Do you have a hard time being heard in meetings or discussions?

Maybe your voice is too soft, you lack confidence, you are nervous speaking in front of people.  Perhaps you mumble or speak with a monotone. 

You know you have valuable information to share with your colleagues, but for some reason, you find it hard to participate in discussions and express your viewpoints. Even when you do get a word in, you find others very quickly speak over you or barely notice you opened your mouth. 
Your voice is not reflecting your position and is holding you back from future career development.

If this sounds like you, there IS a way to improve your vocal skills.

There are several different reasons as to why the above scenarios may be causing you grief. 

When you are nervous, your throat gets tight and your voice doesn't come out sounding like YOU. It might be shaky, or hoarse, or barely audible. You might find you trip on your words. This causes embarrasement and you become so discouraged you don't even want to speak up any more. After a while, your colleagues, may even question your competence because you never voice your opinion.

A similar senario can occur with mumbling and monotone. If the voice is inaudible, not clear, or uninteresting to listen to, people will often shut out, or speak over the person who is speaking. Again this can cause feelings of frustration, discouragement and over time you will hold yourself back from speaking openly. This in turn can dramatically hold you back in your career and personal life.

If you feel your voice is holding you back from reaching your goals and turning your dreams into a reality, it's time you took the step to make a change. Learn to speak with a voice which communicates with confidence and reflects your skills and competence.

I would love to assist you to reach your goals.

We are all speakers. We want to be understood and heard when we speak. When we chat in the grocery store we are speaking, when we are on the phone we are speaking, when we conduct a business meeting we are speaking and when we give a presentation to 5 or 500 people, we are speaking. We want our audience to remember us and our message.  Therefore it's important to speak with clarity, confidence and conviction. 

Your optimum pitch is the level at which your voice is most suitable and comfortable speaking in. It's your natural sound. The sound that has the most pure, rich and vibrant tones. The live at which you are most comfortable speaking and where you voice will not tire.

This is different to your habitual pitch, which is the pitch you use autmoatically or "habitually" for speaking. Habitiual pitch, however, may not be your best vocal quality. 

To find your optimum pitch, say "Uh - Huh" a few times over. Make sure you drop down on the "Huh". Then move into speaking directly afterwards saying "Hi, my name is ......". Notice the pitch of your voice on the Hi and when you say your name. Were they the same pitch as the "Huh"? If not, try again and try to start and end on the same pitch as the huh.

Try singing Happy Birthday. Where you naturally start to sing, is generally where your optimum pitch is located. Directly afterwards, try saying some short phrases. Introduce yourself, practise a short greeting, say some simple words. Optimum pitch is not where you will speaking constantly, but where you should comfortably speak around. 

Some of us develop a habit of speaking to low to express an air of professionalism, seriousness or a business like quality. Some women stay in their high, thin child-like voices after reaching adulthood.  Speaking consistently above or below your optimum pitch could be restricting your full vocal power and adding strain to your larynx.

This was based on a study done in 1967 by Dr. Albert Mehrabian, a Professor of Psychology at UCLA. Whether these statistics are truly correct today, is debatable.​

Of course, everyone would agree, presentations are definitely improved by the confidence of the presenter, vocal tonality, melody, pace, pauses, understanding key words to emphasize points, great body language and appropriate hand movements.

Clearly, if someone is boring and soft spoken, a lot of their message will be lost because the audience may not be paying attention.  

​If a presenters voice is annoying, they have persistant repetitive manerisms or they appear nervous, the audience will be more focused on these annoyances than the content of the presentation or speech. 

Let me know your opinion. What is more important? The content of your speech/presentation or your delivery?

If you lack confidence as a speaker or are unsure if your voice is interesting enough to captivate your listeners, you can improve.

CONTACT Lisa today to discover the possibilities. ​