What’s the difference between a great speaker and a bad one? How is it that one presenter can bring one topic to life and another, using the exact same material, can bore them? How is it possible to be fantastic in front of one audience and terrible in front of another?

Everything is in the voice. It is not about content, if no one would watch television or listen to the radio to access information, most people can assimilate information faster through the written word.

There are three main elements to your voice, and each can be used to great effect to keep your audience’s interest or to destroy it.

Rhythm

Pacing is simple, it is a measure of how fast or slow you speak. One of the first pieces of advice given to new speakers is to slow down. It is true that when you address large audiences you need to be slower and more measured than you are in real life, you will never see a politician who seems in a hurry to reach the end of a sentence, for example.

But (and there’s always a but, right?) That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vary your pace, slowing down even more can denote “gravity” for your points, while speeding up (even just a little) can show enthusiasm and so on. .

The worst speakers show almost no variation in rhythm and their speeches almost always become a “buzz” in the listener’s ear.

Pitch

The rise and fall of your speech is in the tone, if you listen to the Australian speech, you will often notice that they increase the tone at the end of each sentence. This can be confusing for listeners in the Northern Hemisphere who associate that increase with a question.

Variation is key, but understanding the audience’s preference for tone is also important. I logged out during what I was told was an excellent speech from a lead coach because the steady increase at the end of each sentence led me to turn the twist around.

Tone

The final and most important part of your speech is tone, tone is the inflection you give to your words to add additional meaning. In everyday life you can differentiate between anger, humor, happiness and a million other emotions by the tone in which people speak.

Your speeches must follow suit, if you want to take your audience with you. You must use the appropriate tone to convey your message.

These three simple qualities of your voice are often the difference between the success and failure of your speech. It’s not just about the content.