I’ve had one of those weeks where I’m just now getting out of the daily grind to the other things that interest me.
This post from Servant of Chaos is at the top of my list. It’s fascinating to consider.
In it, Gavin makes a clear case for paying attention to something that, for many of us, is our moneymaker — our voice. How it sounds, how it works to bring power to our messages. He cites a post from Tim Noonan where the seven strategies for vocal brilliance are enumerated:
In his excellent Your Voice PDF, he outlines the seven strategies you can use to achieve vocal brilliance:
- Record Every Speech You Give
- Review With Eyes Closed!
- Build Trust and Understanding through Sincere Delivery
- Speak WITH, not TO, the Audience
- Warm Up Your Voice
- Smile as you Speak!
- Play your Instrument and Express your Passion!
These are not mere words or suggestions – as a blind man, Tim is acutely aware of the power of your voice – and has been known to do “readings” where he is able to tell a lot about your personality simply by asking a few questions and listening to the response.
Recently I’ve been thinking about all of the senses and their importance in persuasion. Understanding how each plays into a pitch (or a sermon, or a political campaign) can have quite an impact on the ultimate outcome. I think Jon Steel’s book “Perfect Pitch” initially reiterated this multi-sensory point to me.
Isolating the use of sound (through the way you use your voice), touch (paper used for the leave-behind materials), smell and so on, only serves to enhance the audience’s experience and the power of the story you are telling.
Next time you prepare to make the big pitch, think about this.
Also, consider planning this presentation under the assumption that one member of your audience will be blind, another deaf, one unable to smell and another has no mouth or limbs (just because I don’t have the vocabulary or patience to finish out the example).
Does this change how you prepare to make your case?
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