Ep 39 How to Speak with a Deep, Deep Voice

In order to be seen as an authority, a speaker must speak with a deep, resonant voice. And this goes for women too.

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public, to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

Wow, folks, did you hear that blowhard at the top of the show? This idea that you have to have.

A deep voice and speak from way.

Down here is absolute, utter nonsense.

Bad advice.

That's right, folks. This idea that you have to have a deep voice in order to be seen as authoritative and believable. There simply isn't empirical evidence for this. Now, if you doubt me, do this. Go to itunes right now. Look at the top 10 or the top 100 podcasts in terms of popularity, the new and notable ones, the ones that everyone talks about, listen to them and you tell me how many of these voices sound like, you know, the.

1940S news video this in from Germany today?

No, they don't sound like that. That isn't how real people talk. Now, if your voice just happens to be really, really, really deep and resonant, fine.

But the idea of sort of trying to talk down here in lower registers.

Is, I believe, horrific advice at many, many levels. Let's start off with women, because I've often had women come to me saying, well, teacher, I'm worried about my voice. I'm worried that my male customers, clients, colleagues won't take me seriously. I know I need to speak with a lower voice and my voice is too high. And I always say, really? Are you certain of this? I had no doubt that they were being sincere, but I simply don't have.

Evidence that speaking with a lower voice.

Makes someone instantly more believable. I do have evidence that if you.

Try to talk in a way that.

Isn'T normal, people can spot it a mile away, think that you're phony and fake and insincere. This is for women and men. Now, those of you of a certain age, I'm 53. Those of you a certain age will certainly get this reference. But back in the 1970s, in the Mary Tyler Moore show, there was this.

Character, Ted Baxter, and he was the pompous, deep voiced news anchor who has.

Become a cliched stereotype of empty headed, deep voiced news anchors. And unfortunately, that's who you sound like. That's who people assume you are if you're just trying to speak with an artificially low voice. Now, I'll say all this with a caveat. If you are in fact trying to become a network news anchor, let's say You're a local reporter and you're in a small town. You're trying to work your way up, and you have news consultants and agents working with you. They may in fact tell you, find a speech coach, try to get rid of a regional accent, which is a different issue, and try to learn how to speak with a slightly lower octave. I do, in fact know some network news reporters who've done this, and they do believe it's an important part of their career. Maybe, maybe. I won't discount that. The point is, they were in a career that's all about speaking, and they were already spending 50, 60, 70 hours a week on their career. They want to do it for the next 30 years, so why not spend another hundred or so hours trying to shape their voice? So I understand, at that level, if you're looking for every single 1/10 of 1% advantage, fine, go ahead and work with a voice coach for months or years. But for 99% of us who are not trying to be news anchors, it's a complete waste of time. There's so many other things you could do that would be much more effective in helping your communication skills, namely practicing your speeches on video and making sure they're interesting. Here's the most important thing you really need to know about your voice, and that is it is an instrument. It can help or hurt you with audiences. But what will help or hurt you is the variation of your voice, using higher highs, lower lows, louder, softer, pausing, occasionally whispering, and occasionally, if you're excited about something and it warrants it, a little louder. That is really what's far and away most important about your voice.

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So I'm often asked, well, tj, you know, maybe what you're saying is right. But, you know, all things being equal, if I spoke with a little lower voice, wouldn't it still be better? Wouldn't it still make me more credible, especially if I'm young or female? Here's the problem. The second you try to artificially lower your voice, generally what happens is you're bringing everything down. You're flattening out your voice, and you're making yourself more monotone.

So, yes, your voice may be lower, but it's also making it more monotone.

And that makes it less interesting. That makes it easier for for people to fall asleep. It makes it easier for them to pull out their cell phone and start checking email because you're putting them to sleep. Here's the thing I've concluded about voices. Having trained 10,000 people for 32 years from six continents who have a wide range of voices, there are some people who have voices that are so deep, resonant and rich, if they could read the phone book to you and it would be interesting, they could sell you ice in a snowstorm. And they're just so credible, you find them compelling. And they can make a very nice living doing car commercials and other commercials. That's extraordinarily rare. That's about 0.1% of people who have voices that good. Less than 0.1%, because I'm not sure I've ever even dealt with someone like that. You have on the far other end of the spectrum, people whose voices are so irritating, so high, whiny, screechy, that the second they open their mouth, they've destroyed their credibility. And you, you do come across people like that. I think I've come across one person like that in my entire career. So again, that's less than 0.1% in my experience. The other 99.99 something percent don't have voices that are so great they can make millions of dollars off their voice. And it's not so awful. People are running away. Their voices are just perfectly fine. They're not instantly going to repel people. They're not going to get millions of dollars for it. Now, of those people, half of them think their voice is awful, half of.

Them think their voice isn't low enough.

Or half of them think their voice is too screechy to this, to that. That's not the problem. The problem is you're just not used to hearing your own voice. So when you hear your own voice through a voicemail or a podcast or someone did a video rehearsal of your speech, it sounds alien or it sounds strange. And it's not. It's just how you sound. Think of some of the best broadcasters in the world, people you love. Is Oprah Winfrey's voice really that much deeper than a small town local news anchor who maybe makes when Oprah Tips her Christmas help? That local anchor in a really, really small town might make $30,000. Folks, I don't mean to sound condescending, but my point is Oprah makes a lot more money. It's not because her voice is that much lower than some guy in a local newscast. Is Rachael Ray's voice that beautiful and that deep? It's kind of scratchy and irritating. Greta Van Susteren is her voice that Deep and beautiful to listen to. It's kind of irritating. Folks, I don't mean to be picking on the women, but what I have found is a higher percentage of women believe they somehow need to change their voice to fit in. I'm here to say that's wrong. If you use your voice with all that, you naturally have the full ranges, the highs, the lows. A little bit louder, a little bit softer, you'll be fine. Look at someone like Barbara Walters, voice not particularly low. She had a lisp, a speech impediment. And you know what? She seemed to do fine in her television career for about 60 years on air. Okay. Didn't seem to hurt her voice. Why? Because she went after interesting stories and she put herself out there. She didn't mind being first. First female network news anchor. She put herself out there. She constantly went after interesting stories. She didn't worry that her voice wasn't perfect. Look, in the realm of political commentary, there are a few political commentators in the last 35 years who've had more airtime than Pat Buchanan, the former Nixon aide, Reagan aide, and longtime host of Crossfire. And talk radio shows, TV shows. He's been on every network. Still a regular on the McLaughlin Group. And his voice gets quite high when he's excited. It's really high. There's a full range of his voice. The former ABC News anchor Peter Jennings had a much higher voice than Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite was an icon in American news from 64 to, I believe, 82.

And he had the stereotypical. That's the way it is.

I liked Walter. I grew up watching him. But I don't think he's a good vocal role model for people because he was too much in the lower ranges, too guttural. And people thought that's how they need to sound to be believable. Well, he also had a mustache. Does that mean all of us men and women have to grow mustaches? I don't think so. Believe me, I've had a mustache. It didn't help, and it certainly wouldn't help a lot of people who don't have them. So you've got to be very careful about who you see as role models and what works and what doesn't work. Some people have voices that are different from yours. They may be more successful than you. They may be a lot less successful. It's probably not because of their voice. So here's my question for you.

A question for you.

The question for you today is, whose voice do you like? As a speaker, as a communicator. It could be a politician, it could be a celebrity, it could be, you know, forget politics a minute. A lot of people like Alec Baldwin's voice, and that's a horrible Alec Baldwin impersonation, but he has a very rich, resonant voice. I want to know what voices do you like from celebrities, actors, news reporters, anchors. My second question though is whose voice do you really not like? But that person's also successful. Fran Drescher of the Nanny fame has what a lot of people would consider, you know, very strong, nasal, queen's or queen's accent. Very nasal. And yet, you know what? She's fabulously wealthy and wildly successful. So the fact that she didn't have a stereotypical deep, resonant voice hasn't hurt her. I would like to know what voices do bother you. And if it bothers you, can you at least recognize that that person is still successful if it is somebody well known? So those are the two questions. I'd like for you to send me your answers. Infoediatrainingworldwide.com you can also communicate on Twitter. J. Walker is my handle and you can post your thoughts on these questions on our Facebook page, LinkedIn, YouTube, wherever. You're either listening to this or watching this. By the way, when you are there, I want to hear from you about your questions. Not only about voice, but but other issues too. Any questions you have on public speaking, communication skills, speaking to the media, crisis, communications. I want you to tell me those questions. Ask them here because that's what this show is about. This show is about answering the questions of you, my clients and others on these topics. I'm not coming giving you a big hard sell on my training services or my books or videos or online courses. 98% of this show is simply trying to give you value answering questions. Not because I was born knowing this, but because this is all I do for a living for the last 30 years. I help people give more effective presentations and I spend entire days videotaping people practicing their speeches and interviews, helping them get better and better. And this is an opportunity for you to get a taste of that and learn some without having to hire me for a day. So that's what the show is about. Please send me your questions, anything to do with speaking, and I'll answer them right here. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks again for joining me. May all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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