The Seven Deadly Sins of Presenting…Are you committing them?

Congratulations…you are nearly there! Only 3 more deadly sins to identify and 3 more critical steps to becoming a world class presenter. To summarize what we have covered so far. On day one we covered Eye Control, Day two Hand control, Day three Stance and Day 4 Volume. Today we are going to be covering…

# Sin 5 – Having a monotone voice

Have you ever listened to a monotone voice? What does it sound like to you? In my last email we spoke about the importance of increasing your volume. Volume is very important as I described, but without variations in vocal tone, inflection, and intonation you may still sound dull, and dull may quickly lead to ‘boring’. You can see a demonstration of this in the video below:

[bitsontherun avMpIwVy]

As a presenter, you need to avoid being boring. Your audience will ‘switch off’ and tune out. Voice modulation is important, whilst ensuring your audience can still hear you well, you can reduce and increase the volume, the tone, the pitch and pace of your voice according to the point you are making. 

If you read my last email carefully you will know that inflection in your voice is directly linked to the volume. Sometimes referred to as tonality, or the ‘music’ or  ‘passion’ in the voice – it is very important. It creates the interest and the character of your voice.

Be aware that a change in your voice will change the mood of your audience. Perhaps you’ve seen this before, ever attended a presentation where the presenter is so excited that their voices carries energy and excitement, so that you have no choice but to feel their excitement and their passion?

Create awareness of your own voice and use it. On all ImpactSkills Programmes we film and record training so individuals can not only see themselves, but also ‘hear’ themselves.  I recommend you do this before your next presentation. Start to listen to yourself speak – how do you sound? 

Listen to how you use your voice, listen to the vocal range that you have.

• Do you speak with a high pitched voice or do you speak with a low pitched voice?
• Listen to the volume, do you have a quiet voice or a loud voice?
• Notice the timbre of the voice, how is it communicating emotion?
• Become aware of how you use your voice; are you monotone and not very exciting or do you have tons of excitement in your voice?

Recently I went along to a presentation done by someone whose vocal quality and presentation is best described as ‘steady’, the content was interesting, but I really had to focus to stay in the room, physically and metaphorically!

It doesn’t matter how good someone’s message is, as an audience member it’s really hard to stay interested if the speaker has no excitement, modulation or passion in their voice.

Once you have become aware of your vocal range, try to develop it;

• Start to expand your vocal range
• Create ‘moods’ with your voice
• Carry your confidence in your voice
• If you can tell stories well, take people on a ‘journey’ and link it to your content.

Remember what Albert Mehrabian states; what you say accounts for only 7% of your message impact, where as HOW you say it, accounts for 38%. This is well worth bearing in mind. Don’t lose 38% of your impact!

Play the below video to see this critical step in action:

[bitsontherun priXANv0]

Inflection, which in a ‘nutshell’ means ‘how you sound’ to others is the fifth critical step to becoming a confident and effective presenter. Tomorrow we will be looking at the sixth critical step so look out for tomorrow’s email. You are nearly there!

Kind Regards

 

Laith

P.S. We would really value your feedback and opinion on how helpful you have found this critical step and how you feel it will help you in the future when you master this skill therefore please take a moment to leave your comments below and if there are any other areas that you would like our help with in the future please do tell us and we will create another campaign to help you going forward.

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