Facial expressions can be tricky, and many presenters rack their brains thinking of what kinds of facial expression to make, when to make them, and in whose direction.

There are three kinds of eye contact that presenters can have with audiences:

1. Staring at the floor, reading notes or staring at the PowerPoint slides—near zero percent eye contact with audience. (This is obviously what the worst speakers do.)

2. Scanning the audience like a windshield wiper, maybe a fast one or a slow one.

3. Giving each individual in the audience personal eye contact for a full thought, about six seconds or so. (World-class professional speakers like Bill Clinton do this.)

If you do the first, you won’t be a pretty good presenter—you will be flat-out awful.
If you try to do number three, you will likely get flustered and frustrated.

So, my recommendation is that you try number two, and just look around the room. You can scan it quickly or slowly—the slower the better. If you can lock eyes with a few people around the room, so much the better. Try to look at every part of the room. If you ignore any one part of the room, that part of the room will ignore you back.

The main issue you have to decide is: are you going to ignore the people in the room or are you going to look at people? If you look at people, they will look back at you; and this will increase the chance that you’ll give a pretty good presentation. If you don’t look at people, then there is a good chance that they will, in turn, ignore you; and there is a great chance that you will give an awful presentation. It really is that simple.

It’s okay to look at notes from time to time, especially if you can do it in conjunction with picking up a glass of water, putting down a glass of water, or appearing to push the advance button on your projector.

Finally, think about your facial expressions. Boring, awful presenters have a blank look on their faces. Good presenters are expressive; they show when they are excited, happy, sad, or disappointed. You are not supposed to start “acting” expressive because, unless you are a professional actor, this is likely to look and sound phony. The challenge is to be comfortable enough with your material so that you can actually think and talk “in the moment” rather than nervously fixate on what you are going to say five seconds from now. If you are fixated on what you are going to say, as if you were reading off of a teleprompter in your brain, then you will lose all expressiveness from your face.

A final word: many people worry about being too expressive with their face or mouth. This is not a problem. Don’t worry about being too expressive. Instead, worry about looking as flat as George Washington on a dollar bill. Move your face and show your emotions when you speak. Then, even if you make mistakes from time to time, you will still give a pretty good presentation.

This article was taken from my new book “How to Give a Pretty Good Presentation” You can order a copy from Amazon.com or from your local bookstore.