It takes less than a second to make a solid first impression.
What are they judging you on? Appearance, yes. But it’s your voice tonality that carries the most weight.
From the moment you start speaking your voice will shamelessly betray your true intentions and tell the other person what you really want from them.
Every week I get nuisance sales calls from overseas. Regardless of the country, the callers always start the same way:
“…Helloooo Mister Oakeeey?”
Click.
I hang up.
They don’t know me, but I know they want something.
I can tell because of the tentative vocal inflection in their voice. Their sales pitch is over before it’s begun.
But when my friends and associates ring me, they’re not focused on holding my attention for more than ten seconds. Their intention is to chat and they already know that I want to hear from them.
And it’s this subtle difference in their thinking that naturally makes their voice sound upbeat as they speak. Even if I don’t recognise who they are at first, I’ll still listen because the tone of their voice is telling me that I’m talking to someone I trust.
So what’s the best way to change your voice tonality so that people become instantly engaged and listen to you?
Not through forced effort, that’s for sure.
Trying to consciously change how you sound through pitch and articulation exercises is an uphill battle. Your voice is controlled by your subconscious. In effect, it’s on autopilot.
Therefore, you need to change the software running the autopilot. Fortunately, this is pretty easy.
Just change your intention for talking to people.
Assume you already know them and your voice harmonics will naturally follow suit. A truly great intention is to aim to leave every person you meet better off than when you found them.
Your voice will then take care of itself and you’ll find doing this magically improves the impressions you make, whether it’s on the phone or face to face.
