7 ways to make your body language win over audiences

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You’ve written a brilliant presentation, but when you deliver it, you can tell from your audience’s bored stares that it’s falling flat.

Or you cringe in the back of the auditorium as your chief executive stammers or chops the air with gestures that bear no relation to the rhythm of the speech you wrote.

Professional speechwriters—and communicators who must address crowds—tend to sweat the words and the PowerPoint slides as they prepare. But poor presentation kills a speech just as surely as a bad text can, says Tom Mucciolo, president of MediaNet.

Some 93 percent of what you communicate to an audience is nonverbal, he says, while your content amounts to only 7 percent.