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No, that’s not a typo in the title. I’m talking about how you can move physically as a presenter to help move your audience emotionally and get your message across. This follows last week’s post “An easy step to presenting with more confidence,” which highlighted the value of presenting from center stage.
Once you’ve established your presence by standing center stage, you’re probably going to need to do something to keep the audience’s attention. Varying facial expressions, gestures, and voice all help. You can also move around the stage (or meeting room). Have you seen those speakers who pace back and forth, hands in pockets, hardly making any eye contact with the audience? Not like that. Instead, move meaningfully. For example
Move forward. When you move forward, you look bigger and your audience naturally pays more attention. So moving forward is good when you want to make an important point – or wake people up!
Move sideways. Moving sideways is a way to emphasize a transition in your topic or a different perspective. You can also illustrate a sequence, such as “This was what was happening in the past” followed by a side step and “This is where we are now” with another step and “This is where we’re heading.”
Move back. Sometimes, you might move back from center stage to illustrate a point in your presentation, such as surprise or fear. But if you move back without purpose, the audience may interpret that as your actual fear of presenting (even if you are scared or nervous, it’s best to do all you can not to show that). In general, “move back” means “move back to center stage” after you’ve been somewhere else. Center stage is a great place to conclude your presentation.
This kind of movement can help you to engage and move your audience emotionally, so that your presentation has more impact. It takes practice. Try rehearsing in front of a mirror or videoing yourself to see how you look.
If you’re interested in presentation skills workshops or one-on-one coaching, contact Sasuga! Communications.
Image courtesy of jannoon028, FreeDigitalPhotos.net