This week on Tinder and Communication Skills: I’m scrolling through a guy’s photos and he’s wearing sunglasses in every single one. There’s nothing that makes me swipe left faster than a Sunglass Hut advertisement.
Show me your eyes
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. If I can’t see them, I can’t tell if you’re kind or curious or a little mischievous. And I’m not going to guess. The same thing happens on stage. A speaker who never looks up from their notes, or who reads off the screen behind them, is wearing sunglasses. The audience can’t connect, so they stop trying.
Your background is talking
Something we work on constantly with the leaders we coach is nonverbal communication—including what your background says about you. On a video call, on a stage, in a dating photo, whatever is behind you is telling a story, whether you chose it or not. A blank wall in a rented flat tells one story. An office filled with books and plants tells another.
I always get the question, “What about a virtual background?” If you’re going for organizational cohesion, I get it. But you also have to know that research shows that virtual backgrounds decrease trust.
Most people treat the background as an afterthought. The camera doesn’t. It gives the viewer a whole second layer of information about who you are, and they read it in under a second.
Let them swipe
Last week I mentioned the podcast host who told me not to give people ammunition. The worry was that anything in your background becomes a reason to swipe left. Fair. But that is the entire point of a profile. You are different from every other person on the app. The more ways you show it, the better the filter, and the better the filter, the better the match.
That logic holds far beyond dating. The executives I work with are often trying to be acceptable to everyone in the room. Acceptable is forgettable.
So what’s in your background right now?
Anne Ricketts (Lighthouse Communications) and I sat down to talk about which photos work and which ones don’t. Watch the video here.
And share it with someone who could use a little help!
P.S.
Writing and speaking about yourself is a skill, and it’s teachable. The Presentation Mastery course is $497, one time, yours forever. Get it here.
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