What kind of voice sounds persuasive? Recently I was speaking at an event and was surprised to hear that many people think a loud voice sounds persuasive. That is far from the truth.
Hi, this is Cynthia, your voice coach. In this video, you’ll learn the 3 criteria for a persuasive voice.
Before we start, listen to this:
“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word, victory.” Does it sound persuasive? No.
A loud voice is irritating. It sounds like you are arguing. It will turn people off and you won’t even get a chance to persuade people.
A persuasive voice fulfils the following 3 criteria:
1. Strength
The strength in your voice does not come from loudness, which is often resulted from shouting.
Do you know what is the nature of your voice? Remember this, voice is vibration. The strength in your voice means more and fuller vibrations in your body. To achieve that, you don’t need to resort to more physical strengths. What you need is to make your tensed body more relaxed and open, so you can breathe properly and create resonance.
Let’s go back to the previous sentence, a voice with strength will go like this,
“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word, victory.”
2. Firmness
A persuasive voice is self-assured. To speak with firmness, pay attention to how you end your sentence.
If you speak in this way, “…” What’s wrong with this? It sounds you are doubting yourself. If you are doubtful, how would you persuade others to believe you?
Make sure you end your sentence like a statement. “…”
3. Slower speaking rate
Many of my clients are concerned that if they slow down, they’ll lose people’s attention and make others get bored. The truth is just the opposite. If you speak too fast, people won’t even catch what you say and eventually they’ll give up listening to you.
Compare these two, (fast read & slow read)
What difference did you find?
Not only the slower one is clearer, but it conveys a strong message. When you speak fast, the message gets lost and it’s not persuasive.
If you’d like to develop a persuasive voice, feel free to contact me and it’ll be my pleasure to work with you.
