Vanessa Van Edwards explains how your voice's first word sets the tone for credibility. Start on an out-breath at your lowest natural pitch, shoulders relaxed, to signal confidence. Speaking on an in-breath makes you sound nervous and kills persuasion.
You want to start your first word on your lowest natural tone. When we get anxious, both men and women tend to go up into the highest end of their range. They talk up here. Now, if I were to give this entire interview like this, it would drive you crazy. That's natural for me. Like when I'm talking to my daughters, I might be up here. Hey girls. But when you're trying to learn from me, buy from me, get to know me, you want me in my lowest tone. Because when I'm using my lowest tone, it's called a maximum resonance point. My voice is relaxed, my shoulders are down, I have lots of volume, and your brain goes, she knows what she's talking about. I can relax and listen. The mistake that people make is they give away all of their vocal confidence in the first word. They go like this, hi, or morning, without even realizing the audience is like, ooh, they're nervous. And we don't like to buy from or learn from nervous people. We just don't like it. So when you say hello, I want you to say hello on the out-breath. This is the bad one. Hello versus hello. If you were ever speaking in that tone of voice, you are giving away vocal confidence. That's too high in your range. If you speak on the out-breath, that's more of your resonance point. We like it. Like it immediately tells our brain, ah, this person knows what they're talking about.
