Is Your Voice Helping or Hurting Your MLM Business?
copyright, 2014, Debbi A. Ballard All rights reserved worldwide.
Your voice is probably something you don’t think about in terms of its importance in growing your business. But you should ask yourself if your voice is helping or hurting your mlm business.
Here’s why.
Marlena Reigh is a voice image specialist. What the heck? You never heard of a voice image specialist? Don’t worry. I hadn’t either before I came across her video on YouTube.
As I mentioned in my previous post on why Network Marketing Reigns Supreme for Personal Connections, I knew the importance of tonalities in your voice when it came to making effective presentations. It was great to find out that there are those professionals dedicated to coaching others on maximizing the power of their voices. Here’s some of Marlena’s tips.
Your Voice Elicits an Immediate Physical Reaction
As Marlena shares in her video, when making a presentation you have but a few seconds whereby your voice can help make a positive impression or a negative one. The sound and nuances of your voice can enhance your credibility or diminish it.
An unpleasant sounding voice, as she demonstrates, can turn off your prospect immediately whereby the person doesn’t even want to continue listening. Each prospect will have a physical reaction to your voice and that reaction will play a role in the overall power and effectiveness of your presentation.
Emotional Factors are Reflected in Your Voice
In addition there are the emotional factors present in your voice. As you speak, does your voice exhibit genuine joy and enthusiasm or a lack thereof? The words used could have been the same when presentations were made to two different people. However because you were in two different emotional states when you made those presentations, you received two completely different reactions from your prospects. One bought products and the other quickly declined. One joined your sales downline organization, the other had no interest.
Your Mental and Physical States are Also Reflected
Of course your voice also reflects your mental state and physical state. If your mind is distracted a particular day that can affect both states and be reflected in your voice. So that important meeting you finally have scheduled with that great prospect could be a waste of time if you can’t recognize and control the distraction.
Your Personality Comes Through in Your Voice
And what about personality? Each one of us has a personality type that is reflected in our respective voices. I personally know very successful networkers who each have very different personality types reflected in their voices. So regardless whether a person was outgoing or a bit more reserved, if credibility was exhibited in the nuances of his/her voice combined with the right words and body language, those three factors all contributed to powerful presentations.
Research and Controversy on the Power of the Voice
It’s important to note here that there is quite a controversy surrounding research involving the impact of the voice as provided by Albert Mehrabian. Some feel his research findings have been inaccurately portrayed by many voice coaches, other researchers, etc. Disputes online are present by people respected on both sides of the issue. Mehrabian himself has said that there have been misstatements.
Check the following sources to explore this topic further:
50 Tips for Better Voice Quality and Habits
(Just don’t get bogged down trying to think you have to utilize every tip.)
Mehrabian and Nonverbal Communication
So my question “Is your voice helping or hurting your mlm business?” is one that you need to answer. Listen carefully to recordings of your sales presentations, ask others for honest feedback, and then use some of the tips provided in the resource cited above to evaluate how you can improve.
Debbi A. Ballard introduced the world’s first comprehensive marketing and management consulting services for start-ups and established multinational firms in the mlm network marketing industry. A consultant, speaker, author and expert witness, she is considered a trusted authority in that industry.
About the Author: MLM Consultant, Expert Witness, Author, Blogger, Speaker and CEO of International Network Liaison Corporation...but more importantly, wife, mother, daughter, aunt, cousin and friend.
