The Most Overlooked Aspect of Public Speaking & Presentation

One day, an entrepreneurial couple decided they needed to improve their presentation skills for pitching and business development. They centred their search on:

1. Storytelling.
2. Engagement (visual aids, multimedia, technology).
3. Managing Anxiety.

As they worked on their skills, they saw some differences in how audiences received them. However, they were still finding it difficult to close sales and win investment.

"What are we overlooking?"

they asked themselves.

Uncertain and a little downtrodden, they decided to take a night off and go to the theatre. Relaxing helped their brains release - and insight came.

• "Did you notice how the lead performer captured the audience but had very little acting to actually do?"

the wife asked her husband.

• "Now, that you say it, yes, I suppose I did. What makes you comment on it?"

"That's what we're missing!"

his wife replied.

• "We've been focusing on slides, and visuals, and structuring stories - all important - but we haven't put any effort into improving our voices. The lead used their voice to command the room. We need voice coaching."

The Power of Your Voice

Very few people seem to realise the importance of the voice. Yet, we use our voices every day to convey emotions, spread ideas, and connect across cultures.

Yes, the typo in the image is glaring, but the point is apt. As Michael Scott of The Office, in an unusually wise moment, tells us above:

If I don't like your tone, I will probably ignore your idea, no matter how good it is.

Pitch VS Tone

Seinfeld did a sketch many years ago about vocal tone in marital relationships. However, he got something wrong. What he demonstrated was only an aspect of tone. His question, however, was more related to pitch.

"Is it high, low, sharp of flat?" he asked.

Pitch can be high, low, sharp and flat. It combines with tone (and the other vocal facets) to create the overall shape of the voice. It is this combination that makes a speaker more or less credible, and their ideas more or less likely to be adopted.

Tone Defects:

1.     Breathy Tone:

Here the vocal cords are brought together too loosely resulting in an escape of breath during vocalisation. Sometimes this can be caused by growths on the vocal cords which prevent them coming together properly. Lack of muscular vitality in the throat can also make the vocal cords slack, or weaker, so they can't come together. Breathy tone is often the result of inadequate breathing methods, such as clavicular breathing.

CHECK IT: Hold a piece of tissue in front of your mouth and say: "hey, he, hoe, haw, hoo." If the tissue moves a lot, there is too much breath coming out. You'll lose control when speaking and stress yourself and your audience. Practice diaphragmatic breathing, engaging the abdominal and intercostal muscles to control the outflow of breath.

2.     Strident Tone:

This is a hard metallic tone caused by too much tension in the vocal mechanism and resonators. If the vocal cords are forced together, harsh noise is added to the noise produced. A pinched throat (through bad posture) will certainly result in this fault as projection is from the throat and not the diaphragm.

CHECK IT: Round your shoulders forward and drop your head so you feel a slight pinch in your throat (don't hurt yourself). Then say, "No, I'm not doing it." Now, lift your head up a little, put your shoulders back, straighten your posture and repeat. Do you hear the difference?

3.     Thin Tone:

This is caused by a lack of balance between the mouth and throat resonance. Too much mouth resonance and not enough in the throat.

To show you how to check this one, it's easier to have you in front of me. Try imagining there's a ball of air in your throat. Focus on feeling the central point of your voice box, expanding it, and saying "Yes." Then, move the ball of air into your mouth. Feel the orifice widening. Repeat "Yes." You should feel that the throat has thinned somewhat, thinning the tone.

4.     Throaty Tone - also called Vocal Fry

This is largely deemed an unpleasant guttural quality. Nowadays, it's also called TikTok voice, that low, scratchy tone you hear creators use when describing their day. It can indicate a structural fault in the vocal mechanism. However, it may also be the result of tone dropping back into the throat due to fading of breath control at the ends of sentences.

In the future, this may be a vocal quality more accepted by audiences, but for now, it's still judged negatively. It is also one of the most common reasons people stop listening to speakers, and fail to take any of their ideas seriously.

5.     Nasal Tone:

This occurs when control of the soft palate is slack or too loose. If there is an escape of sound down the nose on vowels, there is excessive nasality in the tone. The converse occurs when the nasal passages are blocked and ‘m’, ‘n’ and ‘ng’ are heard as ‘b’, ‘d’ and ‘g’. Nasality in tone may be structural, from birth, due to first language inference, or simply being unwell.

CHECK IT: Pinch your nose and say, "I'M Never BoreD DurING the Day." Notice how the capitalised letters sound. Release the pinch. Notice the difference?

6.     Pharyngeal Tone:

Generally the voice is placed in the lower register and accompanied with an undue tension on the back of the tongue. The chin may be pulled in towards the chest with a minimal movement of the jaw.

CHECK IT: Let your chin drop towards your chest, drop your pitch low and say, "I'm not sure what I'm doing, but at least I'm trying." Try not to move your jaw much. Now, bring your chin back up, shoulders back and down, posture straight, relax the tongue and repeat, moving the jaw as the open, mid and close vowel sounds change.

Exercises for Improving Vocal Tone:

I had the honour of presenting to a group of future leaders in Saudi Arabia this week for Michael Gates . One of the group's key takeaway was "learning voice." We did the exercise below:

1. Say each word/phrase with a different emotion (anger, joy, surprise etc.).
2. Move your voice up and down on different words.
3. Stress different words more or less than others.
4. Drop your chin, lift it. Pinch your nose, open it. Feel the differences.
5. Notice how the sense changes. What does that indicate?

"Oh, oooh, ahhh - I feel it"

the wife said.

• "Yeah, wow, me too."

replied her husband.

• "It's amazing what we don't know we don't know."

they chorused.

"Next time, we'll definitely win that business!"

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If you're one of those people who makes an effort to improve, enjoys practising with others, and laughing while you learn, why not join me on June 4th for a lunchtime session of Public Speaking Practice? Register HERE to get your link.