Some of us are born with, or acquire through experience, a voice that is tentative and evokes in others the tendency to ignore what we say.

Habits such as talking too quietly, or too quickly, or going up at the ends of sentences, or sounding too breathy, or too stereotypically “blue collar”—all these, and other vocal habits, can cause listeners to dismiss our ideas.

This is most obviously a problem for professional people whose job demands that they communicate their expertise, compete for promotion, and sell themselves and their ideas both inside their organizations, and out in the marketplace.

What can be done to help them?

1. Make them aware of the problem.  We are reluctant to do this because the voice is such a deeply personal part of us.  To criticize the voice of another, we think to ourselves, would be hurtful to them.  Quite the contrary, if done in a supportive manner.  Broadcasters and actors were not born with the voices we hear on  radio and TV.  They work with voice and speech teachers to improve the appeal of their on-air presence.  Since we in the business world are always “on” at work, why should we not do what we can to improve our chances to climb to the top?
2. The voice is a wind instrument.  In order to play it well, we must know how to breathe to support the sound, and how to use our tongues and lips to make crisp, intelligible sounds, just as the fingers of a flautist move to stop the air to make specific notes..  These behaviors are easily learned with practice.  A good voice and speech teacher can be found at any university with a drama department.  He or she can help improve the credibility of a voice, and reduce the effect of any accent that might be getting in the way.
3. Finally, someone who seeks to improve his or her vocal presence should expect that it will take some time.  One does not learn how to play a wind instrument in a day. But with effort, one can improve the expressive range, the strength, and the resonance of a voice, and discover an ancient truth: that we are judged by how we speak.

I say the truth is ancient because I recently discovered this quote from The Book of Sirach, written in Hebrew in the 2^nd Century BCE.

When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear;

So do a man’s faults when he speaks.

As the test of what the potter molds is in the furnace,

So in his conversation is the test of a man.

The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had;

So too does a man’s speech disclose the bent of his mind.

Praise no man before he speaks,

For it is then that men are tested.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

Henry Higgins was right.  The moment we open our mouths to speak, people judge us.  If we have New York accents, we get stereotyped.  If we speak with a southern drawl, same thing, different stereotype.  And if we speak like a professor, I would bet that many people avoid us like the plague.

Of course, we can overcome these stereotypes with the positive qualities of our character.  We can sound like Tony Soprano and act like Mr. Rogers.  But the lingering effect of the stereotype remains.

In our practice at Sims Wyeth & Co.  we are asked to improve the voice and speech of employees whose are having trouble being heard.  This takes several different forms.

First, there are those who have difficulty getting to the point.  This is most likely a thinking problem and a habit with obscure roots, not a voice and speech problem.

Then there are those who speak English as a second language.  We are a country of immigrants, but when 12 individuals in one department come from 10 different countries, there are many accents and many sets of ears trying to listen to many different pronunciations of English.  If the conversations are crucial to strategic business issues, it’s a problem.

Then we have some good old American mumblers.  These people need to learn how to use their articulators.

And then there are fast talkers, slow talkers, close talkers, soft talkers, and too-loud talkers.  And up-talkers, nose-talkers, and talkers who sound like they have marbles in their mouths.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

When bacon fries, it makes a crackling, bubbling, splashy sound and smells delicious.

When young women fry their voices, they make a grinding sound in the back of their throats, and regardless of how they smell, they are undermining their stature and impact by doing so. 

I am going to call the Center for Disease Control to announce that I have detected a dangerous new epidemic of The Vocal Fry. (Please see the bottom of this posting for a definition of Vocal Fry.)

It has mostly infected young women, and it makes them sound as if they’ve run out of air, and are generating their voices by grinding their vocal chords together.

It manifests itself mostly at the ends of sentences. To me, it makes them sound tense, cerebral, and unappealing. I do not want to listen to them speak about anything.

No doubt this is a failing on my part, but I am confessing now, in public, that The Vocal Fry is like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

I think it’s mostly educated young women, maybe even educated young women from a certain background that have developed this as a fashionable way to talk.

I am going to capture recordings of it and put them up here on the blog, or on my other blogs at www.simswyeth.com/blog or at executivespeechcoachny.com

The human voice must stand guard over the content of a spoken message, or the content will evaporate, no matter how precious it was in itself.

The Vocal Fry has to go.

Definition:The vocal fry register (also known as pulse register, laryngealisation, pulse phonation, creak, glottal fry, glottal rattle, glottal scrape or strohbass), is the lowest vocal register and is produced through a loose glottal closure which will permit air to bubble through slowly with a popping or rattling sound of a very low frequency.