Does Your Presentation Sound As Good As It Looks?

Your expertise is your ability. Your credibility is your presentation. The ability to present effectively determines your financial success. In fact, everything in life is about vocal presentation.

We connect with people, get hired, teach, and close deals based on the effective use and clarity of our voices. Whether you’re a teacher, receptionist, lawyer, salesperson, politician, program coordinator, CEO, team leader, doctor, negotiating or interviewing, it is your voice that carries your ideas to people. Success is a voice driven activity.

Voiceover artists use techniques that represent the human voice in it’s most effective natural state. They know how to personalize ideas and sentences in ways that can make them millions of dollars. They are in a word, persuasive. Taking voiceover classes can vastly improve your communication and presentation skills.

I just listened to a financial expert give a power point presentation to 200 hundred people in San Francisco’s Financial district and it was simply boring. Even though he was an expert, no one talked to him at the reception... bad for business. Everyone seemed to swarm around the presenters who brought energy and life to their presentations.

Rapport with people isn’t magic, it is composed of certain elements in a person’s presentation. Are you ever frustrated because the training you’ve had doesn’t give you the results you want? Whether the training works or not depends entirely on delivery. The secrets for achieving your ambitions are contained in your own voice. All of success in business and personal relationships depends on your tone of voice. Think how often our entire day has been changed by how someone spoke to you.

Success is a vocal skill that you can develop. None of it is magic. It’s common sense that if you develop your voice and improve your delivery, you can increase the effectiveness of your presentation and have the power to persuade that will give you the edge you need for greater success.

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Voiceover Artists Have To Know The Difference Between Screaming and Yelling - To Survive

There has been a lot of discussion about voice actors standing up for themselves when doing extreme voices for video games and other media. All those points are well taken.
Having said that, It is my opinion there should also be much more discussion about how to develop a well produced voice that just doesn't rely on "making hamburger" out of ones self to create a theatrical vocal effect.
A persons voice is the engine that does all the work. Developing it and fine tuning technique is very important. I have actually had some agents tell me that they don't want their actors learning voice development because it will make them loose their"naturalness" Well of course it does if you do it incorrectly and don't understand vocal production. They are reacting to some classes where actors do "voice exercises" that involve screaming until they're hoarse to "build up the muscle".
Yes there's a lot of stupid out there, it just takes some common sense to avoid it.
Voice development and breathing exercises give the voice greater range, sustainability, nuance and yes improved naturalness and believability.  The more control a person has over their voice, the more creative freedom they have because they aren't fighting vocal exhaustion. A voice is a powerful instrument that deserves to be developed and the best of care.

- Your Voice Is A Wind Instrument - Cardio Will Improve it Dramatically

People ask me quite often what one of the single most important things is that they can do for their voice. The answer is "Get some regular exercise, cardio" (Always check with your Doctor before starting any exercise program).

There are about 126 muscles in the cricoid thyroid structure ( voice box) that are directly involved in phonation. That doesn't include all the muscles in the chest that are involved in breathing. When you are getting some kind of regular cardio exercise you are not only strengthening the whole support structure you are perfecting the coordination between the bellows of the lungs and how you speak. When you combine exercise with your voice and breathing exercises you will be amazed at how your voice will bloom into it's full beauty giving you more presence more authenticity and greater confidence.

- How To Keep Your Voice Fresh When You Talk All Day

This is one of the most asked questions I get emails, phone calls and DM’s about on Twitter. People who have to talk a lot are often tired from that activity by the end of a long day.

The good news is, if your voice is properly produced you should actually feel fresher on the end of the day FROM talking. No I’m not lyingJ

The key is to have proper breath support. When a persons voice doesn’t have correct breath support the voice is weaker and the air is leaking out to some extent and that can be a very exhausting experience.

Here are some tips that will help and some activities that can help you greatly improve your efficiency of vocal production.

When you are waking up in the morning start humming while you are puttering around. One of the best ways to hum is to gently touch your tongue to your upper lip with your mouth closed and hum either on one note or a favorite simple song.

This will create the natural resonance in the ”mask” and establish backpressure in the windpipe. That’s what support is. Technically it is called sub glottal pressure. That is just a fancy phrase for the natural air pressure that builds up in back of any wind driven vibrator, in the case your vocal folds.

Next you can do the “Dog Pant” exercise. If you do Yoga, the various breathing exercises are the same thing and each version is very helpful. This strengthens the diaphragm and helps you take a breath more efficiently without lifting the shoulders for each breath. Lifting the shoulders to inhale instead of just standing up strait so the air can get into your lungs is called clavicular breathing and is a major reason for exhaustion.

Next you can say the five vowels with MH in front of them. Mheeeee, Mhaaaay,

Mhaaaa, Mho, Mhooooo. These should be said like you’re sighing. Repeat five times. That will get all the parts working. You can also say them very fast so you wake up your articulators and get everything coordinated.

Finally, if you like to sing, you can take singing lessons which will greatly improve your speaking voice. If you are a singer, just sing more often and you’ll be amazed at how much better your speaking voice will be.

Remember to practice everything with a natural common sense and don’t push or over exert ever. You can’t fix everything in one day. Think of all the people who finally start working out and strain themselves because they try to get in shape all in one week.

The last point I’d like to make is this: You can learn a lot about your voice if you record and play back. Listen for a natural full tone that isn’t pushed or affected. It should also not be weak (like a limp handshake). We are always trying to achieve ease of production and naturalness. These simple points can help you improve your vocal stamina and voice quality.

- Don't Give Up - Don't Stop Improving

There are many questions that come in asking how to "make it" when the voiceover field is so competitive. There are lots of stories of people trying and not succeeding.

What is the key? What is the secret? The secret is to never, ever give up and to always keep trying different approaches. It is a mistake to try the same approach or market when it is not producing results. The voiceover industry is not just about talking. Certain voices have traits that work much better in certain voiceovers. None of us can do everything. It takes endless experimentation to find the copy  and the areas where we can do our best work and where people will respond by hiring us.

One has to be a crazy insane scientist to discover one's personal path to success and greater skills. Sometimes people want to just focus on the approach they have always used, perhaps because of moderate success. The reality is the voiceover business is always changing pretty dramatically and we have to change and reinvent with it or be left out. It can be done, you can succeed. It takes imagination, tremendous persistence, and skill. Turn on the media and notice that the good, the bad and the ugly are all working...so why not you:)

Know Your Voice and Get More Work

The importance of knowing your own voice: We can't be what we aren't, so we must know what we can do and not do. Too many of us try and do absolutely everything and that never never works out for us, then we get depressed because we aren't successful. How can we succeed if we decide to flap our arms and fly to the moon. There is plenty that every person can do with out trying to set ourselves up for failure. There is no reason to try and do the impossible. That isn't trying to succeed it is really trying to fail.
We can't do everything for everyone.The key to our success is inside the compass of our voice and personality. We must know what our limits are so we don't accidentally set ourselves up to fail. Our best chance of getting work is to be ourselves, our best selves our most skilled selves, our most prepared selves.

Some Thoughts On Reading Inspirational Copy

Aside from all the regular corporate narrations, voiceovers for How To Videos and commercials, there are Inspirational Narratives. We spend a lot of time pitching, talking and explaining everything from healthcare benefits to how not to get your arms ripped off while using certain machinery.
All of those voiceovers serve a necessary function. An even more important human necessity is inspiration.
There is a vast market for reading inspirational copy. The source may be religious, new age, leadership, communication, relationship, or success. The important thrust is always inspiration to live a more spiritual life, a more fulfilling life, a more complete life, a better life and whatever that means to you personally.
When we receive the copy for one of these projects it's important to really think through who the audience will be. How do they view life and their own hopes and dreams. No one likes to be lectured or talked down to, we all want to feel like we are in it together and the ideas are being shared. The tone of voice used in sharing great ideas is never condescending or patronizing. It is always warm, friendly and very personal.
In order for the message to be "heard" we have to be the story teller who is devoid of any affect. Everything must be "idea driven" and sound like it's the most reasonable conclusion.
There is hardly anything more important or a voiceover job that is more satisfying than inspiring or comforting people with uplifting text that contributes to their spirituality and peace  of mind while they navigate their lives.

- How you use your voice can change your life

 The Power to Persuade can create unlimited success. Our voice is the engine of that success. We can use it to create empires or a successful life, or to complain and explain why we are victims. Our tone of voice is very often a reflection of how we view the world. If we’re nervous and up tight the voice often has an edge and puts people off. Whether a person wants to be a voice over artist or more successful in their own profession it is extremely important to look for the good or opportunity in all situations and be patient. The things we say to ourselves control our mood and tone of voice. It is useless to do voice exercises to improve how we sound if we are saying negative things to ourselves because the voice will reflect the sound of mistrust that is in our minds.

We want to be optimistic, but not delusional of course. It’s important to use our voice to bring a positive experience to other people; To work at being pleasant. Then we notice that we have positive experiences ourselves. We really do attract and create the situations we are in. All of this is a process and takes time.

It is perfectly natural to say things like, “why can’t I do that,” “I wonder how to do that”, oh I could never do that.”

In order to develop greater ability to persuade people we must practice and be patient. Learning to allow for process is one of the most important things that we can practice in in our lives. Process is how the earth was made. Process is how math, science and art achieve all their great accomplishments and inspirations.

If we don’t allow process because of impatience we are literally making the choice to NOT understand because we have interrupted the process of building up familiarity, understanding and skill. Voiceover artists, teachers, sales people and everyone can become more persuasive and successful as we improve how we speak to others and the things we say to ourselves.

Very Real Sounding Is Often Very Dull. It Still Has to be Compelling.

People will rightfully tell you that you have to sound more real, more like the person next door. Well of course that makes sense. The person directing the project wants the voiceover artist to sound sincere and honest and authentic. But there is a funny flip side to all of this. I hear a complaint from many pros that I coach, that people will say to them... “No its gotta sound more real!” and then they tell me about their frustration that when they try and sound more real, they then often get criticized for sounding lackadaisical or uninspired, or unenthusiastic about the topic.

So what the heck is going on? On the one hand a director says be more real, more conversational, on the other hand they then seem to be complaining about the tone of voice when the person follows the directions that are given.

The answer is this: Often when a person backs off to become more conversational or more real, the energy drops so much that the pace is a little too slow... the cadence looses its bounce... and the melody a little too flat...

Because it’s a wholesale drop in energy it really just does sound unenthusiastic. So it seems like the read has lost all of its life.

When a person tries to be more conversational, not hard sell or not announcery, the effort should focus on smoothing out the delivery and tumbling the speech more so it feels a bit more like a stream of ideas. 

This makes the energy in the vowels and consonants more even and that is exactly what makes us sound MORE REAL AND CONVERSATIONAL.

When we try and become more conversational we are often just backing off on the energy we are using. This usually flattens the amount of rise and fall in our voices, which is what happens when we aren’t passionate about something. 

So the proper approach is to talk at low levels but to maintain a slight urgency. There is a greater rise and fall in the melodies we use when we are excited about a product or story. This will usually restore the rise and fall of the voice.

- Advanced Cold Reading Techniques

Just how do people read long projects with so few flubs? How can they say the words and have it all make sooo much sense when they are cold reading? Are they just more talented? Are you either born with it or you’re not?

They have an ability to process copy visually as if it was their own ideas and relate it verbally as though they were giving a talk that they had memorized. It can be very inspiring to hear some one read like this and a little maddening as well.

The good news is it’s a skill you can learn, too. Of course some people have a more natural gift for cold reading, but as you learn and practice these techniques you will become much better at it. 

Often actors will say to me that they read really well, they just need time to go over the script. Well that works if you HAVE time to go over the script and if it’s not a really long project like an audio book or other long narrative. On a large project you never really remember what's coming up even if you’ve read it 20 times.

And… If you don’t have time, which happens often, you need to be able to cold read. Let's review the basic cold reading technique and build on that.

Let's say you have a 50 page project to read for a voiceover project. And there hasn’t been much time to study it. You read the entire first sentence before you start the read. Then you start speaking. On the end of the first sentence, as you take a catch breath, you dart your eyes to the right as you start inhaling to scan what you are about to say so you have the next idea in your head, not just the next word. 

You then keep your eyes 2 or three words ahead of where you are speaking. You never want to being saying the word with your mouth that you’re reading with your eyes. That always turns out poorly because you won’t know what the idea is.

On the end of every sentence there is a half second catch breath and you repeat the process of darting your eyes to the right to read ahead while you’re inhaling.

After every third or fourth sentence there is naturally a one to two second break because that is how everyone groups their ideas. You use that break to read way ahead.

All right, that’s the review of the basic technique. Now let's mix it up.

You are going to get a piece of copy and print it out in 14 point copy. And you're going to put one sentence each line. You then cover the first sentence with paper and reveal it just for a second and cover the sentence back up. Now try and say the whole sentence without looking. This will help you store ideas in your head a sentence at a time. It will train you to read a sentence as an idea instead of reading individual words. Do this through the entire page.

Practice this several times with the same page. Yes, you will start to remember what the content is, and that is exactly what helps build up your short term memory. But the other thing that happens is it teaches you to recognize a whole sentence as an idea instead of the usual reaction of reading individual words and then assembling the idea as you say the words. 

This technique of scanning a sentence and forming the idea will lead to great cold reading skills.

Now start at the top of the same page and don’t cover any of the sentences. Glance at the sentence and start talking... then keep your eyes two to three words ahead of the words you are saying. These are your training wheels to build up your ability to read ahead.

Now combine this technique with taking deeper catch breaths so you have more time to scan ahead. It is very easy to edit out dead space and it takes far less time than editing out flubs. When you practice, take a few seconds to scan a section before reading through a paragraph in this fashion. You can do amazing reads if you will practice this really slowly like you would a golf swing and take the time to make this your natural response.

As you get better at managing sections of copy, you will find that you can shorten the length of your catch breaths and still get the idea of each sentence into your head.

Remember when you are speaking your own ideas, this works very naturally. Huge blocks of ideas and information are organized and delivered without difficulty.

The training of your eyes is very important for you to be able to scan sentences and indeed paragraphs and start recognizing the ideas in groups so that you start speaking the text of the project as if they were your own thoughts. This is the gateway and the technique that will enable you to start reading copy as if you were speaking your own ideas.

The implications of this advanced cold reading technique go far beyond being able to read with fewer flubs... it has a profound effect on ones ability to personalize reads… to sound authentic and believable at an entirely new level. The sense of spontaneity will be much improved and people will comment on how natural and believable the read sounds.

It is important to emphasize that everyone has different learning styles and preferences about how they acquire new skills. These techniques I’m illustrating are really just a point of departure. You should always experiment with different versions that you invent that adapt these techniques to your own style of learning. 

This is an indispensable part of learning. No technique in and of itself works perfectly with every individual. Once you have practiced these techniques, start playing with the order and methods and try and find ways to personalize how these techniques work for you.

For example, have you ever gone to a golf lesson and played worse???? Well, I have, until I remembered to not try and perform a bunch of rules... but to let the instruction come with me without forcing it. We have to absorb new techniques, not be imprisoned by them. When ever we get too clinical about developing new techniques we run the risk of loosing the freedom required to benefit from improved technique. 

So, after you’ve practiced these techniques, then try them with almost reckless abandon… many times this helps a person manage a task with the intuitive, subconscious part of the brain which is always free and courageous and more efficient than the self conscious part of our minds that is often tentative because it is afraid of doing things wrong.

And finally don’t worry if you feel like you’ve never been able to read very well. These things are just learned skills. Some people develop these skills in school at a young age… and some, of course, learn later in life. 

The important thing is to just practice these techniques until it all becomes natural to you. This very important skill requires sustained effort to make it a natural skill and you’ll find that it is well worth the time it takes to develop it.

- Success and the "Power To Persuade" - What You Can Learn From Voiceovers

The human voice is a wonderful musical instrument. We rely on it to transmit the symphony of our ideas and feelings. The ability to persuade determines our financial success. Everything in life is about presentation, we connect with people based on how well we do it Whether we are  teachers, CEO’s, sales people, lawyers, politicians, religious leaders or managers, our voices are the engines that carry our ideas to others. Our voices provide the point of first contact with people.

We all want to be able to communicate effectively with people in our personal and professional lives. We all want to do it better and more successfully. No matter who we are, we all seek the power to persuade.

Non of this is magic. Rapport is composed of certain elements in our delivery. Voiceover artists have refined those elements to enjoy tremendous success with their communication skills.

Becoming aware of them, mastering them, hands us the keys to effective and successful communication which can take our lives to a whole new level of success. Whether you want to be a voiceover artist or just enjoy new levels of success in your profession, study the art of voiceovers.