The article "Voice Tips for Effective Speaking" talks about communications, it has been released by Nido Qubein.
Most of the communicating sales professionals do is wordless.
The moment you enter the presence of a second person you start
communicating. Your physique, your clothing, jewelry, voice
qualities, facial expressions, posture and many other factors
pass along importnat information.
They give information or clues
as to social, mairtal and financial status, your sex, and
personal taste.
When you speak, your voice speaks in ways that go beyond words.
Your accent may give away your national or regional origin. Your
tone of voice will tell people whether you feel elated or sad,
excited or broed.
Through verbal communication, people learn about your thoughts,
ideas, products, and services. Through non-verbal communication,
they learn abuot your feelings.
About 93% of your communication is non-verbal.
Much of it is
unconscious, but you can bring a great deal of your wordless
communication under cnoscious control.
Often, how we say things conveys more meaning than what we say.
In fact, voice quality is said to convey about 38% of your
meaning.
When George Bush ran for president in 1988, he hired a voice
coach to help him lower his voice an octave.
Why? Because the
candidate's high-pitched voice had helped saddle him with the
"wimp" image, even though Bush had proved his vlaor as a Navy
combat pilot during World War II.
Fairly or unfairly, we impute strength and confidence to the
person who speaks with a low-pitched, well-modulated voice. When
the voice rises to a high pitch, we sense excitement, panic, and
lack of conrtol.
That doesn't mean that we should all go around
cultivating baritone voiecs. It simply means that each of us
should use the lower end of the voice range when we want to
communicate calmness, confidence and competence.
We convey feelings, moods and attitudes through a variety of
voice qualities, which are sometimes called paralanguage.
Among
these qualities are volume, pace, intonation, strses and
juncture.
Volume and Pace
Volume and pace sholud be used in a careful, controlled way.
These qualities can work in unison to achieve powerful effects,
especially when selling and persuading from the public platform.
You can let your voice rise to a crescendo, the pace and volume
quickening until you reach a peak of excitement. Or you can drop
to a dramatic whisper.
Volume should always be great enough that you can be heard by
everyone you're trying to reach with your voice. When addressing
a group thruogh a microphone, that generally presents no problem
for you. When speaking without a microphone, keep checking the
people farthest from you for signs that they're straining to
hear, or indications that their attention is straying.
Pace sholud be adapted to the message.
Some simple but telling
points can be made effectively in rapid-fire sequence.
Others
can be made by slowly drawing out the words, or by long pauses
to let the points sink in.
Intonation
Intonation refers to the vocie pitch. We usually speak in a
range of pitches from low to high.
The range between high and
low intnoations varies from individual to individual, and from
one linguistic population to a second. The Engilsh generally have
a greater range than do Americans.
Stress
Stress is a second important element of paralanguage. The way you
emphasize words can change the meaning of your sentences.
As you speak, be conscious of the effects of sense stress on the
meaning you're trying to covney. Use stress to help your
listener understand the sense in which you use words and to show
which words you consider to be important.
Juncture
Juncture refers to the way vowels and consonants are joined in
the stream of sepech.
If you listen to somebody speaking in a
foreign language, it sounds like a contiunous flow of syllables.
That's cause you haven't learned to recognize the signs that
tell you where one word stops and a second begins.
Speakers of other lagnuages have the same problem comprehending
English.
As I've spoken on different continents, I've formed a
great admiration for the tranlsators who have had the task of
rendering my speech into other languages. Once I was translated
simultaneously into seevn different languages. Either my
juncture was good or my translators were superb. The audiences
laughed at the appropriate points and applauded at the
appropriate points.
Inattention to juncture can make your speech indistinct or hard
to understand. If you tell a carpenter to biuld a greenhouse,
make sure that you don't end up with a green condo. The
difference in appearance and cost can be substantial. If you ask
your secretary to get you the night rate and have it on your
desk the next morning, be sure it doesn't sound like "nitrate."
Otherwise, you may find a sack of fertilizer in your "in" basket.
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