by Gilda Bonanno LLC
When you’re presenting, the words you say are important – and so is your voice. Your voice (and all your body language) should match your words, help you convey confidence and content to the audience and engage their attention.
Here are 3 tips for effectively using your voice when presenting:
1) Speak loudly enough to be heard
How loud depends on the environment. If you're in-person and it's a large room, you might need to use a microphone. Learn how to use it well and a microphone will allow you to speak naturally so the people in the back of the room can hear you easily.
2) Your voice really matters when presenting virtually
Your voice is particularly important if you're doing a teleconference (or a webinar where people can't see you). They have no other body language to see or hear, other than your voice.
If you’re on a phone, you probably need to speak a little louder than you would normally, especially if it's a speaker phone that's a foot away from you on the desk, or if you're talking on a cell phone, where the connection might not be great.
Also over the phone, you need more energy than when presenting in person. Stand up, use a wireless headset so you can walk around or keep a mirror on your desk so you can see if you’re smiling.
Even if you are on camera, your audio is important. People will forgive bad video before they forgive bad audio. Make sure your mic conveys your voice clearly and crisply. Consider investing in a separate, adjustable microphone if the one that’s part of your computer is not good enough or if you’re too far away from it for it to pick up your voice.
3) Avoid “uptalk”
“Uptalk” is when you end every sentence with a question mark so everything sounds like a question. For example, you might say, "My name is Gilda? [voice goes up] and my idea about the project is this?" Instead of using declarative sentence ending in a period, you end every sentence with a question mark and it makes you sound like you're not sure of anything.
I had a coaching client who had this issue. I had never met her in person, but I listened in on one of her teleconferences where she was presenting to a key client. She was a very smart woman with a lot of experience, but everything she said sounded like a question, so she sounded unsure about everything. She had no idea that’s how she sounded until we recorded the next teleconference so she could hear for herself.
Once she realized it, we were able to work on it so she could replace each question mark with a period instead. For example, “I have three recommendations?” became “I have three recommendations.” Period. "Here’s what I suggest you do.”
End your sentence with a period, exclamation point, colon, comma, semicolon, quotation marks - anything other than a question mark. Save that question mark for when you're actually asking a question. Removing up talk automatically made her smarter and more confident and she noticed that her key clients were more likely to follow her recommendations.
Following these 3 voice tips will help you communicate your message clearly and confidently while capturing and keeping your audience’s attention.
© Gilda Bonanno LLC - Gilda Bonanno serves as a trusted advisor to executives and entrepreneurs to transform their communication, presentation and leadership skills. She has worked with companies on 4 continents, from Chicago to Shanghai and Rio to Rome. The instructional videos on her YouTube channel have received over 2 million views and her e-newsletter has reached subscribers in over 45 countries since 2008. For other articles or to receive Gilda's e-newsletter, visit www.gildabonanno.com