145. How to make your voice match your message

If you want your voice to sound in total alignment with your message - authentic, heart-felt, engaging - this is the episode for you. I share practical ways you can get your tone and vocal expression on point to match your message, so your audience forgets you're speaking as they're so immersed in what you're saying!

Transcript

Hello hello welcome to That Voice Podcast episode 145 – how to get your voice to match your message.

If you’re here for the first time, so great you’ve found your way here.

And if you’re a long time listener – welcome back.

If you are speaking in pretty much any scenario it goes without saying - you want your voice to match your message.

Whether it’s a social media video, a speech on stage, speaking on a podcast at an event, in a meeting.

You want your voice to match what you’re saying right.

When this happens it sounds natural, it sounds authentic, it connects with your audience, they forget they’re listening to you speaking because they are just so engrossed in what you’re saying. It sounds real, it sounds genuine, authentic, all the buzz words and it sounds like you.

Unfortunately what tends to happen as a result of reading, reeling off a memorised script, getting stuck in your head and overthinking the whole thing not being in the present moment, it could be deer in the headlights on video kind of thing. All of this leads your voice to sound disconnected from your message. It sounds fake, forced, put on, distant. People are listening to what you’re saying, but they are not immersed in your message because there is that mismatch.

Now I’m going to share some practical tips in this episode on how to get the tone and expression of your voice to match your message.

The crux of it, though, is you need to be in touch with your soul voice. All the technical voice tips I’m about to share will come to you naturally if you can open up your energetic centres, breathe properly, understand how your voice vibrates through your body and get your inner voice onside. The main reason for disconnect between voice and message is because the mind, body, breath golden triangle is out of balance. It’s not humming beautifully. You’re not in FLOW. You know when you’re so involved in what your saying the expression is there, the tone is on point and you’re not thinking about your voice because that message is moving through you in beautiful flow.

There is a process to achieve this and this is what we do in Speak from your Soul. It’s a six week online course, with pre-recorded content and a live circle with me every week. There is also the option to upgrade to one-on-one sessions, which is invaluable because I can personalise the healing to your voice. We get started on Feb 19, so time is ticking, it’s the only time this year I am opening the doors to this course, at least with the live component, so it’s well worth getting in now. I’ll put the link in the shownotes. By doing Speak from your Soul, most of what I’m about to share you won’t need, because you’ll be operating at a higher level, you’ll be speaking in flow, and the question of getting your voice to match your message won’t even be there because your voice will match your message you won’t even need it to come to your conscious mind.

To achieve this you do need the technical skills first, I’ll share a  couple with you now, and we go in depth in Speak from your Soul.

Ok you want you voice to match your message. Your voice to match your words and intention.

First up, ask yourself this question – how do I want my audience to feel? Not what do I want my audience to know, that’s a head question, we want the heart question. How do you want them to feel?

Inspired? Happy? Outraged? Motivated? Sad?

And of course there could, there should be more than one, especially for long form speaking because you’re wanting to take your audience on journey through feelings.

This answer becomes your guide for how you want to feel during delivery and this will impact the tone of your voice to sound aligned with your message.

That simple.

You want your audience to feel sad. Feel sad while you speak.

You want your audience to feel inspired. Feel inspired as you speak.

Channel the emotion you want the audience to have.

Let that sink in.

I see this with so many clients. And this might resonate with you.

I see so many clients get stuck in their head with the what questions and fail to ask the how questions.

It’s what do I need to say? What will they think? What do I look like? What do I sound like? What do I want people to know?

Rather than

How do I want to make people feel? How do I feel while speaking? How do I get myself into that state?

The how questions will help get you back in your body, and connect your voice to the emotion which will connect it to your message.

Ok next you want to use the range of your vocal expression.

I’m talking about the pitch, the pace, the pausing, the volume, the inflections, the gestures the facial expressions.

You have the ability to use all of these.

And if you’re listening to this going, ah I pretty much always sound the same. Then you are missing out on the beautiful range in your voice and missing out on opportunities to match your message.

If you want to explore this in detail, join speak from your soul or my six week voice makeover or work with me one on one. Developing vocal range is one of my favourite things to help you do.

And the beautiful thing about language, is it gives us all the cues we need to know how to make our vocal expression match our message.

Let’s look at pitch.  Can you go high can you go low.

Words like, increase, sky high, vision, far away, north, thinking – they all lend themselves to a high pitch.

Words like, rock bottom, deep down, feeling, grounded, south – they all lend themselves to a low pitch.

And again we do it naturally. Think about geography. If you’re going north your voice will go up in pitch and south down. I’m in Brisbane, so I go up to Cairns and down to Sydney. If I was in Melbourne, I’d go up to Sydney.

What about pace?

Slow the pace down if you’re being more reflective of the past, or sharing intricate detail.

Speed up when talking about the future or you’re listing lots of stuff.

These are by no means hard and fast rules, the words are merely guides.

When we look at volume. Soft and loud can have the same effect.

Know what I mean. Know what I mean.

Then there’s the inflections, the rise and the fall. So we want to be rising when we’re not finished and falling when we are, or dart boarding as I like to call it, you imagine that last word is thrown out like a dart so it doesn’t fall like a deflation. And we can use inflection, to hold suspense.. and then boom make our point.

There is so much our voice can do to not only match our message but enhance our message. If you think of the message as the gift and the voice as the gift wrap. A beautifully presented gift is going to be so much more enticing to open then a cardboard box in the corner that no one even notices. And this is what’s happening if you are not using your voice to deliver your message. Sure there will always be people who will notice the box in the corner and appreciate your amazing message. Wouldn’t it be better to entice people into your message through beautiful packaging which does the messaging justice. Your message doesn’t deserve to sit in a box in the corner, it deserves luxurious packaging that represents how valuable it is.

And this is what your voice is, it’s not just the wrapping it’s the courier that gets the gift to the damn address.

Ok after you bring in pitch, pace, pause, inflection etc to match your words. Then you layer over the emotion. So sad lends itself to low in pitch, slow in pace, quiet in volume. Motivated lends itself to higher in pitch, faster in pace, louder in volume.

And if you have a script written out you can mark these cues in there. I actually have a masterclass on this in the Members Only Masterclass Vault called my famous marking key.

So words plus tone – and you have all the cues to make your voice match your message.

And as I mentioned at the start of this episode, this will come naturally when you are fully connected with your voice and have exercised the range in it. You won’t be standing there going do I go up in pitch, or slow down, you’ll have developed those skills and it will flow through your like honey.

Ok that’s all from me this week, remember Speak from Your Soul doors are closing so soon. If delivering your message is important to you, your voice has to be a priority and speak from your soul is for you. Details in the shownotes. Have a beautiful day.