The physical skills of presentation delivery are really important in giving both you and your audience the feeling of confidence in the message. There is a major effect on believability of the message. In the third installment in this Speak with Confidence article series, we will discuss projection, tone and volume–basically, how you use your voice to improve your public speaking.
How Projection, Tone and Volume Can Help Your Public Speaking
Discussing this particular presentation delivery skill is very personal for me. I’m someone who has a voice that quivers and is not naturally perceived as powerful. Does that mean I am not able to speak in front of an audience? Absolutely not! I have trained myself to project, and use volume to exude more confidence. I call it my ‘auctioneer voice.’ My dad has a great speaking voice, having been trained as an auctioneer. He can project his voice to all the potential buyers in a sale ring. I have worked on doing the same in a meeting room. You can do it too! Just imagine that you are speaking to the person who is farthest away from you in the room. Think about projecting so that person can hear you clearly.
Related to projection is volume. Everyone has been to that presentation where the speaker delivered his or her message in a soft, quiet voice. Do you recall staying interested or focused on that talk? Probably not! For me, speaking too softly is one of the worst mistakes a speaker can make. The good news is that it is easy to fix!
In a study published in Psychological Science, researchers found that louder voices were perceived by listeners as more powerful, and the more powerful voices were also the ones that varied more in volume (SJ Ko, MS Sadler, AD Galinsky. The Sound of Power: Conveying and Detecting Hierarchical Rank through Voice. Psychological Science, 2014; DOI:1177/0956797614553009). You want to speak loudly enough for everyone in the audience to hear you easily. This is not the same as shouting! Stand up straight, take a deep breath and project, with volume. If you imagine volume on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very soft and 10 being very loud, strive for about an 8, and you will be in the ballpark.
Finally, let’s consider the tone we take in our presentation. Your tone can be friendly, inviting, enthusiastic, angry, or sarcastic. A change in tone can easily change the meaning of our words. Try an experiment. Say the following sentence using your tone to convey happiness, then anger, then sarcasm. ‘They changed the policy, and the clients now need to come in for rechecks next month.’ With this simple exercise, it is easy to appreciate how a different tone and emphasis can change things.
Projection, tone and volume–these are three things to keep in mind as you prepare for your next talk. Remember, all these tips are designed to help you seem more confident when you speak. When the audience members perceive you as more confident, you will start to feel more confident. And, as we have mentioned previously, exuding confidence will increase the believability of your message. Good luck!
© 2018 Marcia R Harmelink, DVM
Rocking H Veterinary Consulting