How do you stop sounding monotone when you present?
Vary your pitch, even subtly. Movement in your voice highlights your key ideas and keeps your delivery from blending into one long note.
What I say in the video
This is what monotone can sound like: "We just closed our biggest deal of the year, the building caught on fire, and I had a sandwich for lunch." Right? Same pitch, same energy, same everything. We all have the ability to hit a range of vocal octaves when we speak, but most people just use one or two.
Think about how people speak in commercials or in ads. There's movement in the voice. That variety makes it easier to follow and keeps your attention. And this isn't about sounding like a commercial, it's about helping the listener track what matters.
Varying your pitch, even subtly, helps highlight key ideas and keeps your delivery from blending into one long note.
This is another place where recording yourself is incredibly helpful. You'll know really quickly if this is something for you to focus on.
What I didn’t say in the video
Here's a quick exercise: read two or three sentences hitting the highest note you can on one word and the lowest on the next. It'll sound and feel odd (and you'd never actually speak this way), but it's a great way to stretch from the highest to the lowest notes in your vocal range. Then go back and read the sentences again normally. You'll notice hitting notes you didn't hit before - Shazam! Goodbye monotone!
Try it today
Record the next call you lead. Listen to the first minute and notice whether anything in your voice moves.
Bill Smartt is a New York executive presence and public speaking coach and the founder of Smartt Talk. He works with leaders in financial services, tech, advertising and startups.
