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I heard from several readers after my blog about vocal fry.  This response, from Eva in Portland, is a great rant–and, of course, I feel the same way. Anti-vocal-fry enthusiasts, take heart!  Our numbers are growing!

From Eva in Portland:

Thank you for your blog about Vocal Fry.  I found it via another one I visit from time to time about this very topic:
http://squibbage.blogspot.com/2009/07/creaky-voice-craze.html

Mostly I’m writing to vent to a like-minded individual.  You’re certainly not alone as evidenced by all the blogs online decrying this horrible malady.  But, alas, we’re in the minority:  no amount of justified outrage or desperate persuasion is going to change the fact that vocal fry is the new norm.  As much as I agree with you that “the Vocal Fry has to go,” I’m afraid you’re optimistic–the sad truth is that the only place the vocal fry is headed is forward.

This thing drives me absolutely insane.  For me, it’s worse than nails on a chalkboard. Plus, it’s everywhere–you cannot get away from it!  It’s like a relentless assault that can’t be blocked out. The entire world is like a minefield. I’m safe in my car (as long as I don’t turn on the radio), but as soon as I step outside, I know it’s just a matter of time: walking down the street, going into a coffee shop, calling customer service, working at my job–it makes me tense because I know it’s coming, and it can happen any time.  When it does, it gives me this awful, panicky feeling of wanting to jump out of my skin.

I have read everything I can get my eyeballs on about this thing, and at this point I consider myself a reluctant expert on its various manifestations (there are actually many, many variations of it.)  I was actually thinking of starting my own blog or writing a book–but how can I interview fryers without insulting them?  I even contacted a local voice institute to talk about it with someone there, but never got a call back. I read the study done last year at LIU about vocal fry (the one that caused all the media buzz for a few weeks), and I corresponded with one of the researchers to get clarification on some of the points (for some reason, she was convinced that vocal fry does not happen on NPR, which I found astonishing.)  In fact, I wrote a long and heart-felt letter to NPR, pleading with them to do corrective training with their reporters (99% of their female reporters are creakers), but they obviously don’t think it’s a problem, even though the station did two segments about it–go figure!  I corresponded with another blogger (http://nowthedetails.blogspot.ca/search?q=fry) on how awful vocal fry is on radio stations. He suggested I write a letter to the local paper, but at this point, I don’t see the point.

And that’s about it. There is no remedy, there is no solution. The only therapy we have against it is to vent to kindred spirits, just to release the pressure.  It’s like some horrible air-borne virus.  Once it starts, it’s going to win, and nothing we can do is going to stop it.  All we can do–those of us who can’t stand it–is to look at one another and repeat, like Marlon Brando, “the horror, the horror.”

Thank you for your blog–it’s a small comfort in the face of the relentless juggernaut of creakdom.

P.S.  Here are two perfect examples of this irritating affectation; take a moment and have a listen, but be prepared to jam your fingers into your ears to keep from bursting a blood vessel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlh8gSF_hhE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMC_b0dsXQc

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, leadership skills, presentation skills, voice training, speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, persuasive speaking, sales training, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

I have a client—let’s call him Drew—who is a successful consultant.  He works with small companies to improve their sales results, but he’d like to move up in the world, work with larger companies, and speak at more prestigious events. His message is good, and his slides are effective.  He has a sense of humor and a no-holds-barred attitude about the best way to develop new business.  His only concern is his voice.  He thinks he sounds squeaky, and he thinks this squeakiness will hold him back.

He’s wrong–I’ve told him he’s wrong.  People can still love him and his message when he speaks with a squeaky voice.  Nevertheless, we continue to work together because there are consequences when you have a squeaky voice.  For example, your voice gets tired, and when your voice gets tired, you sound less lively (which can make you less engaging).  Also, if you keep on talking in a squeaky manner, you get laryngitis.  And that could spell the end of a speaking career.

So what are we doing together to fix the problem? I am teaching him how to breathe, how to open his throat, and how to project from his abdomen rather than from his larynx.  In his seminars, he occasionally likes to talk like Burgess Meredith in Rocky 3. He uses his voice in a gravelly, growly kind of way.  Unfortunately, within 10 seconds of speaking that way, his throat is killing him.

Slowly but surely, we are replacing old habits with new ones.  He imagines that his mouth is located by his solar plexus.  He jumps up and down like a baby in a crib saying “Mama, Dada, Mama, Dada.”  He punches the air with his fists and lets out a wide open vowel sound so he gets accustomed to making noise in a different way.  Not in his old way, by squeezing his vocal chords together, but rather by creating a strong breath stream that finds its strength in the muscles of his abdomen and rib cage.  This allows the voice to be supported by the breath like a bird that floats on a current of warm, rising air.

Your voice is your calling card, no matter if it’s squeaky or not.  Squeaky can be appealing.  But when poor vocal production begins to damage your voice, you’re in trouble.  And the way to keep the voice going is to change the means of vocal production.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, leadership skills, presentation skills, voice training, speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, persuasive speaking, sales training, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

What are the pros and cons of reading a script to an audience, and what are the pros and cons of internalizing a message so that you don’t have to refer to a script?

Positives about Reading a Script

1. Your ideas are laid out clearly–in black and white–so that you can deliver your complete message with carefully crafted words.  This is highly important in situations such as The State of the Union Address, when what you say will be part of the historical record, or when there is a great need to be precise, such as thanking a long list of dignitaries in the audience.
2. Reading a script makes you feel more secure because you know you won’t go blank.  You can always look down at your text and carry on.
3. Reading a script minimizes your rehearsal time.  The real work is done when the script is finished.  Yes, you do have to practice reading it aloud, but if you are familiar with the contents of the pages, your rehearsal may be relatively quick and easy.
4. Reading a script makes you appear to be prepared, intelligent, and maybe even academic.  After all, at many academic conferences, scholars are invited to read papers.  I am told such conferences are rarely riveting entertainment.

Negatives  about reading a script

1. You’re reading written prose, so you will sound formal and more distant.  We don’t speak in complete sentences, and the rhythm of formal prose is very different from the cadences of spontaneous speech.  Actors train for years to be able to make written scripts sound “real” or conversational.  Few people outside of the theater have this ability.  Reagan had it, but he was an actor.
2. Your ability to maintain eye contact with your listeners is limited.  This means it’s harder for you to convey a sense of conviction and belief.  As a result, you may try to manipulate your voice to indicate conviction, which may add to your problems of inauthenticity.
3. When you read a script, it is also difficult for you to read your audience.  After all, your eyes are on the page to ensure that you don’t flub your lines.  Therefore, if you lose your audience, or offend them in some way, it’s harder for you to make adjustments.  Making adjustments is the meat of being in dialogue with an audience.
4. With a script, the audience does not get to see you thinking on your feet, performing under pressure, and demonstrating your best qualities of leadership.
5. When you read a script, you will probably stand behind a lectern.  You are well-protected from the audience by the lectern itself, and by the wall of words that you plan to recite to them.
6. You therefore have difficulty creating a sense of intimacy with your audience, and audiences crave intimacy with speakers.  They want to know who you really are.  They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Positives of Internalizing a Message

1. Without a script, you are free to wander away from the lectern, move into the crowd, engage in dialogue with members of the audience, or perch on a chair or a table and be entirely informal.
2. You look more accessible as a person.  Your listeners are more attentive because you are actually speaking from the heart (or from memory.)  Or they are attentive because they expect the unexpected: they are not sure what you’re going to say next.  To them, you may appear to be improvising.
3. You can maintain eye contact constantly.  You can watch the faces of your listeners and respond to what you see.  You are not constrained by a text, and therefore your speech or presentation approximates dialogue.  Your presentation is more like an interactive lecture than a formal address, and we know from research that an interactive audience is more easily persuaded than an audience that is not asked to participate.
4. The audience sees you thinking on your feet, and therefore you display qualities of character that require courage and confidence.
5. Internalizing a message means that, while the words will change slightly every time you deliver the message, the core content will not.  In fact, you will find new and better ways to say what you mean if you give the talk multiple times.
6. The danger of going blank, or losing your train of thought, gives you an electrical charge that is gripping for the audience.  Your energy level is high high, which ignites the curiosity and attention of your listeners.

Negatives of Internalizing a Message

1. It is hard work–it takes time to rehearse aloud early and often so that your talk is planted in the gray fiber of your memory.
2. You run the risk of going blank, losing your place, and suffering the embarrassment of total melt down.  Nevertheless, if you rehearse enough, this will not happen to you.

Written scripts that are read can be electrifying, and presentations that are internalized can be deadly.  Preparation, sensitivity to the audience, and delivery will carry the day in almost all cases.

In business, in my experience, written scripts are a liability.  We expect our experts to be able to talk about their area of expertise without the aid of a text.

And business leaders, although they may not be experts in all aspects of the business, need to convey their leadership expertise by creating a bond with their listeners by getting away from a text, and into the ears and eyes –hearts and minds–of those they lead and seek to influence.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

Sophisticated presenters introduce the next PowerPoint slide before they leave the current one.  They do this to orient the audience to what is coming next.

For instance, they might say at the end of their budget slide, “So our marketing budget is 10% greater than last year, and the main reason for this is the new competition in the market.”  And then CLICK! They go to the “competition” slide.

But many of us have trouble remembering what PowerPoint slide is coming next.  We are, after all, busy people.  We often throw our slides together at the last minute.  We often don’t have much time to rehearse.  We may know the content, but we may not be able to remember the flow.

So what can we do?

One trick is to create a build on the next slide, so that when we get there, only the headline is showing.  Done this way, the sequence would look like this:

At the end of the budget slide, you’d say,  “So our budget is 10% greater than last year.”

Then CLICK! You jump to the next slide and glance at the headline, which states plainly, “There is new competition in the market,” which you recognize right away and then say, “And the main reason for the increase is the new competition in the market.”  And once you do, you CLICK! again, and the supporting data pops up on the screen.

In this way, you and your audience simultaneously discover the reason for the increase in marketing spend.  You do it together, which is a good thing.

Of course, it’s best to know what PowerPoint slide is coming next.  It allows you to create a tiny bit of drama with each new slide.  But if you don’t have time to rehearse, try the Headline as Build technique.

It can help you tell your story better.

When sound is shaped by the narrow chambers of a trumpet, it comes out stronger and clearer.

When speech is shaped by good presentation skills, your ideas and personality come out with more punch and impact.

When your presentation skills cause this impact to happen, you are perceived as more capable, more valuable, and more appealing.

And when you are perceived this way, (thanks to your presentation skills) you get listened to, you get promoted, and you get people believing in you.  You become a leader.

And then your presentation skills help you make more money, have more challenging work, meet more interesting people,  and live a richer life.

And all because you’ve learned that presentation skills are really about three big things.

First, presentation skills are about how you present yourself—your traits and talents.  If your communication skills include the ability to be calm and confident when you speak, to keep your head when others are losing theirs, then you are standing out in the crowd.

Second, your presentation skills are about how you organize your information so that it captures and holds the attention of your listeners.  What good is talking if people aren’t listening?  This means that your presentation skills should include the ability to figure out what your listeners are interested in, and then build your talk around those interests.

Basically, presentation skills can be described as, “Speaking to an audience, in the language of that audience, about what is most important to that audience.”

Third, and most obvious, your presentation skills require that you are an expert in your topic.  If you have great presentation skills but lack expertise in your field, you are all show, no substance.  Listeners like substance delivered with style, and that’s what great presentation skills are:  substance that is meaningful for your audience, delivered with style.

Presentation skills can lead to personal development, and professional advancement, and both those things are rewarding.

My call to action, to anyone who wants to develop themselves  and expand their opportunities in life and work, is, “Improve your presentation skills.”

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, leadership skills, presentation skills, voice training, speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, persuasive speaking, sales training, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

America’s favorite highway oasis, South of the Border, is an emporium just inside the northern border of South Carolina on Route 301/501.

For 200 miles in either direction, drivers are treated to billboards featuring Pedro in a serape and a hat the size of Texas.

But as a 10 year old, I liked the puns the best–the Marx Brothers’ word play:  “You never sausage a place. You’re always a weiner at Pedro’s.  South of the Border.  10 miles,” and there’s a giant hot dog hanging from the billboard.

Or my favorite, the one that made me laugh so long my father asked me to knock it off:  “Pedro’s weather report:  Chili today, hot tomale. South of the Border.  23 miles.”

It was Looney Tunes on the road, selling what was basically a gas station and roadside diner with old-fashioned borscht-belt humor.  No features and benefits.  Just an attitude of fun that made you want to stop and visit.

And stop we did.  We got gas and a new fan belt, except my Dad didn’t think there was anything wrong with his old fan belt.  He suspected the gas station attendant, when he opened the hood to check the oil,  had used a jack-knife hidden in his hand to nick the fan belt, so we were forced to buy a new one.

Who knows?  Anyway, it was fun.  My Dad had a skeptical streak.

Mr. Alan Schafer built the business from a 1949 root beer stand, and he built it with his goofy sense of humor.  He came up with all the ads.   They were corny, infantile, and effective because they promised a refuge of fun on the long drive to Florida and back.

I haven’t seen any ads like his since then, and I certainly haven’t seen any PowerPoint slides goofing around the boardrooms of America either.  Too bad.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

Not one, but two of my clients are in trouble because they each have a super-abundance of charm.

Accomplished, handsome raconteurs, they hold forth in meetings with panache, tossing off confetti clouds of words that flit, rise and fall on the warm winds supporting their sonorous voices.

Yet both of them fail to be clear and succinct, assuming, I suppose, that air time is more important than incisive thinking and plain expression.

Interesting, in these cases, that charm does not go hand in hand with brevity and good sense.  In fact, it may preclude a more disciplined approach to speaking because The Charmer wins approval, not by what he says, but by how he makes others feel.

In fact, all his life, The Charmer has learned to win friends and influence others not by the rigor of his thinking, but by his twinkling temperament.

And now My Two Charmers are in executive positions, and some around them detect intellectual laziness in their approach to discussions and presentations.  And certain gray-beards have asked The Charmers to beef up on substantive muscle and lose some of the glitter and panache.

It’s an interesting problem to have:  because of their personalities, they can be seen as all hat, no cattle—which is a Texan phrase denoting someone who talks a big game but can’t back it up.

In my experience, most people in executive positions are hard-wired the other way: all cattle, no hat.

And here we go again, the world is looking for a kind of hybrid executive, one whose quantitative skills can reduce uncertainty to a fixed, small number, and whose charm can pull Benjamins out of wallets and cause armies to march.

My two guys are working on the analytical stuff.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

I give the ClassAct Award for the best thank you speech at the Oscars to Christopher Plummer.

The man is 82 years young. No wincing in pain as he rose from his seat. No creaky knees up the steps to the stage, as waves of affection from the hall broke across his shoulders. We see Max von Sydow and Queen Meryl beaming in his direction. He takes the statue and coos to it, “You’re only two years older than me, my darling. Where have you been all my life?”

Such longing. Such humor. Such self-effacement. A “pretend” private moment in front of the known world (which is what actors do for a living.) He had us at the start.

But then he lands another self-mocking blow. He turns from his faux private moment and confesses his actor’s vanity. “When I first emerged from my mother’s womb, I was already rehearsing my Academy thank-you speech. But it was so long ago, mercifully for you I’ve forgotten it.”

So nice of him to be concerned about our experience of his moment in the sun. (Well, why not? He’s an actor, giving a performance.)

And then comes the tell-tale sign that he has not forgotten to prepare for this moment. He is a great artist, actor and writer, and he links ‘forgetting’ to the next important point.

“But I haven’t forgotten who to thank. The Academy, of course, for this extraordinary honor, and my fellow nominees: Kenneth, Nick, Jonah, dear Max. I’m so proud to be in your company.”

I believe this is called the hook-and-eye technique, something Abraham Lincoln was also skilled at. Highly effective for spoken communication, as it builds a bridge and continues a theme from one point to the next.

One more bit of self-mockery. He declared, “ I would share this award with [his co-star] if I had any decency, but I don’t.” Another laugh from the enchanted crowd.

How wonderful that he took the time to craft these simple and intuitive remarks, rehearse them, and include the names of his fellow nominees. How remarkable that he could remember them at the age of 82. And notice that the audience gave him a spontaneous burst of applause when he rattled off the names of his competitors. Graciousness, even when rehearsed, moves the souls of men.

He went on to thank those who made the movie. He expressed pride in his daughter, and then awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to his wife for, “coming to my rescue every day of my life.”

The camera focused on her. She is beautiful, and made an expression as if to say, “Oh, don’t be silly.”

Such art. Such humanity. Such British lack of ostentation. Humble in victory. Acknowledgement of others. He made us glad that he won.

Such is the power of a tiny little speech.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

One morning many years ago, when my wife and I were living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, I got up late and was rushing to get to work on time, but I could not find my watch.

Sharon suggested the strap might have broken the night before when I was scraping the dinner dishes. I ran down five flights of stairs to rummage through the garbage, and while I was upside down in the stink and gunk, I heard a guy say aloud, “Look at that idiot with his head in the garbage.”

I lifted my head, “Why don’t you leave me alone and be quiet,” I said. He said, “Why don’t you make me?”

I looked at him, realized I was in over my head, made a gesture of dismissal, as if to say “You’re an idiot,” and stuck my head back in the garbage can. He grabbed me by the neck, shoved me against the front of the building, and put a knife against my throat.

It occurred to me I was getting mugged.

I am writing this many years after the fact, and it now occurs to me that I have been intellectually and emotionally mugged by an audience several times in my life, and for reasons that are similar to those in the Brooklyn incident.

What are the reasons?

1. Not being in the zone of peak performance - I was in a rush, frustrated, and anxious because I’d lost my favorite watch and I was late to work. Not at my best.
2.  Shooting my mouth off  - Getting annoyed and saying something I could not back up is not the best way to win hearts and minds.
3. Not holding my ground - He challenged me and I showed weakness. I backed down—retreated. His street savvy knew in an instant he could dominate me.

According to police research, people get mugged the same ways that wildebeests get eaten by lions: they’re slower than the rest of the herd, and they appear to be weak or timid.

I told my mugger to get lost, he challenged me, and I showed that I was not willing to fight. I was easy prey.

As a speaker, I have made very similar mistakes. I have made some bold statement, been challenged by a member of the audience, and have hemmed and hawed, unable to back up my claim.

The mugging I got at the hands of my audience was silent, subtle, and cerebral, but believe me, it was a mugging.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

Jim Fyfe is a friend of mine and a very funny man. He has been an actor, a comedian and is now an educator.

In his younger days, he was asked to judge a contest for students of architecture who were assigned the task of designing a comedy club.

There were two phases to the contest. First, Jim was to look at the models by himself and rank them. Second, he would meet with the students and ask questions as though he were a client. Then he would deliberate and award the prize.

When he met the student whose model he’d ranked #1, Jim was disappointed in his attitude and what he had to say. The guy was sloppily dressed, unshaven, and too cool to care.  He held his hand over his mouth while he talked and showed no enthusiasm for his own work.

Jim changed his mind and awarded the prize to another model.

You could say, “Who cares what the student was like? His model was the best!”  That’s rational, but human decisions are not always rational. How you come across speaks loudly too.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.

I have a speaking assignment coming up and I want to do something new.  I have been working hard on strategy and messaging for my talks.  I have defined what I want my listeners to do as a result of my talk.  I have crafted a few simple messages to convince them that what I want them to do is important to them and possible, and then give them guidance on how to get it done.

But last night I had a dream about the presence of a speaker.  I dreamed about a speaker, faceless and nameless (although he might have been the Dalai Lama) who was radiant with optimism and confidence.  He was relaxed, cheerful, and engaging.  He lifted the aspirations of the people in the room, and gave them the feeling that change was possible, and that the change could (and should) start in them.

Yes, he had good things to say, but how he said them (or who he was) spoke as loudly as what he said.  There was something about his inner state that was infectious.  He was not exhausted, overly serious, or intense and theatrical.  He was joyful and in the moment.

This speaker I dreamed of is going to be the new me.  I have labored on the rock pile of running my own business for a long time.  I have pounded out cold calls, the warm leads, and the hot opportunities.  I have mastered the techniques, understood the industries, blogged, lectured and coached to the point of burn out.  I just want to show up and be glad.

I have substance, but do I have presence?

Big question for all of us who aspire to lead, influence, and move the mountain of the market in the direction we want.

Sims Wyeth & Co. provides public speaking courses, executive speech coaching, presentation skills training, voice and speech training, speech writing, and courses that address stage fright, body language, presentation strategy, and effective use of PowerPoint, all of which contribute to greater executive presence and personal impact.