Is Your Voice Damaging Your First Impression?

First impressions are important, and how your voice sounds has an enormous impact. Research shows that impressions are 8 percent content (what you say), 42 percent appearance and 50 percent style or how you say it.

Your voice, more than anything else, implies your enthusiasm, confidence and integrity — or lack thereof. Your delivery influences how much your audience actually hears: talking too fast, mumbling or odd inflections all affect how much information you successfully communicate.

Common Mistakes

Jeffrey Jacobi, owner of Jacobi Voice Development, identifies the following characteristics as most common:

• Talking too fast. You run the risk of losing credibility. Pause for breath as you speak. Find a comfortable cadence for different situations.
• Mumbling. Your audience can't distinguish what you're saying. Open your mouth wider and raise your voice. Talk to the person seated farthest from you.
• Monotonous tone. Your audience will tune you out because you've turned them off. Focus on changing the pitch of your voice. Emphasize key words. Show some enthusiasm before you lull them to sleep.
• A wimpy voice. Soft-spoken is not a power position. Don't go for the whispery tone. Power equates authority. Practice adding power to your voice by humming and feeling the vibrations in your chest and head. Sounds silly, but it works.
• A nasal tone. It's nothing short of torture if you're forced to sit through a presentation given by someone with a nasal tone. Keep the back of your tongue down and open your throat wider when you speak so you feel your voice coming from your chest rather than your nose.

Underlying Problems

Jacobi identified four common causes of speaking problems:

1. I worry about how I'll sound before a presentation. This indicates a lack of poise. Practice presentations alone, then possibly in front of "friendlies" to boost your self-assurance.
2. I become short of breath when I speak before large audiences. Shortness of breath is due to nerves. Relax with deep breaths before you go on.
3. Others interrupt and talk over me. You lack assertiveness. Don't resort to yelling, but do calmly regain control of the conversation.
4. In stressful situations, I have difficulty sounding calm. Staying calm is a sign that you're in command of the situation.

Understanding your voice quality and style is a key component of making powerful first impressions. The rules of power dressing can certainly help, but the rules of power voice control are even more effective.

SOURCE: Jeffrey Jacobi is a coach and author of "How to Say It with Your Voice."

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