Your voice is the most powerful communication tool you possess so you should use it to inspire and engage your audience.
To create an impact, to be clear, natural and expressive, your voice needs to be used effectively.
Here are a couple of simple things you can do with your voice that will make a life changing difference!
Intonation
A speech that is absolutely flat, without variation in tone and melody, will bore an audience to tears. When you are rehearsing for your presentation, decide which words deserve extra attention and increase the tone to emphasize these points. The key to success is to do naturally! If you sound exaggerated or false, your audience will know it!
Volume
Your goal is to be heard and trusted by your audience! Speak in a way that everybody in the audience can hear you. Also make sure you vary the volume – sometimes louder, sometimes softer – so that certain pieces of what you are saying stand out from the rest.
Emphasis
The same sentence with a different emphasis on different words can mean different things. Here is a quick example ‘I fired Bill today’. It’s only 4 words but my putting the emphasis on different words it changes the meaning 4 different ways.
Pauses
Pauses placed in strategic spots in a presentation, can make the difference between a good and an excellent presentation. There are many uses for a pause: to give listeners a chance to absorb something; to generate expectations about something that’s going to be said; to give the presenter a chance to think ; to enable the presenter to breathe; and to give a presenter time to think before answering a question.
Please check out this fabulous TED Talk by Caroline Goyder … it is so worth it!!
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Marilyn
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