The Power of Your Voice

Drop the mic presentations are exemplary they stand above the rest and captivate the audience. In this series we will be sharing with you the fundamental skills and innovative techniques that will help you create and deliver extraordinary memorable presentations. 

Get ready to… DROP THE MIC……

The Power of Your Voice

Until we perfect the use of telepathy, our voice is the vehicle that delivers our well-planned and increasingly brilliant ideas to our eager audiences.  

It is critically important then to make certain that your voice carries these ideas in a way that your listeners can most readily receive them.

We have all been frustrated by the speaker whose voice trials off at the end of a sentence or someone who speaks in a dreaded, lackluster, Joe Friday "just the facts" monotone style.

It’s all about energy. What is the energy in your voice?

Listeners detect or measure vocal energy through inflection, tone, volume, clarity, enunciation, pronunciation, pitch, and emphasis.The best way to learn how your voice sounds is to either video-tape or audio tape yourself when you practice or when you deliver your presentation live. Play it back and determine how your voice sounded.

Could you enhance your vocal delivery further? Close your eyes and listen. Does your voice convey the meaning or emphasis that you intended?

Work on your voice – it’s the vehicle for getting your ideas out there!

Avoid:

• Speaking too soft or too loud
• Speaking too fast or too slow
• Volume trailing off at the end of a sentence
• Mumbling or unexpressive slurring sounds
• Quivering voice due to excitement or nerves

What Works:

• Practice and prepare so you understand where you can bring vocal energy to heighten your presentation
• Use diaphragmic breathing to push your words out and save strain on your vocal cords
• Use pauses to slow down and create a manageable pace
• Speak loud enough to be heard by the people in the back of the room
• Have a glass of room temperature water at hand if your mouth dries out or your throat becomes hoarse or scratchy

Benefits:

• You will speak with less train on your vocal cords
• You will be more easily heard and understood
• You will be perceived as clear and confident
• You will breathe life into your content
• You will speak more from your “true voice” or your “sound voice”
• You will become more interesting to your listeners