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Home Sales Selling by Phone Developing Voice Power

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Developing Voice Power by Dan Ramsey

As a telephone salesperson, you may never meet your customer in person, so it is vital that you develop your vocal skills to accurately represent you. You must help the listener develop confidence and trust in you by what you say as well as how you say it. You must speak in a relaxed voice that sets the tone for your customer's responses. There are numerous books available on how to develop a professional speaking voice. It is an asset to any seller, but especially to one selling by telephone. The basic components of voice are: pitch, volume, quality, rate, and speech habits. Following is a summary. Pitch In voice, pitch is the tone range that the voice produces. In singing, choral voices range from soprano (highest frequency) to bass (lowest frequency). Normal speaking voices are in between. On a piano, a woman's voice typically is near middle C and a man's voice is about one octave (twelve black and white keys) lower. Most people have a speaking range of less than two octaves. The voice you use to impress someone has a different pitch from one that yells at the cat. To find your optimum or most relaxed vocal pitch, do the following: Hum the highest tone you can comfortably reach and find that tone on a piano. Hum the lowest tone you can comfortably reach and find that tone on a piano. Identify the note exactly in the middle between your highest and lowest notes. Play the note three or four keys below (to the left of) the middle-note key. Read something using a voice of approximately this pitch to see if it is comfortable. There is no best vocal pitch for selling. Instead, find the one that allows you to speak comfortably and confidently.

Your vocal cords typically are more relaxed in the morning when you awaken than at any time during the day. In addition, hot or warm liquids, such as coffee or tea, can help relax vocal cords. If you notice that your voice is increasing in pitch during the sales day, sip on coffee, tea, or warm water to relax them. Some speakers put a spot of honey or sugar and lemon in the liquid to soothe the throat. A relaxed voice portrays confidence. Volume Volume is the loudness of your voice. In normal conversation, people typically talk as loudly as the other speakers, depending on extraneous sounds. In amplified conversation, such as on the telephone, a loud voice isn't necessary. In fact, it can easily distort the pickup microphone in the phone and muffle the vocal signal, making words unclear. Because telephone selling requires many hours on the phone each day, professionals develop a vocal volume that is easy to understand without tiring the speaker. Professional speakers develop their diaphragm, a muscle below the lungs, to control air in the lungs and reduce the effort needed to talk. In addition, they make sure that their throat, mouth, and lips are relaxed. Quality What people call the quality of a voice is its timbre, its characteristics. You probably have heard people with voices that can be described as harsh, smooth, breathy, nasal, or muffled. Professional salespeople, especially those that depend on the phone as a tool, develop a smooth vocal quality. What does that mean? Further vocal training is available from voice teachers, speech pathologists, public speaking schools, and broadcasting schools. Some public speakers take singing lessons to improve the quality and resonance of their voices. Online, the Barbershop Harmony Society (www.barbershop.org) offers lessons on how to improve vocal resonance and other singing and speaking tips. Community colleges also offer speaking and singing courses to the public. Vocal sounds are made in three parts of the head and neck: nose, mouth, and throat. A smooth voice is one that uses all three resonators in balance. That is, the voice sounds neither nasal nor throaty. Instead, all three components work together, just as a singing trio would, to offer a balanced sound. You can develop vocal balance by practicing. The sound of N comes more from the nasal area, O and W are formed primarily in the mouth, and UH is formed more in the throat. Slowly repeating made-up words like now-uh can help you identify their source and help you practice balancing them so they resonate in all three areas. There are numerous other vocal exercises you can do to balance your voice's resonance and quality. Rate Slow down! I can't understand you! That's the last thing you want to be told when excitedly selling your product or service. Unfortunately, most listeners won't tell you. Instead, they will tune you out. Speech rate is the speed at which words are spoken. In normal conversation, most people speak at a rate of about 120 words per minute or two words a second. A radio announcer may speak at 150 or more words a minute. Commercial announcers have been clocked in excess of 240 words a minute. Time is money, they say.

A number of books, courses, and services are available for those who wish to reduce or eliminate their native accent or dialect and speak a more standard American English. One recommended is the accent-reduction services of leading vocal coach Paul Meier (www.paulmeier.com). He is a professor of voice, an actor, and cofounder of the International Dialects of English Archive. Professor Meier also is a dialect coach for movies and the theatre. Depending on what you are selling and to whom, your speech rate should not be higher than a normal conversation rate. If your listener is a nonnative speaker, you should reduce that rate to make sure your words are understood. In addition, your rate will depend on stress and phrasing. Stress is the amount of intonation or inflection you use to convey the meaning of your message. By slowing down your delivery rate, you can emphasize specific words and phrases.Phrasing is the length of what you say without stopping, such as at the end of a sentence. To identify the difference, listen to a television news story, then read the same story in the newspaper. Television news is written for the ear, so sentences and phrases are shorter than they are in the paper. As you sell, your delivery style and rate should be for the ear, with a moderate rate, appropriate inflection, and bite-size phrases. Speech Habits In addition to vocal quality, your sales message will be clearer if you articulate your words and pronounce them as commonly used. In addition, many professional speakers and telephone salespeople strive to minimize regional accents and dialects. Articulation is the forming of words by the voice. Clearly forming words and phrases helps you in presenting your sales message and your thoughts. Articulation requires that you use your tongue, jaw, lips, and the mouth's soft palate to form words so others easily understand them. The best way to learn articulation on your own is to read aloud to a tape recorder, enunciating every word, and then review the tape for clarity. In addition, speech coaches can help. Pronunciation is forming words as they typically are heard. In the United States, standard pronunciation for the word nuclear, is NU-cle-ar rather than NU-que-ler. Make sure that you know the generally accepted pronunciation of words in your sales vocabulary before you use them. Television has nearly standardized the pronunciation and delivery of English words in the United States and Canada, dramatically reducing the ability of listeners to identify the region from which speakers hail. News announcers in the South, for example, sound the same as those from the Northeast or the West. They are said to have a neutral American accent. In sales, the only reason to attempt to modify your accent toward one more widely used is to be better understood by your customers and prospects.

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What Is Selling? Golden Rule Selling Types of Selling Ten Top Sales Approaches Retail Selling Selling by Phone Improving Your People Skills Presentation Skills Essential Recordkeeping Your Sales Tool Kit Finding Sales Prospects Getting Appointments Precall Planning Anatomy of a Sales Call Winning Sales Proposals Selling to Multiple Buyers Leveraging the Internet Self-Management for Sales Professionals Setting and Achieving Your Sales Goals Selling Yourself Getting a Great Job in Sales

Home Sales Selling by Phone Developing Voice Power

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