6: Make Direct Eye Contact on Zoom and Improve Your Executive Presence

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If you're using Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, especially if you're using them for interviews or networking conversations, then executive presence on camera is something you need to be thinking about.

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As a coach to MBA leaders and executives whose practice has transformed from being primarily in-person to almost entirely virtual, it's especially important that I engage effectively with clients and potential clients on camera.

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And while the technology behind Zoom and its competitors has evolved and improved, it's hard to achieve the same level of connection and presence that you can when you're in the same space with someone.

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There's a reason Zoom interviews seem harder than in-person interviews.

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So over the past few years, I've road tested a superior Zoom setup, and it's made a huge difference that I've noticed and that my clients and colleagues have definitely noticed.

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It's made such a big difference, and I was asked about it so many times, that I wrote two blog posts about it.

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The links are in the show notes.

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In this episode, I'm going to talk a little about why it can be so hard to feel like you're connecting with another person on Zoom for you and the person you're speaking with, what you can do about it without any new equipment, and then a little bit about the solution I've been using to take my Zoom game up to a higher plane of professionalism, effectiveness and ease.

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Not only am I able to have a more engaging conversation with people on the other end of a Zoom meeting, but there's been an additional benefit.

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I'm a lot less tired after being on Zoom for multiple hours.

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So have I got your attention yet?

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If so, then stick around, up your executive presence on Zoom, and maybe advance your career in the process.

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If you're an MBA out in the business world, you've likely logged a lot of hours on Zoom or one of its competitors.

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And what I'm about to share will probably not come as a surprise to you.

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While the one-on-one conversations you have on Zoom might serve their purpose, they just don't feel as engaging as in-person conversations.

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I'll tell you why.

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If you're using a laptop, a tablet or a webcam mounted on top of your external monitor for Zoom, you have two choices when it comes to where to look.

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You can look directly at the other person's image on the screen or you can look directly at the camera lens.

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One or the other but not both at the same time.

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This presents a dilemma.

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It feels better for you if you look at the other person's image, their eyes specifically.

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But if you do, it appears to the other person that you're looking off to their side or maybe somewhere above them.

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Definitely not directly into their eyes.

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In other words, there's probably little or no direct eye contact from the perspective of the person that you're speaking with.

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Alternatively, if you look into the camera during a Zoom meeting, the effect for the other person on the other side of the lens is that you're looking directly at them and into their eyes.

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But for you, looking directly at a camera lens which could be a minuscule dot depending on your device, there's no feedback.

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None.

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There's no one looking back at you.

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And even though you can probably see the other person's image in your peripheral vision, it's hard to read facial expressions and other subtle physical cues that help you understand how the other person is reacting to what you're saying.

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So what's the solution?

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Well, I've tried two.

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The first solution for making eye contact on Zoom requires no extra equipment but it will likely require that you develop some new habits while on camera.

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And it comes at a mental and, at least in my experience, a physical cost.

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The second solution traditionally has required a significant monetary investment.

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It only made sense for people who either anticipated being on Zoom many hours a week or whose position and ambitions required that they cultivate their executive presence online and not just in person.

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As I mentioned, the first and simplest solution to making eye contact on Zoom requires no special equipment.

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If you're using a desktop or laptop, the not-so-secret secret is to make your Zoom window relatively small, as small as you can stand it, and position it immediately below your laptop camera or webcam.

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With your Zoom window and camera placed this close together, it will appear to the other person that you're almost looking directly at them if you're looking at their eyes on your screen.

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To make up for the slight disconnect, and there will still be just a slight disconnect, I'd suggest that you develop a habit of regularly looking at the camera, which as I mentioned could be a lifeless dot, to establish direct eye contact.

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Specifically, I'd tell you to look at the camera in these

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The first is when you're saying hello at the beginning of a Zoom session.

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You'll establish what seems like direct eye contact for the other person right out of the gate.

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The second is when you think making direct eye contact would be necessary for developing rapport, like when the other person is sharing something particularly meaningful to them.

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Look directly at the camera.

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The third situation is at the ends of sentences when you're making a particularly important point.

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I think this is especially helpful for cultivating your executive presence and authority.

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And the fourth is when you're saying goodbye at the end of a Zoom session.

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A little dose of the warm fuzzies can't hurt, right?

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In concept, this doesn't sound too difficult.

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In practice, it has some drawbacks.

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The three key disadvantages that I've experienced are: Number one, when you look directly at the camera, you're looking away from the other person and you're doing it frequently.

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So you might miss facial expressions and body language that convey meaning.

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The second is you have to think about the timing of when you look at the camera.

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This could be a little distracting to very distracting depending on who you are.

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And you could potentially feel like an observer of a conversation as opposed to a participant in it.

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It takes you out of the moment.

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And the third is all that thinking about the timing of eye contact takes energy.

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A surprisingly large amount of energy.

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If you need to do it for short periods, let's say an hour or two, the drain, it isn't too bad.

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For more extended periods, let's say multiple Zoom meetings over days, and some of my clients are in Zoom meetings for hours and hours a day all week...

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For people who are in that kind of situation, it's just downright exhausting.

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But on the plus side, this approach doesn't cost anything, require any new equipment or any specialized technical knowledge.

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If you can resize and move a window on your screen, assuming you're not using a phone or a tablet, then you're set.

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The second, and in my opinion far superior, solution does come at a cost.

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It requires new equipment and some technical know-how.

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It's the solution I've used for about three years now and it's been, in a word, fantastic.

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As an executive and career coach, I think a higher-end Zoom setup makes sense for my work, given that my effectiveness is in part related to my ability to develop rapport with the person I'm coaching.

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The setup I'm going to describe could also make sense for a senior leader or an aspiring leader who needs or wants to up their game and their executive presence.

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So here's the big reveal.

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I use a teleprompter.

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That's right, a teleprompter, like the ones that newscasters, talk show hosts and politicians use.

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And instead of seeing a script in the teleprompter, I end up seeing the person on the other end of the Zoom meeting.

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So I'm able to look directly at the person, directly in their eyes actually, and directly at my camera all at the same time.

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Given that most people, including you most likely, have never interacted with a teleprompter, I'll provide this brief and fairly non-technical explanation of what one is and how it works.

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And if my explanation doesn't do the trick, do a quick Google or YouTube search.

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You'll find plenty of examples.

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The teleprompter I use is a semi-enclosed box, mostly closed on all sides except the side facing you the user.

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You can mount a camera on the back and then the lens of the camera ends up aligned with a small hole at the back of the box or, depending on the kind of camera you're using and the lens, it may stick through that hole.

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A special mirror called a beam splitter sits directly in front of the camera lens and is tilted toward you the user at a 45-degree angle.

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The camera is able to see through that mirror to capture your image.

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Below the mirror, lying face up toward the ceiling, is a display or monitor, a small one.

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The image on that monitor is reflected in the mirror, which is just above it and then bounced toward you the user.

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So you see the image on that monitor.

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The magic here is that you can look directly at the camera lens but not see it.

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Instead, you only see the reflected image of the display in the teleprompter.

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Again, if this is hard to visualize, and it may be, then search for images of teleprompters online or check out the blog post I mentioned at the opening of this episode.

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The link is in the show notes.

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So in my use case, the reflected image in the teleprompter is a Zoom window, the one that contains the person I'm speaking with.

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In other words, I can look directly into the eyes of that person and directly at the camera lens at the same time.

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The benefits are obvious and immediate.

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If you were to use the same setup, you could maintain eye contact with the other person continuously or as appropriate.

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You get to decide.

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And you no longer have to expend energy thinking about when you should be looking at the other person's image in a Zoom window and when you should be looking at the camera lens so that the other person gets a sense of direct eye contact.

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It may seem like a relatively minor consideration, but believe me it makes a huge difference.

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Without transporting yourself into what next generation Zoom metaverse, you're getting as close to an in-person meeting, as you possibly can.

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So how effective is this really?

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From the feedback I've gotten from dozens and dozens of clients, the Zoom setup I use with the teleprompter, it makes a huge difference.

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The word I hear most often is that the experience with me on Zoom is just more engaging than the experience my clients have in other Zoom meetings.

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And the MBA types.

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I tend to coach generally participate in a lot of meetings on Zoom and other platforms, so I value their perspective.

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I'm convinced that I come across as more engaged because I'm making consistent eye contact with clients.

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I'm not looking off to the side from their perspective or over their heads.

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I'm looking right at them into their eyes.

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Think about the difference this could make for you in an important meeting with your boss, a board member, a potential investor, or in an interview.

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Now I did manage that sense of direct eye contact with great effort and distraction for a long time, by shifting my gaze back and forth between an image of a person in a Zoom window on my computer screen and my webcam.

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But now, I can maintain that same eye contact with clients by looking directly at their image, directly at their eyes, in my teleprompter.

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It's almost as if we're in the same room and requires no extra thought or effort, which is key.

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I can just focus on the other person and the conversation we're having.

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It's just one of those things that once you've experienced it, you can't imagine going back to how you did it before.

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I've already mentioned that I've written two blog posts about my teleprompter and Zoom setup.

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I'll link to them in the show notes.

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I didn't expect it when I first wrote them a few years ago, but they've been pretty popular for a while, and even now they're among the top posts on Google when you search for "direct eye contact on Zoom" or "ultimate Zoom setup".

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Believe me, I'm just as surprised as you are.

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But, like anything technological, time marches on.

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My camera and teleprompter set up, they were definitely an investment to the tune of about $2,000.

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And I think it made sense given the nature of my work.

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The good news is that there's a new product out.

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Let's call it a teleprompter for the rest of us.

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It's a much simpler and less expensive setup than what I currently use.

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It's called the Elgato Prompter.

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I'll just add right here that I don't have any relationship with Elgato, and I'm not being compensated to talk about their product.

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But, apparently, it's been wildly popular, especially among people who create content for a living.

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I was actually on a waitlist for a couple of months to get one and mine just arrived this week.

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So I'm going to set my Elgato Prompter up, test it out and report back with my first impressions in the next episode.

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And we'll see if a teleprompter setup that costs a fraction of what I've used for years can be the solution for the MBAs I coach who want to up their executive presence on Zoom.

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And we'll see if it can potentially be a solution for you too.

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See you next week.