Episode 116: The Power of Your Voice with Susan Berkley

By the way, quick shout out to superfan Steve Labsey. That's right, from Ohio, in the Cleveland, Akron area, Steve Labsey. His company is True Landscaping, Incorporated. Steve, thanks for listening, brother.

Yeah, Steve, we appreciate you. And I know you can't hear us too well, so get your face a little closer to the speaker. Yeah, turn it up a little closer. Closer. That's right. You got slapped.

And that's what you get for listening to the profit from first podcast, episode 116. I didn't hear Susan croaking.

All right, we gotta. Let's try one more time. We're gonna keep rolling here. We're gonna do that intro again because, Susan, I told you the rules.

Okay, okay.

I'm just.

Okay.

Are you intimidated?

No, not at all. I'm just having a flashback, a bad flashback from my days with Howard Stern. So go for it.

Okay, here we go. One more time.

116.

There you go.

Christina, hit a note for us, please.

Perfect. Whoa.

Welcome, everyone, to the show. We're so happy to have you here on the Profit first podcast. My name is Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit First. I'm the author of the Pumpkin Plan, the author of Tote Parchment, and the newest book out there called Surge, available on Amazon right now. So go get it. And I'm joined in the studio by my colleague, Christina Poldock.

Hey, there.

And you are listening to the Profit first podcast. It's the show where we explore every single stinking element of profitability. And today, we'll be talking about your voice. Your voice, my voice, your voice, your singing voice is determining profitability.

Yeah, there you go. All about voices. And we have a great voice on with us today. She's much more than a voice, though.

Hell, no.

Well, you can hear this show anywhere. You listen to a podcast. Any podcatcher, itunes, Stitcher, Tunein Radio, and Google Play.

We're gonna Google Google Play right now.

Yeah, Google Play. There you go. Subscribe there. That gives you a nice little alert. Every time there's a new episode, it's.

Like, hello, new episode.

And.

And you can give us a rating and review as well. The website is Profit first podcast dot com. And here's the thing. You can comment and ask questions on each of these episodes. It's like a blog post. You just comment and post stuff. And, look, make fun of Mike. Do whatever you want, but ask a question. Get some free consulting. You know, this show is great because it's all about profit. And, you know, everyone talks about revenue, how big is your business and all that, but profit is what really matters. I mean, revenue is a nice walk in the park, but profit is something.

You can shout out and bark. That's horrible. That was horrible.

I thought you were gonna say profit is so you can count your money in the dark.

Oh. Oh, that's a good one. Or it's always on the mark.

That's what it is. That's it.

Is that out and just put that. Let me have me sustain.

Okay.

So no one knows.

Okay.

I want to look smart. I don't want to look like an idiot.

Okay.

Dude, what have you been up to, Chris?

Oh, you know, my parents are coming to visit. So what should I do to prepare?

You should leave and go to their house. Right? Do the old crossover. Because there was an episode on Larry David. What was that show with Larry David, Curb youb Enthusiasm. Curb youb Enthusiasm. Did you see Susan? There was an episode where he figured out the solution how to avoid parties. You go the day after. So someone have a party. He'd go at exactly the right time, one day late and show up and say, oh, oh, I thought it was today. And then people say, no, it was yesterday. And that way you. You gracefully. But the flaw in his system was then the people would invite him in. And now he was stuck alone with these people.

Right? He has to clean up.

Right? And it. Clean up. What a good show that was.

So what have you been up to, Mike?

I had a little emergency two weeks ago with my daughter with credit cards. So she's in college or debit cards. She's in college now, and her debit card got rejected. So this panic ensues, saying, I need to get books for this class. And my debit cards.

Not the worst, right?

So these texts, as we're doing the podcast, these texts are coming across. I'm like, talk to your mother. Talk to your mother. And the intensity of the text was making me shake. So I call her up and she's like, oh, no, everything's fine. It's good. It's good. Like, that was the solution. I called her up and said, we just finished the podcast. What's wrong? She's like, oh, it's good.

That's the worst, though, when you're standing in the school bookstore and you got all the books, and then your car gets declined, and you're like, oh, my.

There's a line of students behind you going, jesus, what's taking so long? Just speed up. Get your Books, you idiot.

God.

So I actually have a community shout out today. Someone who actually commented on our podcast on itunes and the subject line is all captions like dude.

Yes.

So this comes from Jason Michael. He is also a fellow podcaster from the Wise Guy radio show, and he says as a small business owner, the profit first podcast is the diamond in the Rough. To quote Aladdin, he says he immediately began implementing this new concepts concept and system and can't wait to see the benefits. He says his wife is also thankful and he's a binge listener listening to 20 episodes in like two days. So shout out to Jason. Thanks for being a listener.

Thanks, Jason. We appreciate it. Thank you, guys. A diamond in the rough, not a rough in the diamond. You know, talk about diamonds. I don't know how this correlates, but talking about diamonds are corporate partners.

They are gems.

They are gems. Oh, that's a good trend. They are true gems. Nextiva. Man, do I love them. They're a voiceover IP phone system receipt bank, which is a scanning and efficiency utility for receipt management. Fundbox, your one loan. I'm sorry, Fundbox is not a one loan. Fundbox is a cash flow accelerator. Accelerator. Cfa. So if you have to speed up your cash flow, just give Fundbox call and then Fundera is your one stop shopping for loans. We'll talk more about them at the end of this episode. Just want to acknowledge what they're doing for our show and you should definitely check them out.

Thank you, corporate partners.

Christina, I want to introduce our guest, Susan, officially in a second, but I know you have a little. One of our members did something cool and.

Yeah. So just a quick shout out to Mandy Cohen. She is one of our certified bookkeepers out in California and she specializes in construction. And she is kicking.

Making construction companies more profitable.

Yes. So if you're in California and if you happen to be in the construction industry, hit her up.

Well, walk over there. But you can be anywhere. That's the nice thing. Our members support people virtually anywhere in the US or anywhere in the world. So if you're in construction, go to propfirstprofessionals.com right now. Click on the find button. We'll hook you up with Mandy. Or you can reach out to her directly if you feel so inclined.

I actually think Barry knows Mandy. Barry's. Mandy's top notch, right?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Okay.

He's top notch.

I have another sound clip I'm not gonna play. I'll take too much time. Let me just do my build up again. Susan Berkeley is her name. So I am, I am. I go to Nashville to this. This event that happens every four months. It's for membership organizations just like our organization. And we get together and we talk about improving our companies. And Susan comes over to me and goes, I know you. And I'm like, it was in college. We were both experimenting. She goes, I know you. And I'm like, what? And she goes, I've read your books.

Yeah.

And she then said, you know, one of the ways to improve properly is through your voice. And I was like, I started asking her questions, ends up she was. She was on the Howard Stern show as the traffic reporter.

Nice.

Susan Berkowitz. For quite a period of time, she's the behind the scenes, expert presentation skill for the show, the Apprentice. Remember the Apprentice?

Yes, I do.

With the now presidential nominee. She was the person training the people that has it in the boardroom on how to present. She's fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. This is like 10 truths and a Lie. She speaks fluent Brazilian Portuguese. Her father. Grandfather. Sorry. Was the co. Creator of Archie comics. And listen, she knows how to make your voice, make you money. That's who we're talking about.

Oh, girl, we got to talk right now.

Susan, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks, Mike. Thank you all.

Welcome.

What a great applause. I appreciate that. You know, I am also the voice that says, welcome to Citi Foam Banking. Your account balance, Mike, is nine million gazillion dollars.

Do you actually have to. For the. When you tell people's account balance, how do you do that? Because there's such a variability in numbers.

You know, I've recorded thousands and thousands of voice prompts for Citi, and they just, they, they just do this thing behind the scenes. I just don't know how they do it. But, you know, I gotta tell you a really funny story. My dad was a Citibank customer. Cause it's like, it's weird enough getting my own voice. I'm a voiceover artist, you know, in voicemail jail. But when my family does that, they never me hear the end of it. So my dad was a Citibank customer. He's at a business luncheon. He goes to pay the check, the cut. The. His card is declined. He pays cash, no problem. Gets back to the office, calls the bank, gets me on the phone saying, your card has been declined. Do not use your card. And he tells me, he's yelling into the phone going, but, Susan, it's dad. You know, I'm good for the money. And all I could say was, Your card has been declined. Do not use your card.

That is awesome. That is so awesome. Talking about awesome, we're sitting down at lunch at Nashville, and you say, mike, if you just work on improving your voice, your profitability will go up. And I'm like, this is absurd. What do you mean by that?

Well, I mean that your voice is a huge trust trigger, and it determines whether you sound. People think you're credible, whether people think you're authentic, whether they think you're reliable, and whether they get a sense of security in working with you and your business. And the voice triggers all of these unconscious things, things in people's minds when they hear you, you speak, or any of your employees. So. And I could just give you an example of how that's the case. I'm talking to this guy, and he's a producer of infomercials. Everybody knows what they are, right? Whether you love them or hate them, they're out there. And so he's telling me he's got this infomercial running, and it's kicking butt. You know, it's making millions and millions of dollars. And one day, his voice talent comes to him and says, Mr. Producer, I'm so sorry, but I can't do your infomercial anymore because I have a conflict with one of my other customers. However, I've got this friend who sounds exactly like me. So the producer listens. Lo and behold, yeah, the friend sounds exactly like him. He puts the friend on the air, and do you know, within a day, the money that this infomercial is making, it's tanked. The sales just went in the toilet. It was crazy. And nobody could tell the difference between the two voices, but the listener could. The buyers could. So we immediately went back to the original voice talent, paid him a really big check for exclusivity, put him back on the air, and the sales went up again. So, you know, there is something about the voice that triggers trust and triggers the desire to buy or not buy that can be repulsive or attractive in the mind of the listener. So that's what I do. I work with people on how to use their voice to build trust in everything they do in business.

So, talking about repulsive, I have a repulsive voice. How do I improve my voice? Can I change it?

Of course you can. You know, it might seem that voice is something like eye color or height. It's pretty hard. No, it's. There's actually muscles. There's exercises that you can do to improve that, and there's techniques. So I Developed a whole method that I use based on what I do as a voice talent, you know, because we do have the ability to speak and sing that anybody can use. And it involves what you visualize, it involves your body language, and it can even involve a keyword strategy so you get yourself in. In the mood. There are actually four vocal influence types, Mike. There's the trust type, the enthusiasm type, the charm type, which you are, baby. The authority type. Yes, tell me about that.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, everybody's got like a bass voice type and you can use to maximize. You can work with that to maximize it in. Adopt other voice types depending on the selling situation or the influence situation you have in your business.

Okay, so there's these different voice types. How do I know the one that's relevant to me or most applicable to the business that I own?

Yeah, it's, you know, it depends on the situation. So obviously, when you're talking about the product or service, you're going to want to use enthusiasm. And some people think they're enthusiastic, but it's like a fake flatline. You know, they're completely monotone. But overall, I think the most important one is what I call the trust voice type. And the visualization that people should have actually, especially when they're on the telephone, they're talking to a customer, is that they're actually reaching through the phone, putting their hand on the person's shoulder, and it's like, you know, come with me. I can help you. That type of a thing. So I think trust is important, enthusiasm is important. But you have to take the cue from the person that you're talking to. If the person themselves is very charming, you're going to want up the charm level. They'll identify with you more. Some people have a very authoritative type, a kind of a personality, and you have to match that energy level if you're going to really sell them and get them to trust you.

But, you know, I've gone to these different conferences, or maybe I've seen this in articles. They say the words we speak are only 7% of the influence. It's how we dress. It's our body language. I mean, let's be honest. Is voice really that important?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you might think that it's not, you know, you might think it's. It's. Oh, it's just. It just doesn't matter. It's the words that I say. But let me give you, like, a real quick story. You know, I have this friend who is a single guy, and he's really looking to settle down and find the perfect girl. And he goes into one of these Internet dating sites, and he meets. He sees this woman's picture. You know, he. In his mind, okay, this is the woman that's gonna bury his kids. She's going to be perfect. And they arrange the time where they're going to have their first phone call. And he's dialing her number, and his palms are sweating, he's so nervous. I mean, she's gorgeous. This is the one, you know? And she picks up the phone, and he hears, hello? Hello? And he told. She sounded like a cross between the nanny and Minnie Mouse. And he said, you know, it just didn't matter what she looked like or how much they had in common. He couldn't bear the thought of spending the rest of his life with that voice. So it's not just in love. It's in life. It's in everything that we do. Mike, your voice and the way you use it is essential to your success.

Okay, so I'm. I'm convinced on that one. But. But isn't. Isn't a voice a gift? I mean, you're born with that voice or you're not? I mean.

No, no. Just not anybody can. Can enhance the sound of their speaking voice. You know, not a lot of. I'm not saying that, you know, if you're a guy, you can sound like Barry White. You can't probably, if that's not, you know, your. Your genetic predisposition. But every single voice I do see, I set you up for that one. Thank you.

It's not Barry Whiteboard. It's our maintenance.

Oh, who is it?

Yeah, it's Barry, the maintenance guy.

But don't lose your train of thought, Susan. Sorry.

Keep going.

But, you know, so, for example, diction. So a lot of people screw it up because nobody can understand a word they're saying.

Right.

And, you know, some people have an unpleasant tone of voice that can be changed very, very easily and quickly just by being aware of where you place your voice. So can I give you a quick tip, something that everybody can try right now? Okay, well, there's something called a facial mask. Have you ever heard of that before?

No. You have? I have.

Yeah. So singers know about that? The mask.

She's a singer.

She's a singer. Oh, wonderful. So the mask is actually the area that stretches between your sinuses and your larynx. And when our voice is placed in the mask, it's rich, it's resonant, and any voice will sound Improved or enhanced. Problem is a lot of people don't have their voice placed there. So the easy way to place your voice in the facial mask is like this. You hum and you actually blend. Humming and counting. So it sounds like this. Would you guys do this with me now?

Yes. Yeah.

Okay, here we go. Yeah. Pretty good. Really feel that buzz. We're going to count to five together. Here we go.

Three.

You could breathe in between each one. Five.

Yeah.

You know, so you count to 10 like that every morning in the shower. It's a great way to warm your voice up and get it. Get it placed in the mask. You should. Yeah, you actually can feel your. Your nose, like, kind of tingling when you do that. Yeah.

So. But tell me about the. I heard a story about Margaret Thatcher, I think was Margaret Thatcher. Yeah. That when she was originally a public figure, her voice was higher, and over time, it deepened intentionally by design, because that makes her more authoritative. So can we actually change the frequency of our voice, too?

Well, you know, Margaret Thatcher. Yes, she was. Had a. She was famously shrill. And, you know, I don't remember what her British counter.

Like Julia Child.

No. I mean, they said like a bird dying or something like that, which is a horrible, horrible voice. So she went to lessons and she improved the sound of her voice. And so, absolutely, you can enhance it. Now, we're not saying you have to be like a broadcaster or an actor. No. But there's some simple things that you can do, just as if you would train your body, you know, to improve your posture or, you know, just to strengthen your. That will really enhance the sound of your speaking voice. Yeah.

Let me ask a question to Christina. Christina, you've been on this podcast for quite a long time. You've heard our episodes. What do you think of your own voice?

I've learned to like it.

But did you not, like, in the beginning?

Not in the beginning, but also being a trained singer, I. You have to hear yourself so much, and you have to play with certain ways and know how to shape your throat in certain ways. So sound. Certain ways. So over time, I realized what to do like. Like Susan was saying with my body to change it to a sound that's acceptable to me.

Okay. So, Susan, why do so many people dislike their own voice?

Yeah. And that's very, very typical. And the only ones who don't, by the way, are my voiceover students, the radio personalities. They're like, hi, baby, how are you? You know, they're sleazy. You know, that's like 5% of the population. Everybody else hates the sound of their voice. And, you know, when I was starting in radio, you have to sit with your program director, who listens to. To your show while you're in the room and picks it apart. It's so painful. And it took me, you know, about five years of getting paid for speaking before I realized my voice was probably okay. I mean, I used to think that someone would call me up in the middle of the night and say, it's been a horrible, terrible mistake. I mean, that's how much I didn't like the sound of my voice. But let me tell you why that is. We spend our whole life listening to ourselves from inside our head, where our voice is actually distorted from the bones of our skull. And. And, you know, the voice, the recorded voice you hear is the way other people hear it. There's just a disparity between the two, and that's what really freaks people out.

I want to get some juicy tips here. Let's go into different voice challenges, and I want to know if you can give me a fix. My biggest problem. I speak way too fast. What do I do?

Okay, so many people do. Number one, you cut back on the Starbucks dude. There's a direct connection with a battle caffeine you drink and how quickly you speak. So what determines how quick we speak is the amount of white space we leave between our words. So you almost want to visualize what you're saying as if it's words on a screen. And if you're speaking too quickly, you want to expand the white space. And especially at the end of every thought, pause for a second or two just to allow it to sink in. And that's going to really help. Takes a little bit of practice, but over time, you absolutely can learn to slow down your speech.

You know, one fear I have that goes in my mind and why I'm such a quick speaker is I'm afraid that the person listening won't hear everything I have to say. Do you understand that kind of psychology? Is that a common problem?

Yeah, it's a very common problem. I think we need to train ourselves in listening actually to people to really be there 100%. And so, yeah, that's a very common fear. But you can relax about that. You can take a deep breath because you're fascinating. Everybody wants to hear what you have to say.

Don't worry. We'll promote your business. You don't have to stroke my ego. Hey, what about the weak voice? We've had some guests on the show that literally, Chris had To amplify them to stage 11 on the volume knob.

Yeah.

What do you do with the weak voice?

Yeah, so this is an issue. This gets back to the facial mask. People with a weak voice just aren't projecting. So the way that we project the voice is not by speaking louder, you know, like that. You really want to focus the voice and the mask by doing exercises, like those humming exercises, and then, voila. A weak voice is instantly strong. It's. It's very powerful.

I have a question, Mike or Susan, about this thing I. I hear, because I produce a lot of podcasts, and a lot of the female hosts, they have this vocal fry thing where.

Oh, I hate.

They just. It's like. It's like. I call it lazy voice because they're just. It's like they don't want to put anything.

Yeah, no, it sounds like this. It's like. Like, I can't make my business fry. I don't know why. What's vocal fraud? So, first of all, I gotta say, they did a really interesting experiment. It is a voice that's common amongst people younger than age 30. It's more common, and millennials have it more than others. And apparently millennials don't notice it in one another, and they just don't care. So. And they say it's not as bad as you would think, but it sounds like it's really, really painful. I think the cure to a lot of vocal problems is actually recording the person so they hear the issue, because until they're aware of it, they just can't do anything. So what that is is there at the end of their. They're starting, you know, what they're saying with energy, and at the end, it's kind of trailing off like that. So it's training the person to keep a consistent airflow throughout the sentence, and that. That will help. But I agree with you. I hate it.

What about poor articulation?

Yeah. So there are two, obviously two components to our language, vowels and consonants. The vowels add color to our speech, but the consonants add intelligibility. The consonants are what allow people to understand what we're saying. So if your addiction is poor, just want to make sure you articulate your T's, your D's, your P's, your S's. Don't overdo it, but make sure that they're in there.

What about a tired voice? As someone who's constantly on the phone all the time and is just, you know, mentally and physically exhausting their voice, what are some tips that they can do? To keep the energy up.

You know, you bring up a great point because I think a lot of people are on the phone many, many hours of the day. I think people need to realize that you're voice is part of your entire body. So you should stand up when you speak. Use your whole body when you speak. Don't lean back in the chair because then you don't have breath support. But you'll find that using your hands when you speak is extremely powerful. And drinking plenty of water when sometimes I do. As a voiceover artist, I'm doing long narrations where I'm in the studio for hours at a time and I make sure that I break for at least 10 minutes out of every hour. I'll walk around, I'll get some air, I'll take some water. So, you know, you do need to rest your voice. But having good breath support, good posture, using your hands is extremely important.

I was at the sound studio recording my most recent book. And every time I take a break, I followed Susan's rules. An hour takes 10. The sound engineer is like, hey, let's have a conversation. And I'm like, I can't talk now. I'm resting my voice. Strong accents. What about strong accents? Yeah, what do we do with that?

Yeah, so this is an issue. So first of all, you know, as they say, America is a melting pot. There are a lot of people from different places. And this is, is not to say that one accent is better than the other. But when I work with people who are non native speakers of English, the first thing that I do like say they're giving a talk, they need to tell the audience where they're from. Because the audience is going to sit there thinking, gee, what is that accent? I mean, is he from Serbia or is it Italy or maybe England? You know, so you have to like talk about that. Address the elephant on the table, tell people where you're from. And then what? Like I speak Portuguese, so I'm in Brazil a lot and I'm presenting there. And I always look, this is not my native language. So if you don't understand what I'm saying, raise your hand. I'm happy to repeat myself, but the same rules apply. I think each language has some specific sounds that are non native to English. And those people need to drill. Like sometimes it's the th, sometimes it's an S, a Y, whatever it might be. You know, language by language basis.

My wife's from India, we guess on like the, the V's. Yeah, like think of a V word not very.

Volume.

Volume. Yeah, she'll say volume, but it almost sounds. She makes the V like a W. So it's like Walum.

Germans do that too.

Okay.

Spanish speakers will do ch like a sh sound. So a cheat sheet is a sheet sheet.

I speak to you before the S.

Hey, here's another challenge we've had. You even mentioned this in your book. So if no one's heard of this yet from us pitching it, it's speak to influence, and it's how to unlock your hidden power of your voice. So definitely check out the book. But in your book, Susan, you talk about mispronunciations of words or incorrect usage of words. What's up with that?

Yeah, there's a whole chapter on that. I mean, people actually call it the specific ocean.

The specific.

Seriously?

There's the Atlantic and the Specific.

That is funny.

And they confuse antidote and anecdote all the time. They call it, you know, barb wire instead of barbed wire. Those types of things. Everybody has their favorites. So the book, I had some fun. I include a whole chapter of mispronunciations. But it really does affect the way that you're perceived. People don't realize that it speaks to your intelligence, your level of education.

Yeah, don't say specific ocean. Here's a question for you. We. It's around kind of the. The ums and the ahs. I think we've had guests on our show, and all of a sudden you get these ums and ahs. I think they must be being distracted by their nextiva phone system that they're looking at. I see the phone that calls coming in and they start going. Or ah. Or the one that gets me is the stuttering. The. I have a question like, how do you address those kind of bad habits?

Right? So I call. I call non words verbal viruses. Everybody does them. And it's. You just can't totally eliminate them from your speech, nor should you try. You're gonna sound sanitized. But if you. If you listen back to your recording and you hear excessive non words. Excessive or excessive verbal viruses, it means that you've lost touch with the audience. It means that you're too much in your own head and you're out of touch with the audience, that's really the cure. And it's listening back to yourself, learning to recording your voice, recognizing your verbal virus, and training yourself to replace them with a breath or a pause.

So great voice. Okay, gotcha. Great voice brings trust. Trust absolutely brings more profitability. But there's one issue, Susan. That we'll change our voice instantly. There's nothing we can do about it. It's a cold. You're sick. We're entering flu season now. What do you do in that case where your voice is forced to change?

Exactly. I mean, it happens to all of us. Obviously. The answer is to keep yourself in great shape. But when you get a cold or a flu, I think the important thing is to go to your doctor and make sure that it's nothing serious. Don't just be taking antibiotics willy nilly without the doctor's advice. But. But all those typical things, they just. Just get plenty of rest and drink plenty of fluids. I think the important thing is not to get sick in the first place. At least I try that. I wash my hands like crazy in the winter.

Yeah.

Nice.

Have you ever come to our office? Definitely.

Oh, sorry.

That. I'll go. Chris.

Oh, no. I have a Susan Berkeley challenge. But first I wanted to ask a question. Is there a way to sound more presidential? Like, like if someone like. Because look, we're talking about influence in business and being more profitable and if the. The business owner that's listening can be more presidential or sort of raise their.

I got an idea for that.

You know, more presidential or more influential?

My idea is you use words like huge, but you drop the h. Like, I will build a huge wall just as an example. What's your idea? What's your idea?

I think it's great. So that is what I call the authority voice type. So to do an more authoritative voice, the first key is body language. You want to make sure that even if you're on the telephone, you want to sound more authoritative. You're standing up. So wear a telephone headset. Never cradle the receiver between your ear and your shoulder because it makes you sound like you're calling for ransom money. You ever talked to somebody?

Ron needs to hear that. Ron needs to hear that one.

So stand up. Have an erect posture. Gesture with your hands and looks. This is a key. This is something. A very special ninja trick. Pretend you're looking somebody in the eye, even if there's nobody in the room with you. So that's why I like, I tell people to keep a portrait of a loved one on their desk. Look the port the person in the portrait right in the eye. Point to them. Nobody's seeing you. Gesture firmly. Stand up straight and you will sound more authoritative. It's amazing.

So my.

These tips have been.

Yeah, no, the chat.

The.

The Susan Berkley challenge is. We have a corporate sponsor we love. I'M gonna spell it and then I want you to say it. Okay?

Okay.

F U, N, D B, O, X.

Okay. Fund box.

Did you hear that pronunciation, Mike?

That was perfect. I dropped the D. I call it fun box which ends up being a porn site. So that our sponsors been very disappointed at the very end. We like to to have you say the name of each of our sponsors.

Sure.

But Susan, in the meantime, where can people learn more about you and what you got going on?

So I put a very special offer together just for listeners. A free offer@greatvoice.com profit. And what I'll do is I'll put my favorite vocal warm ups up there for you. Both the audio and the written version. So you can have those and do them every day as part of your vocal warmup. But you get in touch with me. Let me give you our telephone number here in New Jersey. It's 800-333-8108. It's 800-3333-8108. My websites are greatvoice.com and speak to influence.com and that's where you'll find me.

Hey, and are we going to see you? Am I going to see you again in Nashville this December? Are you going to that event?

I am.

Okay, good. Yeah. What?

I know. I was just gonna thank you because I told you when I saw you, your book A profit first helped me so much in my business. So I love you for that great book. Everybody should read that book.

And remember when you meet her Mike, to stand erect. Okay, I will be.

And I will not have my neck crinked or whatever. I will be standing properly. All right, well we gotta go. But Susan, hang on with us. Cause we want you to say the sponsors names in the professional voice. What we're going to do now is we are going to recap what we learned from Susan and we're going to give some other juicy stuff. But first I do want to thank our corporate partners. You say their name. You say their name. Christina. Then, then Susan. Once you say their name. And I'll tell you what they do because I want to hear it in Christina voice and then Susan's voice and then is that cool?

Okay. So that if I do it badly.

She can cry, right?

Yeah. I'm basically making fun of you and get myself up the hood. So who do you got?

Nextiva.

Nextiva. Wow.

Wow, that's perfect. So nextiva is a voice over IP phone system and quite frankly you could hire Susan's firm to record your answering system. So through Nextiva So when that someone calls you, it actually sounds professional and not all hokey. All right, who do we got next?

Oh, man, the pressure's on.

Yeah, you're like.

You're trying to be really articulate.

This the right way. Fund box. Oh, see, I didn't do the date.

No, you did.

Box. Okay, I'm overthinking it.

You were.

No, you were very pacific about it.

Fundbox.

Fund box. So fun. Box. It sounds funny. You have a professional voice and then this nasally. Guys, Funbox is invoice financing. We call it a cash flow accelerator. When there's an invoice due to you that you need to get the money now, Fundbox will release the funds to you immediately, and then you collect the funds as normal. Who's next?

Receipt Bank.

Receipt Bank.

Receipt Bank.

When you talk about this one, can you look Christina in the eye and gesture to her as well?

Yeah, I will. Receipt bank is an amazing company. What it does is you can scan in. I see you have your iPhone right there. Christina, you can scan in your receipts at any time. No longer, you're gonna have a shoebox full of receipts. That's what Receipt bank does for you. Very efficient, very professional, very awesome. Oh, give me one more.

Fundera.

Funder. Fundera.

Oh, good. Finally the pro messed up a little bit. Thank God. Ms. Perfect. Ms. Perfect slipped. So Fundera is one stop shopping for loans. The old school was you would want to get a loan for some capital equipment to buy your nextiva phone system, even though it doesn't cost that much to do these different things. You'd have to go to your bank. Your bank would decline. You go to another. You would do the Walt Disney. The go to 70 rejections at different banks until you find one. Fundera is the one who gets rejected. And then they come back to you and say, we got you alone. Let them be rejected, not you. All right, Chris, what'd you learn today from Susan?

All right, well, I learned. Well, the first one, I'll say it, but you. Maybe I don't want to take yours. But she said that your voice is a trust trigger.

So how do you know that was mine?

It's all about trust.

Because you're right.

Yeah, but I also like the little technique. She said, imagine when you're talking to someone on the phone, that you reaching through the phone and putting your hand on their shoulder to be more, you know, trustworthy. Consultative. I forget the word. What was the. What was the word you said, Susan? To be more trustworthy. Trustworthy.

Trustworthy. Yeah.

Yeah. That was the two I had, so I got another one. Christina, what'd you learn from Susan?

I think that people need to. To realize how important the voice is as a tool for your business and to make the commitment to take time to practice it. If you're not happy with how you sound or I think the most influential thing for me, especially with my singing, get used to recording yourself. Most smartphones nowadays have that voice memo app. Record yourself, because that's when you're going to realize what you don't like about your voice. And maybe you realize what you could be doing better, what you can tweak, and then you can fix it.

You know, Susan won me over. I didn't believe that voice influences profit until she said, think about you're that guy at the sweaty palms. Cause I picture myself being that guy. Pick up the phone, you call this woman that you're like, I'm gonna be in love with her. And she answers like this and says, who is this? Like, I was like, oh, my God, I threw up a little bit in my own mouth. And same thing. If you. If you call a professional office and they answer, the phone's like, how can we serve you right? You'll be like, oh, my God. So I get it now. The takeaways for were that we must say the consonants. And that's where I struggle. I slur my words. So that was a takeaway. The second thing. Did I say it wrong? Did I say consonants? Oh, my God.

Constipation.

Well, first of all, I was just whimming. I was just swimming in this specific ocean earlier today.

I was getting nervous.

Now I'm all nervous. The second thing she said is for fast speakers like me to see the white space in between the words. That's a great visualization. And I will be leveraging that constantly. I got that word.

I think the end. The slower you talk, the more calmer the people are on the other end of the phone, too. I've noticed.

That's true. And then you don't say silly things like constant.

Constant.

Yeah. And I was gonna ask Susan about the sing songy thing. You ever hear a lot of. Some people have a habit of doing this. You know, I was at home, and I had to mow the lawn. I had to go to the store. I had to go to bed.

That's inflection. And that really undermines credibility. And women do that a lot. It's like, they're Swedish. What's going on really undermines credibility. Yeah.

Interesting.

Susan, we want you back?

Yeah, man.

Because we got to talk about public speaking. I think there's two ways. Profitability, a strong voice, of course, throughout your business. But I think there's also an opportunity for public speaking. I know you have expertise there. So would you be up for coming back on a future show?

I would love it. Just say the word. I'm here.

Okay. Okay. I just said the word.

And you're the first guest to ever stay on the air. As we're talking about you and what we learned.

You just happen to hypnotized.

Yeah.

And intimidated.

Oh, don't be intimidated.

Well, the most professional voice ever, and it's intimidating. All right, Chris, wrap us up.

Yes. Susan Berkeley. What a great guest. And Mike, Christina, this has been awesome. And of course, we thank everyone in the background over there, including Obi Ron Kenobi and the Hawaiian Lumberjack. I just.

Yeah, he's in the back. Oh, I gotta hit a bra button. He's like, oh, dude, you're not doing enough bras. So Halaj, when you're listening to this, that's short for Hawaiian lumberjack, I triple just now.

And you can rate and review this show, but most important, go to the website. Go to profitfirstpodcast.com you'll end up on Mike's website, actually, and you'll see all our episodes there. And guess what? You can actually comment and ask questions on these posts. So engage with us. Engage with Mike. And even if you comment on this one, I'm sure Susan would see it. She might answer your questions. So this has been great. And Profit First Professionals. Talk about a backbone to this entire operation. Profit First Professionals. Mike, you and Ron and Christina and on the whole crew are. I always forget the term. You're abolishing. No.

Entrepreneurial poverty.

Yes. Thank you for that.

Oh, we're honored to.

And before you started eradicating entrepreneurial poverty, Barry actually went to your office and then. And this is what he had to say. This is before you started that.

Yeah. There's no activity, no giggle, no nothing.

You saved us.

Yeah.

Saved us.

That's the big measurement of a successful business. Is there any giggle? So here's what's going on. Here's what I want you to do. Listener, go to your accountant or bookkeeper and say, do you have a methodology to drive profit in my business? No. And they'll. Yeah.

Oh, hell no.

Right. If your accountant says that, like, I would be running away, I bet you this is how the dialog would go. You'd say to your accountant or bookkeeper can you help me with profit? They'll say, of course I can. I can do that all day long. And then you'll say, what is the methodology? Do you have a specific methodology you use to drive profit?

Oh, hell no.

Yeah, that's. That's the time you guys say, hold on, I gotta go. But if they say, yeah, yeah, I got a method. Say, what is it? And they'll say, well, you know, it's my own secret method. They say, well, tell me about the results. All the clients you have, the 10, 20, 50 people you're serving, how profitable are all your clients? Are all of them profitable? And then they're like, oh, hell no. I'm telling you, those are your triggers to find an account or bookkeeper that will drive profit in your business. Now here's the beautiful thing. We already found them for you. They're waiting for you at profit first professionals.com. there was an addiction there. Profit. Articulation. And diction. And diction. All the above. There was articulation, there was diction. There was. I was erect when I said, you did good. Yeah. Profit first professionals dot com. Go there or glow there. Then click on the find button. We will hook you up with an accounting professional, a bookkeeper, an accountant, a financial advisor who will drive profitability in your business. It's one step away. Profit First Professionals.com. click on Find and you're well on your way to the most. Most profitable year you've ever had.

I like the sound of that. The most profitable year you've ever had. So may the profit be with you. Seriously, thanks for listening, everyone. We'll see you next week. Mike, who's with us next week?

I have no idea because I lost my notes. Kristen who?

Next week we have Ruby Tan.

Ruby Tan's coming in, Bruh. Bruh, bruh. There you go.

We'll see you then, everybody.

Bye, guys.

See ya. Elijah, if you're still listening, this is for you. Brown. Brown, Brown, Brown.