Communicate with Your Voice

Your voice is multitalented. It can sound:

• Assertive: Firm, unyielding, significant, focused
• Cautious: Measured, enunciated, understated
• Critical: Harsh, angry, upset, pointed, caustic
• Humorous: Comedic, light, novel, irreverent
• Motivational: Uplifting, encouraging, friendly
• Sympathetic: Emotional, moving, personal, delicate
• Neutral: Casual, technical, dispassionate, informative

And it does all this through pitch, tone, volume, pacing, and enunciation.

Many business presenters have a dispassionate vocal style, assuming that it makes them sound objective or authoritative. But a flat delivery will bore your audience. Instead, create contrast—and emphasis—through vocal variation. You can do this on your own or by tag-teaming with someone else. When my husband and I copresent our company’s vision each year, our contrasting styles come through: He’s soft-spoken and charmingly funny, whereas I’m dramatic and passionate. That mix works well for our content. He gets everyone to reflect on the firm’s success, and I talk about the future with bold enthusiasm.

To ensure that your content comes through clearly, identify and remove verbal tics. Because silence makes most speakers uncomfortable, they tend to use words such as “um,” “uh,” “you know,” “like,” and “anyway” to fill up space between points. They’d almost always be better served by a pause, which gives the audience a chance to reflect.

I didn’t think I had any verbal tics until I watched myself on video. After each key point, I said, “Right?” with an annoying lilt in my tone. It didn’t take me long to remove that from my repertoire. I watched the video several times to cement it in my mind. At my very next speaking gig, I said it. Once. This word I didn’t even know I used suddenly sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. I caught myself two more times about to say it—and stopped. Becoming self-aware and really hearing how bad it sounded helped me correct myself in the moment.