Do you want to know the most effective means to win your audience over – whether you’re speaking to one person or one hundred? Make eye contact – frequently and warmly.
It is natural to favour the people in front of you with more eye contact than the rest of your audience. Because it’s impossible to make personal eye contact with every member of a large audience, make sure that you look at different sections of the audience frequently and don’t ignore or “short change” any section. Often decision makers sit on the side.
Having cue card notes is fine if you need them. Just don’t spend the whole presentation with your nose buried in them! The trick is to speak to your audience, not at them.
