I am as guilty as anyone. You probably have your own internal list of zoom call bad habits which annoy you, right? Many times people are completely unaware they have these bad habits unless someone tells them but the damage has already been done. Bad Zoom call habits can distract your audience, bury a key message, or worse, sink your pitch/sales/proposal or interview. So what are these bad habits? Let’s examine the biggies:
Shifting Eyes
I know it’s hard. Especially when there are a lot of people on a call but it’s a bad look when your eyes are shifting all over the place. So where should you be looking? Here’s the key. You can’t make eye contact with every single person in a little box so don’t try. Instead do your best to maintain eye contact with your computer or phone camera (the little green dot). You will look more professional and more importantly, engaged and focused.
Touching Your Face
Everyone gets an itch every now and then but are you constantly touching your face? It’s annoying and distracting so do everything you can to keep your hands away from your face or hair as much as possible.
Bad Background
If you sit close to a wall or window there’s a really good chance that your background is distracting. That’s because a wall close to you looks like you are in jail, and windows will often leave a speaker with a really distracting backlit image. When choosing your background, try to create open space /distance between you and the wall/window. A distant, muted slightly out of focus background usually looks best and won’t compete with your messaging.
Looking Up/Down
Your face should be fairly level with your camera. No one wants to see up your nose or stare at the top of your head. Adjust your computer so that your head and shoulders are as level as possible.
Fine tune your zoom calls and improve your messaging!
Rich Dubek is President of the Dubek Media Group, based in Tempe, Arizona. The Dubek Media Group specializes in full service video production and media training and presentation improvement. https://www.dubekmediagroup.com