Are You Making These Body Language Mistakes at Networking Events?

Field Notes from a Presence Coach Who Attended 6 LA Events in April — and Wrote Everything Down

I study body language at every networking event I attend.

Not casually. Not as a hobby. Professionally, with the same attention I bring to every coaching session — because the patterns I see in rooms full of accomplished women are exactly the patterns I help my clients unlearn.

March gave me a lot to write about. April was worse.

Here are the seven presence and body language mistakes I spotted most at Los Angeles networking events last month. If you've attended an event recently, there's a good chance you'll recognize yourself in at least one of these. That recognition is the starting point.

Kate Ziuz, presence and body language coach, at a women's networking event in Los Angeles

Mistake #1: Trailing Off at the End of Your Introduction

"I'm a marketing consultant and I work with small businesses and… you know… yeah… that's it."

I heard versions of this multiple times in April. An introduction that started with reasonable confidence and ended with an apology.

Your introduction is your first impression. It's the moment the room forms its initial read of you — before your work, your credentials, your ideas have a chance to speak. And when you trail off at the end, the last thing the room hears is uncertainty.

It doesn't matter how strong your opening was. The ending is what lands.

The fix: Write your introduction as a complete sentence with a definitive close. Practice it out loud — not in your head, out loud — until the ending feels as natural as the beginning. Know exactly where your last word is and land on it with the same energy you started with.

Script example: "I'm a leadership coach for women in career transitions. I help them close the gap between where they are and where they're ready to go." Full stop. No trailing. No apology.

Mistake #2: Gripping the Microphone Like It Owes You Money

White knuckles. Both hands wrapped around it. The mic held up close to the face like a shield.

The microphone is a tool, not an anchor. When you grip it that tightly, two things happen. First, the physical tension travels through your entire body — you can see it in the shoulders, the jaw, the stillness that stops being composed and starts being frozen. Second, the room reads the grip before they hear a word you say.

The fix: Hold the mic lightly in one hand, about an inch below your chin. Elbow at a natural angle — not cocked up, not dropped down. Think of it as something you're holding, not something you're holding onto. The moment you release the death grip, your whole body releases with it.

Try this beforehand: Practice with a pen or a marker held the same way. The lightness becomes muscle memory faster than you'd think.

Presence coach Kate Ziuz demonstrating confident microphone technique at a speaking event in Los Angeles

Mistake #3: Hand Over the Mouth While Speaking

This one is almost always unconscious. A hand drifts up mid-sentence and hovers near or over the mouth — sometimes resting on the chin, sometimes partially covering the lips entirely.

The speaker never notices. The room always does.

It muffles the voice. It obscures the facial expression. And it signals, physically, that some part of you wants to take back what you're saying before it's even finished. The body is remarkably literal. Covering your mouth while speaking is the physical version of self-censorship — even when your words are completely confident.

The fix: Hands belong at your sides, lightly clasped in front of you, or gesturing in alignment with your words. Anywhere but your face. If you're not sure whether you do this, record yourself on your phone during your next presentation run-through. Watch it back. The habit will be obvious immediately.

Mistake #4: Filler Words — Again

I wrote about this in March. I'm writing about it again in April because I counted more of them this month, not fewer.

"Um… so… um… and then… um…"

Between every sentence. Sometimes between every clause. A constant stream of sound that fills every moment of silence as if silence itself were dangerous.

It isn't. The pause is always stronger than the um. Always. A two-second pause reads as thoughtful, composed, certain. A string of filler words reads as unprepared, regardless of how prepared you actually are.

This is not a vocabulary problem. It's not an intelligence problem. It's a breath problem — specifically, the absence of it. When we rush to fill silence, we stop breathing. When we stop breathing, the brain reaches for a filler word to buy time.

The fix: Slow down by 20%. Breathe at the end of every sentence. Let the silence exist for one full beat. The discomfort you feel in that pause is felt only by you — the audience experiences it as confidence.

Want to go deeper on this? I covered filler words, breath, and pacing in detail in my Spotted This Month series from March.

Mistake #5: Losing the Thread Mid-Sentence

This one was hard to watch.

A speaker mid-introduction, mid-story, mid-point — and suddenly visibly lost. Eyes going up. Voice trailing. Sentences starting over. Rambling in the general direction of the original idea without finding a way back to it.

It happens to everyone occasionally. But when it happens in a high-stakes moment — a panel introduction, a networking pitch, a speaking slot — it can be difficult to recover from, because the audience's confidence in you drops in real time.

The cause is almost always the same: the material was prepared in the head but never out loud. Thinking through what you're going to say and actually saying it are completely different neurological experiences. Something that sounds perfectly clear in your mind can fall apart the moment your mouth has to produce it under pressure.

The fix: Practice out loud. Not once. Multiple times, in different orders, to different imaginary audiences. Know your opening sentence cold. Know your closing sentence cold. Everything in between has room to breathe — but the anchors need to be solid.

Mistake #6: Making the Same Point Three Times

I watched this happen in real time in April — and I watched the audience glaze over in real time with it.

A strong point, well made. Then made again, slightly differently. Then once more, just to be sure. By the third repetition, the room had already moved on mentally, even if their eyes were still politely forward.

Repetition feels like emphasis from the inside. From the outside it reads as either uncertainty — does she not trust that it landed? — or filler — she ran out of things to say. Neither serves you.

The fix: Say it once. Clearly, with full conviction, at the right volume. Then trust it landed and move to the next point. The most powerful speakers leave space after a key statement — they don't fill it with a restatement. They let the idea sit in the room.

Mistake #7: Touching Your Earrings, Hair, and Necklace on Stage

The whole time.

A hand drifting to an earring. Fingers running through hair mid-sentence. A necklace turned over and over between thumb and forefinger.

These are self-soothing behaviors — the body's way of managing anxiety through touch. They're completely natural responses to stress. They're also completely visible to everyone in the room, and they read as nervous, distracted, and unfinished — even when the words coming out are polished and confident.

Your hands are either working for you or against you. There is no neutral.

The fix: Before you go on stage — or before any high-stakes moment — do a physical check. Jewelry that you know you'll reach for: consider leaving it off or choosing pieces you won't be tempted to touch. Then practice keeping your hands in a deliberate position: at your sides, lightly clasped, or gesturing intentionally. The habit of reaching for something to touch gets replaced by the habit of intentional stillness.

Every One of These Is Fixable

That's what I want you to take from this.

None of the women I observed in April were unqualified. None of them were bad communicators. Most of them were impressive, accomplished, and had genuinely valuable things to say.

But there was a gap between who they were and what the room was receiving.

That gap — between your actual expertise and how much of it people can perceive — is exactly the space I work in. The mechanics are specific and learnable. And once you know them, you can't unsee them.

"Your body is always talking. The work is making sure it's saying what you mean."

Now I Want to Hear From You

Which one of these do you catch yourself doing?

Drop it in the comments — I read every one. And if you've spotted any of these patterns in rooms you've been in recently, tell me what you noticed. The more we name these things, the easier they become to change.

Ready to Stop the Patterns Before Your Next Event?

If you have a networking event, speaking engagement, panel, or podcast appearance coming up — and you want to make sure none of these seven mistakes are costing you authority in the room — let's work together before it happens.

One session is often enough to change how you show up permanently.

📅 Book a free 30-minute strategy call and let's identify exactly what your presence is broadcasting — and what to do about it.

Kate Ziuz is a presence and body language coach for women leaders, based in Los Angeles. She works with executives, founders, and speakers on the specific mechanics of presence that close the gap between expertise and how it's perceived. Follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn for field notes from LA events.