Great Voice As a Speaker?

Probably only a microscopic number of speakers have had any voice training. The vast majority of us are in business and get called on to speak. As we rise through the ranks we need to deliver reports internally, to speak to our project teams, to address the sales rally. We also get dragged outside the organisation to give speeches to industry groups or chambers of commerce etc. When we get up and speak we are just using an extension of our daily conversational speaking voice. This is where we get into trouble.

Speaking to a group can be done in a conversational way, but the voice needs to change. It needs a number if things to be happening at the same time. It needs to be a bit louder than normal, even when you are using a microphone. This relates to the power levels we need to be projecting to the audience and the way to regulate that is through the volume we apply.

We need to be using well placed pauses. Often we are nervous when we are to get up in front of others, so unknowingly we start to speed up and start running the sentences together. I was coaching an Indian businessmen once and he gave a two minute talk which was one single sentence without a pause anywhere. I was amazed. When we do this we are killing the message because the audience cannot easily follow what we are saying and also because our ideas crash over the top of each other like winter storm surf. We need the pauses so the ideas can be heard and can sink in and be processed by the audience.

Mumbling the words makes it hard to follow. Mumbling is usually a factor when we are speaking too quickly and not using enough pauses. Slow down for better effect. Now I am a fast speaker so slowing down just kills me and kills my flow. I have to do it though if I want to be heard. It becomes a particular problem when I speak in Japanese. Having an accent when I speak and doing it at speed makes it hard for the audience to follow. I need to slow down!

When you are a fast speaker you worry that the audience will think there is something unnatural with the way you are speaking, as if you are being disrespectful to them. I was using a teleprompter and the speed setting was rather slower than what I would normally use. I thought this is going to sound condescending to the audience. However, when I heard the speech later, it didn’t sound like I was speaking down to my audience at all. In fact, it sounded clear and measured.

We need to start with a good strong voice and make sure we don’t allow the ends of our sentences to trail off and just end in a whimper. We need to finish each sentence with some strength. We don’t want the intonation rising at the end either because that implies lack of conviction about what we are saying. In the middle part we want voice modulation. That comes in three varieties: tonal range, that is to say the up and down of speech tone; the degree of strength we are using – soft and strong; and the speed – sometimes we slow it right down and other times we speed it up again.

Filler words like Um and Ah have to be reduced or preferably removed altogether. They are a distraction when they have high frequency. It annoys the listener and competes for the attention of our message. The audience starts concentrating on the speech hesitations rather than the key points we are trying to convey. I was at a speech recently and the frequency of “ums” was every sentence. There weren’t even any “ahs” to break up the monotony! It was a negative for the speaker and it diminished an impressive resume.

We don’t need to have a deep DJ voice but if you have one, great for you. For the rest of us, we can only go with what we have and we can use our voice range to go a bit deeper on certain key words we want to emphasise. The words in a sentence are not all equal. This is not a lexicon democracy. It is a dictatorship of the important and we should be stressing the words which are key to the message. Don’t hit too many words in the one sentence, because we detract from the impact of our careful selection. Going soft on words works just as well as going hard by the way. A conspirator flavor is introduced when we do that. It is as if we are inviting the audience into our closed circle and we are sharing a secret with them and them alone.

When we hear our own voice played back it sounds strange because it is not how we hear it inside our own head. I remember that John Lennon was very self conscious about how his voice sounded on his records. Despite that he managed to sell millions of records anyway. This difference of how we sound is a physical thing to do with the bones in the ear, making sure we hear it one way and our audience is hearing it another.

Forget about the way you sound. Speak with control, with clarity, with pauses, with key word emphasis, with tonal variety. When we do that, the audience will be attracted to our message and that is all that we need. Think about all of the actors you see in movies and on television – they don’t all have just one voice style. They are successful because they are great communicators with the voice they have. We need to be the same.

The Power Of Belief When Presenting

Watching a grey haired, grizzled veteran of the media making his award acceptance speech talking about the importance of the pursuit of the truth in the media and a High School Senior speaking out about gun control, I was struck by how powerful both speeches were.  Many award speeches we see are either hopeless or perfunctory.  This one was different.  No notes, coherent, well delivered, confident and with a strong message.  The High School boy also spoke without notes, in front of a big audience, yet with so much confidence and clarity.  The common factor for both was the amount of belief they were communicating in their message.

Now in business, we might be thinking that is all very well for a media representative trying to fight back against a President who lambasts journalists about fake news and disparages their profession. We might think that this young man has survived a life and death experience and so he has that special degree of super commitment.   We in business are quite different aren’t we?

Getting fired up over spreadsheets, or quarterly results, or the PR department’s corporate messaging isn’t all that life changing, powerful or exciting.

This is a cop out.   If we are delivering a presentation in business, we have a message we wish to convey and the delivery of that message can make or break the success of what we are doing.  If we are just reporting numbers, we can see that as a routine function, isolated and puny in impact.  

What if we saw our activity against the WHY of what we are doing and connected the numbers back to that. What if we connected it to the lofty goals we have set for ourselves and how these numbers fit into that effort.  What if we connected it to the competition out there and how we were doing against them in the market place.  We can all take something that seems mundane and find a greater sense of purpose.  

If we are presenting on behalf of our firm, we are usually trying to convey a positive message about the company and what we are doing.  If we analyze our audience well, we can know how to connect what we want to say with issues that they are interested in and will value.  There is no shortage of ways to make a presentation relevant to our audience. The secret is in the planning.

The delivery is the hard part though.  Seeing yourself as a soldier on the media front lines, fighting back against the evil afoot is a much more uplifting topic than talking about the firm’s annual marketing plan. The delivery can have the transfer of belief though.  Yes, the scope and scale of the drama is different.  However, we can seize on the central point we want to get across to our audience and talk about that in a way that resonates we totally believe what we are saying is the best advice for them.

Counter intuitively, start the planning with the talk’s final punch line.  What is it you really, earnestly want to communicate, what is your key point?  Once you have divined that essence, build the talk around it by offering evidence, examples, vignettes, stories, proof, case studies that back it up.

If you believe what you are saying, then be supremely confident when communicating these points.  Send out waves of desire to help your audience do better through what you are conveying. The feeling is totally different to doing a download of data to an audience. This is the mental provision of the buffet and then the audience are on their own to take what they like and have an interest in, with no central compelling narrative, idea, point or message. We don’t want that.

Even if the object of the talk is to inform, the desire should be to provide the most up to date, highest value information and insight about what it means to our audience. If the object is to impress the audience about our company, then the desire is to convert as many of the people in the crowd to become fans, so that we can help them with our solutions. We don’t just want them to like our firm, we want them to buy our wares, speak highly of us and recommends us to all and sundry.

Belief is the most powerful engine with which to power a presentation. Find where you can inject belief into your talk. It must be relevant to the audience, genuine, authentic and heart felt. When you speak with belief you speak with a different voice. Something magical happens to you as a communicator and you and your message will be remembered. And that is what we want isn’t it.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Experts Not Very Expert At Presenting

Five star luxury is always appreciated and the hotel setting for this presentation was clearly appropriate given this elite event. The speaker’s contribution to business acumen was being highly anticipated, judged by the number of people in the room. Numerous round tables with white tablecloths, mainly men in dark suits, reserved tables for the more important, Western breakfast buffet at the back – the usual setting. We are all gathered for the information we are about to receive because there may be some insights presented which may help our businesses. We are also all armed with our mental review sheet of the presenter’s competence and by extension his organization. We want to know how much we can trust what we are being told.

Experts are a problem when they come to presenting their knowledge because they don’t value the process. The data, the graphs, the trend lines, the insights, the market intelligence all have value, so a first rate treasure trove can be delivered in a second or third rate manner. This is their excuse at any rate, “I don’t have to be a good presenter, because everyone is assembled to hear my genius content”, they plead.

Usually economic and market related expert presenters are carrying around big brains which are highly analytical. They rely on the inherent quality of their information to carry the day. Worryingly, they are in the persuasion business without realising it. Despite what they imagine, the data doesn’t sell itself. There is a line of reasoning, some thesis, a discourse that is near and dear to the heart of the presenter. They are here because they want people to buy their analysis, to think highly of them and their company and purchase their firm’s widget or whatever

The buying process though hinges on trust and credibility. Experts need to show two things – that they know what they are talking about and that what they are saying is true. The “true” bit can be gauged by the quality of their sources of the data, plus the veracity of their analysis and argument made on that basis. The trust part though is a lot more personal exercise. Is the expert able to articulate the thesis in a way that the audience can agree? Is the presentation easy to follow? Is the data being presented easily digestible, so that we buy what they are selling?

This is where the problems start. The speaker is a poor speaker. We are now getting sidetracked by their inability to strings two sentences together. We have lost focus on the content and are now diverted by their delivery. Their monotone delivery is making us sleepy. The lack of tonal variety means that each word is assigned exactly the same value, so the gems, the pearls, the brilliant diamonds are not standing out as they should.

They are wooden in their body language, so the face is the same mask throughout, like one of those Japanese Noh masks. They are not lifting our belief in what is being said by getting their facial expression behind the words to drive home the point. They are not using much in the way of gestures, because when their hands are not holding the podium down with a vice like grip, they are flourishing the clicker around to advance the slide deck. Gestures can be very powerful to draw attention to key points and to engage the audience, but none of that is on display today.

The visual aids are not really helping all that much. There is too much information on each slide, so our attention is being dispersed across too many data points. Analytical types think that if one graph per slide is good them three must be a lot better. It isn’t!

Adding lots of text must be a good idea they think because it adds greater value. The concept that the presenter could speak to a key word hasn’t filtered in yet. They see the screen as an extension of their writing pad and so let’s pile on the words, to get everyone understanding the point. Whole sentences are more attractive than single words from their point of view.

Looking fixedly at the screen information is a favourite. It is as if they are totally mesmerized, captured by the data and can’t help looking at it, so they ignore their audience. This a big thing to give up, if your are in the persuasion business and trust me we are all in that business.

Being able to drive home your key points, while eyeballing the audience is a powerful weapon. We can engage our audience and draw them into us and what we are saying. We have had thousands of years of refining this in the Western world and we know the power of persuasion through the spoken word. The experts though, ignore history to their peril. By watching our audience, we can also keep a hawk like view of how our audience is reacting to what we are saying and showing them. The reactions are very helpful to where we need to place the emphasis of the talk and give us a heads up, on what questions we are likely to get in Q&A.

It was obvious that no thought had been put into how to open the presentation and how to close it. We went through the slides, went straight into the questions and then moved on to the coffee break before the next speaker. When we are presenting, the first words out of our mouth had better be pretty good. We need to tempt the audience to want to stay riveted to the presentation, because the content is valuable, the presenter is valuable and the presenter’s organisation is valuable. We need to hammer our prime message twice at the end, once before we go to Q&A and then again as we wrap it all up and head for coffee.

I heard from one of the organisers that this was this expert’s first foray into presenting the latest global research findings of this venerable organisation. It became obvious they hadn’t bothered to provide any training before his first outing and also that he wouldn’t be getting any after the tour either. It is a “work it out yourself” approach to harming one’s personal and professional brands.

Crazy stuff you might ponder, but this scenario is all too common. Don’t put people representing your organisation out there on public display, until they have had some training. We don’t want them to underwhelm or even worse screw it up. These are all own goals easily avoided, yet we see the same mistakes time after time, often from the same company! Don’t be one of them.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

Watch Others To Learn Presenting

When we are the thick of things we have trouble observing ourselves. Public speaking is really pushing many people right out of their comfort zone, so the stress levels are massive. They feel they are heating up, their breath is getting shorter, their tummy feels rather bad and their throat is parched. It is very hard to be an objective observer of your own performance when you are mainly preoccupied with survival. This is where being an observer of others is very handy.

Our High Impact Presentations Course uses this technique in depth. While we are up there presenting our classmates are watching us like a hawk for two things. One is to discover what we are doing that is good. The second is looking for areas where we could do better. You will notice I didn’t introduce any ideas about things they could critique about our performance. This is looking into the past, it degrades everyone’s confidence and creates a negative relationship between the participants.

When we are not in class though there are many chances for us to observe how others present. Obviously when we attend events with a speaker we can take the opportunity to hone our observation skills. The vast majority of attendees are there just to hear the speaker and learn something from the content. They are not mentally pulling the whole operation apart and analysing it. Well that is precisely what we should be doing.

Did the speaker attempt to connect with the audience before the event? Did they reference something said by one of the attendees to build a bond with the audience and break down the barriers? How was the introduction? Usually this is done by the hosting organization’s person. Was it obviously something that person put together and therefore was a pretty half baked affair or was it an all dancing, all singing warm up for the main act?

When you are presenting always prepare your own introduction. Don’t make it an essay, keep it brief and focused on the high points. Don’t allow anyone else to represent you during the talk. Send it before you speak or hand it to them on the day. Either way, try to get them to stick to the script. What you have written will always be a lot better than anything they come up with.

How was the speaker’s opening of the talk? Were they fiddling around with the tech and discussing it with the audience before they got going? Did they say stupid things like “can you hear me?” as they are tapping the microphone, because they hadn’t bothered to check earlier when they arrived.

Was the first sentence something which grabbed our attention and made sure we kept our hands off our mobile devices? Could they break through all the clutter in our minds as we worry about yesterday, what happened today and what we need to do tomorrow? How did they open? Was it straight into an interesting story? Did they say something surprising or informative? Did they open with a question which got us engaged in the theme of the talk? Look for these techniques and then consider what you need to do to grab audience mind share when you are a speaker. Today, there is so much more distraction and competition for limited time, miniscule concentration spans that we have to really be on our game, in that environment.

Once they got going was it easy to follow where they were going with this presentation? Did it hang together? Was it logically well constructed so we were brought along with their argument and we were persuaded? Did they shift gears every five minutes or so to maintain our interest? Were they using their eyes to engage us one by one, their voice to have modulation to maintain our interest? Were they using their body language to add strength to their argument?

How did they wrap it up? Did they loop back to something they said at the start? Did they use a quotation from an authority figure? Did they summarise the key points?

Did they handle the Q&A like a pro? Were they paraphrasing what had been said so everyone could hear it. Were they using cushions to buy themselves thinking time. Did they have a second close ready to go so that they could make sure their key message was the last thing the audience heard and remembered, regardless of what came up during the Q&A?

So as you see, we are going to be kept pretty busy when we attend someone else’s talk. By checking for these things we are programming into our minds the importance of being properly prepared before we get up and talk. Don’t let the chance slip by to work over someone else’s efforts to insulate ourselves from the typical errors and to make our talk a triumph, based on learning from the foibles of others.

Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com

If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.

A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, "THE Sales Japan series", THE Presentations Japan Series", he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.