Does your voice put your audience to sleep? Does it put you to sleep?

Do you find it hard to convey emotions with your voice?

Are you easy to listen to, or does your voice let you down?

As presenters, we know the importance of focusing on the information and emotional needs of our audience:

What is relevant to them?
What do they already know?
How do they feel about our topic?

When I recently spoke at two conferences in Africa, I discovered that there is another, more fundamental layer of audience needs to consider as well.

In this article, I will share the lessons I learned about basic communication issues when speaking to a culturally distinct audience.

What do you do when you prefer not to use a lectern, but its use is implied by the nature of your speaking engagement?

Do you follow convention and stand behind it?

Or, do you go with your gut and break free?

Most speakers begin their careers gratefully clutching the sides of a lectern, happy to hide behind it for that little extra bit of security in a tense situation. But, by now you know that you should not stay behind the lectern. But why?

And as you get more advanced in your speaking, and comfortable with the stage, how should you move in relation to the audience?

Is it a good idea to move deep into the audience or not? What about those situations where it seems awkward to get to the audience at all, either because of the logistics of the room or the positioning of your listeners?

By now, you know that you should be complementing your speech with gestures.

But do you know how big these gestures should be?

In this article, you’ll learn to match the size of your gestures to your audience and venue.

Does your voice convey confidence and conviction every time you speak?

Or does your voice need strength training?

A Six Minutes reader whose career depends on a strong, confident voice sent in this question:

“One thing I need help in is voice control.  For some reason my voice quivers.  Is there some kind of exercise that may strengthen my vocal cords? Any ideas what may contribute to that?

Also, as a Realtor, I encounter the quivery voice as I’m talking with my clients and it conveys an impression of not being sure of what I’m saying.”

The floor is open for discussion. You have a burning question that you want to ask, but as you try to formulate it, someone asks a different question and the topic has moved on.

Have you ever been at an industry conference, a PTA meeting, or a community gathering where you wanted to stand up and voice your opinion, but couldn’t find the words or didn’t have the confidence to put yourself out there?

This article shows how you can gain public speaking confidence using an unlikely method — by practicing improv comedy.

I was listening to a young speaker conducting a microphone check for a presentation before a large meeting.

People at the back of the room kept saying, “Project!” and “Louder, please.” We were already having trouble hearing the speaker, even before the room was full of people, but their approach wasn’t working.

Frankly, I wasn’t surprised. Just telling someone to yell doesn’t solve the problem of projection. Similarly, just speaking louder doesn’t create a powerful voice.

Confessions of a Public Speaker is a highly entertaining and insightful insider’s view of public speaking, with value for speakers of all levels.

This article is the latest of a series of public speaking book reviews here on Six Minutes.

• What’s Inside?
• The Price
• What I Loved
• How could it be better?
• What Others Think
• Verdict

Everyone breathes. It’s one of the most natural things we do.

However, if you ask singers to name the most important part of vocal technique, 9 out of 10 will say “breathing.”

So, is there some special way to breathe that makes your voice better?  Yes!

In this article, we explore breathing as it relates to vocal variety as a speaker. I’ll provide you an easy to follow technique, as well as tips to improve your voice through better use of air.

The results of applying these tips will be more Power, better Pacing, more interesting Pitch and more effective Pauses in your speaking.