You are travelling less, with more meetings taking place over the phone. This means you have no ability to impart body language or read cues from others. Now it's up to you to control the meeting with your 'voice presence'. How much of an advantage can you give to your business by improving speech performance? Recent research* has shown how much time is wasted time on conference calls.
Imagine running a manufacturing operation with that level of efficiency. So how do you change this? Speech Impact - skills based training from Plantronics and Tony Crawford.
The research for face-to-face discussions shows that just 7% of a conversation's importance is attributed to the message, 38% is tone of voice with body language at 55%*. Whereas in voice-only calls 13% is attributed to the message and 87%** accounts for tone of voice. The difference is clear - get these factors right and not only does productivity increase, but customer engagement and loyalty increases as well.
There are four methods defined by Tony Crawford our Speech Impact Expert, available to you to raise your speech impact, and really stimulate people using your voice.
Power
Vary the power, or loudness of your voice. Speaking softly can add emphasis, and authority when used to give instructions. Suddenly switching to a louder voice for one or two words can grab attention. Constant variation will be a distraction for everyone, so use changes in power sparingly - soft for instructions, and one or two louder words at the beginning of sentences to ensure you have attention.
Pitch
Change the pitch, or tone of your voice for emphasis. Adding subtle variations to the pitch - such as raising the tone at the end of a sentence helps you to indicate this is a question and you are looking for an answer. If you lower the tone, then this adds a level of seriousness to your voice.
Pace
Slow down! The rule is that if you think you are speaking too slowly, then you are speaking at the right pace!
Pause
Nothing gets peoples' attention more than a break in the conversation. If they are used to hearing you speak, then the break in talking captures the attention and enables you to add emphasis to what follows. Don't, pause, after, every, word - this sounds scripted and false. Add a pause in just before you want to ensure you have attention, or just before you summarise.