A Level of Trust is Established within Five Seconds

The meeting of eyes arouses strong emotion and is used to establish and gauge another's interest in you and your presentation or service offering. It is at the foundation of flirting, building rapport and the stimulation of feelings such as comfort and security, and that leads to establishing trust. Does this mean that the person you are making eye contact with is going to trust you with their life savings? No, it is not that kind of trust... that takes a little longer. But what they will trust you with are their emotions and feelings and more importantly, they will give you permission to direct their decision making process.

Eye contact and facial expressions provide important social and emotional information; people, perhaps without consciously doing so, probe each other's eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs.

In Powerful Presenting and in any other form of sales situation, the gauging of interest is paramount to the success of your deliverance. To establish rapport and create a climate of agreement, choose a member of your audience and look deep into that person's eyes for a minimum of 5 seconds. Look directly into the centre of the eye not around the face. You want the other person to know you are with them. Repeat this process regularly, until you have covered what you sense are enough people in the audience.

Research demonstrates that during normal conversation the eyes are in contact with each other for approximately 10/12 seconds before one or the other turns away. In presentations 10/12 seconds feels more like you are being stared at, unless you are in conversation over a particular point. Studies of Bill Clinton (who modelled his stage presenting from Ronald Reagan) highlights that Bill chooses whom he wants to engage with, then looks directly into their centre of the eye for between five and eight seconds. The energy evoked within that person has a direct influence on the people sitting to their left, right, front and toward the back. When Bill addresses a large audience each individual leaves with a feeling that somehow they were spoken to directly. This is an astonishing skill that all world stage presenters utilise. And now you know how they achieve it.

In some parts of the world, particularly in East Asia, eye contact can provoke misunderstandings between people of different nationalities. For example keeping direct eye contact with a work supervisor or elderly people leads them to assume you are being aggressive and rude — the opposite reaction of most Americans or Europeans. This means that the rule of eye contact is specific to Western Cultures and you must gather intelligence about cultural differences should your line of presenting require you to deliver in a cross cultural scenario.