Using Your Voice

Although I am the first to say that actions speak louder than words, your vocal delivery plays the role of interpreter for the message. If the visual medium is truly the content and the body is definitely the delivery, then the voice is a combination of both. Words carry information and action. To develop the action in your voice, a few issues should be considered, including proper breathing and how to phrase and pause effectively.

Breathing Properly

Sometimes your choice of where to take the next breath can disrupt the flow of your words. By breathing between phrases rather than during a phrase, you vocalize better. The key to this is having enough air in your lungs to sustain a longer phrase. For example, I have been known to deliver very long phrases with volume and emphasis. I believe that's from knowing how to breathe properly.

When you don't have enough air, you rush through your words, and then they run together from speaking so quickly. Chances are that your emphasis and inflection will be lost. In any case, by having enough air, you can say longer phrases more slowly, which helps to make the message clear.

First, let's find out if you are breathing properly. Stand up and take a deep breath. Did your shoulders go up? Did your chest expand?

If your shoulders went up, you filled your chest with air. Unfortunately, that's not the way you naturally breathe. The air normally goes into the lower abdomen. Try this test. Lie down on the floor, face up, with a book on your stomach. Breathe normally and watch the book. Notice it moving up and down? That's your diaphragm at work. The muscles in your stomach, not your chest, control breathing. Now take a deep breath and force the book upward; it should be easy once you concentrate on the correct muscles for the job.

Next, remove the book, stand up, and take the same deep breath, but don't expand your chest or raise your shoulders. Your stomach should expand. This is the proper way to breathe between your phrases when speaking.

Again, the key is having enough breath to complete long phrases or sentences without running out of air. This is important for languages such as English, in which the major points are made at the end of phrases, not at the beginning. Without enough air, your voice might trail off and the audience will not hear the key part (the end) of the sentence. The beginning of the next phrase will be less connected to the important part of the prior one. The result is confusion for the audience.

The following is an exercise for breath control. You should be able to say this entire passage in one breath.

What a to-do, to die today, at a minute or two to two

A thing distinctly hard to say, yet harder still to do

For they'll beat a tattoo at twenty to two

A rah-tah-tah-tah-tah-tah-tah-tah-tah-too

And the dragon will come at the sound of a drum

At a minute or two to two, today,

At a minute or two to two.

When you develop truly excellent breath control, you will be able to say the above passage two times with one breath.

If you can't remember the above phrase, here's another breathing exercise you can try. In one breath say, “One by one, they went away.” Pretty easy, right? Okay, add another to the count, like this, “One by one and two by two, they went away.” Try adding another to the count and in one breath say, “One by one and two by two and three by three, they went away.” Don't forget that each of these segments has to be done in one breath. You should shoot for as high as “twelve by twelve.” With practice, 15 or higher is possible as you get more control of your breathing.

Phrasing and Pausing

Take natural pauses between your sentences. Say a phrase, pause, then say a phrase and pause, and so on. By using this technique, you can control the pacing of the presentation. Natural pauses give you a chance to make eye contact, to breathe, or even to think. You end up with smooth transitions and a more consistent delivery.

Fillers Are Killers

The funny thing about getting up in front of people is that you have an altered sense of time. You think you're going too slow and you begin to pick up the pace, not so much with your speech but more with your thoughts. You begin to think more quickly and between one phrase and another the audience hears “uhhhhhh,” “ummmmm,” “errrrrr,” “ahhhhh,” and other fillers, the sounds you make between the words you say. Fillers are not language. They are grunts and groans. The audience can't process fillers. In fact, if you have a lot of them in your presentation, the audience becomes preoccupied with the distraction and ends up concentrating on your fillers, not on your phrases.

Fillers can even be whole words, such as “okay,” “right,” “you know,” “again,” and “see,” to name a few. Fillers are evidence that you are thinking out loud. You're letting the audience hear you think. To counter this problem, use silence as a filler. It appears that you are taking natural pauses when you speak.

The Opening Pause

When I'm coaching a person, I always suggest the two-second opening pause. Right after the first phrase, such as “Good morning,” you should take a two-second pause. Complete silence for two seconds. It can seem like an eternity, but it gives you the chance to establish two important things: pacing and anchors.

From a pacing perspective, the opening pause sets up the audience. They get to know right away who is in charge of the momentum. People have to know that you are in control. That's the role of the presenter—to control the flow. The role of the audience is to be controlled. If you don't appear rushed, the audience settles into the presentation at the pace you have set.

Those two seconds of silence help you in another way. In our earlier discussion of anchors, we talked about identifying the friendly faces to focus on. Unfortunately, you can't establish anchors in the audience until you first take the stage, because that's when almost everyone is seated. You can't look out in the audience 40 minutes before the presentation and find them. You have to find your anchors during the opening pause. Don't worry, though, it will take you only about two seconds to scan the crowd for those friendly faces. Typically, those sitting in the most light are the easiest to spot.

When in Doubt, Pause First

Have you ever been asked a question during your presentation and not known the answer? Don't blurt out your ignorance right away. Instead, pause for a moment.

The pause maintains whatever level of credibility you had before the question was asked. By pausing for a moment, you make the audience believe that you could answer the question, given enough time. The group watches you search your mind for an answer, even though you never come up with one.

So, when in doubt, pause first. It buys you time and credibility. Of course, don't stop there. The words “I'll get back to you on that” indicate your intention to follow up at a later point with an answer. Be sure you do.

Targeting Phrases

Once you have control over your voice, you can direct your phrases for more impact. You can target your words to entire sections of the audience or simply to one person.

It's a given that everyone in the room has to be able to hear you. Sometimes a microphone will be needed for the entire audience to hear every word you say. Because you can't count on having a microphone in every situation, you'll have to learn to project your voice.

Although proper breathing is important to voice projection, you should also target your phrases toward the back of the room to be sure everyone hears what you say. One way to do this is to play to the back third of the audience. In the theater it's called “playing to the cheap seats.” The farthest one-third of the audience is where most of your phrases should be targeted because if they can hear you, everyone can hear you.

You never have to worry about the people in the front. But the people in the back—pretend that they are never sold, never convinced, never in agreement with your message. This forces you to target them. The good news is that this causes you to lift your chin slightly higher in the air, opens your throat, and makes your voice clearer. In addition, you'll find yourself facing forward more often in order to project to the back of the room. The intensity of your phrases, no matter how calm or soft-spoken, become more audible, and your facial expressions more visible.

Voice projection helps when fielding responses from the audience. Sometimes an audience member speaks so softly that only you and a few other people hear him. Be sure you repeat the question or comment so that the entire group can hear it. If you fail to do this, then your response will make sense only to those who heard the question or comment. Also, by repeating a question, you get more time to formulate your answer.

You can also target your phrases directly to a specific person. You can do it with just a look, but you get more impact if you know the person's name. Using names adds a personal touch to your presentation.

When you refer to a person by name, only the first name is needed. This makes it a little easier for you because last names can sometimes be difficult to remember or even pronounce. Of course, if you are speaking to an audience that you have never met before, it will be difficult to identify people by name. During interaction, you could ask that people identify themselves to the audience before they speak. Then, you'll know a person's name and be able to use it in your response.

Targeting your phrases to an entire section or to a specific person makes the audience more conscious of each other and more respectful of your caring to take the time to treat people as individuals when possible.

Transitioning

Transitioning is having something to say during changes in your presentation. Those changes can be a result of movement or from the visuals themselves.

Movement in the triangle can be very obvious when your space is bigger. It might take several steps to get from the middle to the front, for example. You should not be moving on a key phrase. The words have more impact when you are still. Suppose you want to say the words “It saves money” in the front of the triangle. If you are in the middle of the triangle and a few steps away from the front, you have to add a transition or some extra words to allow you time to get to the front. Once there, and not moving, you can say the key phrase, “It saves money.” Perhaps your entire phrase (said from the middle while walking to the front) turns into “One of the most important advantages of this new product is that (now you stop at the front) it saves money.” The transitional text enables you to move to the next space and deliver the key words while standing still.

Transitions are also useful whenever the visual changes, although this is less of a requirement when using slides or electronic images because they change more rapidly. A more traditional medium, such as overheads, requires verbal transitions.

It takes several seconds to remove one transparency from the overhead projector and replace it with the next. Don't let that time be filled with silence. Have a transition—something to say as you approach the equipment, as you change the visual, as you set the next visual, and as you move away from the equipment. Even in the world of state-of-the-art electronics, a pause to press a remote control is just as obvious as changing an overhead if you leave too big a gap with nothing to say.

Don't confuse silence with timed pauses. A timed pause lasts about one to three seconds and is useful for getting the audience to ponder a question. Dead silence lasts longer and tells the audience you can't really think of anything to say at the moment.

Rule of Threes

People remember things in sets of threes. Our system of government is based on the number three, many religions are based on three, even the family—mother-father- child—is based on the number three. You can find this rhythm in many political or religious speeches. Key concepts or arguments are constructed around three references. For example, a politician might make the statement: “We'll be more prosperous, we'll pay less in taxes, and our children will have a future.” Notice the use of three references in the phrasing to make a point. Many references include a triad of some sort, such as Julius Caesar's “Veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) and the courtroom oath of “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Even the Olympic Games grant three medals: Gold, Silver, and Bronze.

Try to incorporate the rule of threes when presenting your next topic. It's easy, it's simple, and it works like a charm.

Avoiding Vocal Problems

Just as with the body, distractions can occur when using the voice. Most of the time, vocal problems can be corrected, but sometimes our natural speech will sound different to different audiences. An accent is natural to some, but unique to others.

If you have an accent, as most of us do, it means that you might sound different from what the audience is used to hearing. My grandmother, who came from Italy, once said to me in broken English, “Don't laugh at people with accents. They speak one more language than you do.” Of course, an accent from speaking a foreign language is no less noticeable than a regional accent. When I spoke at a seminar in Mississippi, the person who introduced me ended his opening remark with “at least you'll like his New York accent.” Just as I began to speak, I looked at him and said, “Wait a minute. I thought you had the accent.”

The point is that, if you have a well-rehearsed presentation and you can be understood when you speak, your accent should not reduce your effectiveness.

Some believe in eliminating a regional or foreign accent, but I think it helps make the individual stand out for an audience. If you can be understood, then don't worry about an accent. However, some other vocal issues can become major problems if not corrected.

The Mumbler

The mumbler is the person who does not enunciate clearly. The lips stay so close together that the audience can't even see the words forming. When the mouth stays very closed, volume decreases and the words are barely audible. Remember to loosen those lips and articulate.

The Garbler

Another person with an enunciation problem, the garbler is the person who speaks so quickly that the audience can't hear the end of one word before the next word arrives. To correct this problem, try saying a short phrase very slowly by stretching out each and every syllable in every word. This helps to reduce the speed of speech.

The Droner

The droner has a constant, monotone, expressionless voice and is the best-known cure for insomnia! The problem is from little or no inflection. This is often prevalent among presenters who have limited interest in the topic or those who have been presenting the same information in the same way for too long. They are simply bored with the stuff they deliver. The voice reflects the boredom, gets lazy, and eventually becomes monotonous.

One solution to this problem is to practice placing stress on different words in a sentence. For example, the following list uses ALL CAPS to show the changing emphasis in the same phrase:

And WE offer the best service.

And we OFFER the best service.

And we offer the BEST service.

And we offer the best SERVICE.

Try saying these phrases out loud and note the difference in the stress of the capitalized words. Placing emphasis in this way forces the voice into higher and lower pitches within a phrase, adding vocal variety to an otherwise droning tone.

The Dropper

The dropper is the person who starts out with a lot of volume and then gradually drops off to the point where the audience is straining to hear the disappearing words. This problem is definitely related to improper breathing. The exercises mentioned earlier can help with sustaining longer phrases.

Sometimes the words drop off because you are not completing one thought for yourself before introducing the next. You become anxious to get to the next part of the argument. The key to avoiding this problem is to maintain volume through the end of every phrase.

When a vocal problem becomes a distraction, you need to take steps to eliminate it. When your voice becomes trained to the point where you can control it effectively, you gain another advantage in conveying the message you intend for the audience.