment where you need them to really lock in on what you’re saying, you stand still and suddenly their brains see this as something important and worth acknowledging, you have them!
Other things to keep in mind are to have an open body. Have a good posture. Not only is this healthier for your body but it makes you feel better, you look more confident (as well as attractive) AND your communication improves dramatically, you begin to own the room!
Don’t be seen to cross your arms or make yourself smaller because you’re nervous. Whether they consciously know it or not, people’s subconscious will see this as aggressive or weak and will turn off from it. Not to mention, bad posture and negative body language affects you both physically and mentally in very bad ways.
If you want to know more about Your Movement and how to improve it, or about how to improve your ability as a public speaker, CLICK HERE now to get instant access to my free training video.