Question

Don’t I need to speak in a deeper or more authoritative voice to
sound serious and credible?
No, chances are you don’t need a deeper voice or a different voice than your natural
speaking voice.
Most people hate the sound of their own voice. If you record your presentation
rehearsal and then watch or listen to it, chances are you won’t like yours either. As you may
know, how you hear your own voice is not how you actually sound. We hear our own voices
distorted through the bones in our skulls from both inside and outside. But when you listen
to a recording of your voice, you’re hearing the non-distorted version—what everyone else
hears when you speak. Your voice sounds very different to you, though, and this is
disorienting. This may lead you to the conclusion that you have a strange voice and so
should try to change it when you are presenting.
Not so fast!
Chances are your voice is fine; it’s just different from what you are used to. Different
isn’t bad; it’s just different. In theory, it is possible to have a voice so awful, shrill, and
annoying that it seriously detracts from the communication process. But in twenty-five years
of training and working with tens of thousands of people around the globe, I have never
encountered anyone whose voice was that bad. In fact, I have rarely worked with anyone
whose voice is even as bad as Barbara Walters’s voice—and she makes tens of millions of
dollars a year with her voice!
Learn to love the sound of your own voice. If you do, others will follow.
The solution for most people is to simply get used to their voice by hearing it more.
Often, women and men feel they need to speak in a lower, deeper voice because they believe
this will make them more authoritative and believable. This is very dangerous. Most
audiences are very good at detecting someone who is acting phony or trying to put on airs. If
you try to sound like you have a rich, full, deep voice and you don’t, you’ll end up a joke—so
don’t try it.
If you sound too monotone (the most common problem that most people associate
with their voices), you can easily correct this. Pretend you are talking to five friends at a
noisy restaurant. Imagine a crowded bar and waiters in the corner singing happy birthday. If
you were telling a story to friends, you would speaker louder than normal, with more energy,
and with greater variation. That’s how you should speak when giving a presentation.
I have read various clinical researchers who purport to have proof that audiences
respond better to deeper voices—I don’t buy it. Look at the most successful news anchors
and talk show hosts. They don’t all sound the same, but they tend to have very full ranges.
They hit highs and lows without fear of sounding less authoritative.
There are voice coaches out there who can help anyone improve the quality of his or
her voice. If you really feel you need help in this area, you could try to find one. But I don’t
think this is a useful or productive way for most presenters to spend their limited training
time. Instead, I would urge you to use your time creating interesting ideas, messages, and
stories for your audience and then rehearsing in front of a video camera. This will score you
more points than sounding like the guy who does the voiceover for the lottery commercials.
Very few people have voices that are so great that we could make a living as
professional voiceover artists. But that’s okay, since you probably don’t want to be a
voiceover artist. But I’m sure that you can use your voice effectively when presenting, as
long as you can be heard and understood.
What kind of voice should you use when speaking? answer this using what I provided in 3 sentences

Answer 1

You should use your natural speaking voice when presenting, as trying to adopt a deeper or more authoritative tone can come off as inauthentic. Focus on varying your pitch and energy to engage your audience, much like you would when telling a story to friends in a noisy environment. Ultimately, the effectiveness of your presentation lies in the content and how well you communicate it, rather than in altering the inherent qualities of your voice.