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Using Voice and Gestures in Your Sales Presentations to Influence

Mon, 14 May 2012 02:16:13 -0500

When you deliver a sales presentation, both your tone of voice and your gestures convey meaning to your prospective client beyond the words you choose. Subtle or dramatic, your vocal intonation and body language can significantly change the basic meaning of your words and impact your ability to be heard, to be trusted, and to make a positive impression.

Consider how your voice tone can change the following simple phrase: "You are buying this for me." Delivered with an angry voice as an order, it becomes a demand. If posed as a genuine question, it conveys surprise at someone's kindness. If asked with sarcasm, the same phrase sounds like a putdown. You need to be sure that your tone of voice and your gestures match the message you intend for your audience.

Here are ways different characteristics of vocal delivery can affect your message during a sales presentation If these aspects are not covered in your current sales presentation training, it may be worth taking a look.

1. Volume
You can highlight key points in your sales presentation by either raising or lowering your voice volume. Speak louder and your audience listens more carefully. If you whisper, this can also increase their attention. Experiment with changing your voice volume to observe audience reaction.

2. Pace
Especially when nervous, you are apt to speak too fast. Concentrate on slowing your pace. As you do, you gain a voice of authority as well as speak with more clarity. Use a pause to help you shift tempo from fast to slow.

3. Pitch
If you raise the pitch of your voice at the end of a sentence, it becomes a question. Conversely, if you lower your pitch, it can lend weight to the final words in a phrase.

4. Intensity
In conversation, your voice is typically at a normal range of intensity. If you raise the level by expressing more passion and more energy, you highlight the message. Use vocal intensity to let the audience know how you feel about a topic—excited, angry, concerned, and delighted. Emotional affect is appropriate even in business sales presentations as long as your vocal expression aligns with the topic. Exciting innovations should be presented not in a monotone but in a voice that conveys your excitement.

To experiment with different vocal characteristics, practice telling personal stories. They are perfect opportunities to try a range of vocal dynamics before the stakes are high in an important sales presentation. First outline the main points of the story and underline the words that need vocal emphasis. By mapping and stressing the key points, you can maximize the story's impact.

In what would seem a total contradiction, another way to gain the attention of your audience is to pause and stop using your voice altogether. Silence can be one of the most powerful ways to recapture and heighten an audience's attention. Maintain the silence and watch heads turn your way. While it is difficult to just stand there quietly, the silent technique builds tension in your audience and increases the impact of the comments you make just before or after the silence.

Appropriately used gestures and vocal techniques can be effective to:

Pull an audience back to attention
Express your personality and communicate your message in an authentic way
Clarify how you feel about the subject
Reinforce your message
Reach a large audience
Add excitement

Practice and then use them thoughtfully and often.

Personal Development Tips That Are Easy To Do

Sun, 13 May 2012 23:09:18 -0500

Where are you going in your life? Do you have any idea where you are and where you are headed? These are crucial questions and can only be answered by looking at your own personal development. This article will provide many pieces of advice on how to be your best.

A large majority of the stress that we feel in our bodies is extra adrenaline pumping through our bodies. A great way to eliminate that extra flow of adrenaline is by getting exercise. If you feel as if you are over stressed, take a nice quiet walk and when you return home you will feel much better.

Figure out the purpose of each activity you participate in and stop going through the motions of completing useless tasks. Understand why you are doing something and also decide what the end purpose is for that activity. If you can not clearly identify the reason for your actions, it's probably not worth doing.

The best way you can help yourself is to spend more time relaxing. Many times, people get depression or anxiety because they are overwhelmed. By taking even one hour out of your day to just relax, read a book or watch TV, your mind is more stable to handle important matters.

Spend some time learning about what you really enjoy doing. You can then incorporate this into your personal development. Once you know what you enjoy and have fun with, you can use this to look at personal development not as such a daunting task, but one that will allow you to have a little more fun in your life.

Try your best to be someone you can respect. Never do anything you know you are going to hate yourself for doing. Really think about your actions. Think about what sort of impact they will have on you and your life before you carry through with them. Strive to accomplish things that will leave you proud of yourself.

You can help yourself battle depression by making sure your diet is filled with enough complex carbohydrates. Studies show by not getting enough complex carbohydrates, you may lose serotonin which can cause depression. Make sure your diet is filled with fruits, vegetables and foods made with soy to avoid this.

Keep your goal in view. Taking steps to make a life change is a lot of hard work and quite often can feel uncomfortable since it is taking you out of your comfort zone. By focusing on the goal, it will allow you to see your future and keep you motivated to work toward that goal.

Sometimes getting help is something beyond ourselves. In cases like this it would behoove you to visit a licensed healthcare professional, like a psychologist. Through years of expereince they have learned to help people just like yourself cope with difficult situations. Do not think you can solve it all on your own, see a psychologist.

If you are looking for self-help tips to help out with your depression, consider taking a long walk with a friend or family member. It is great to share your thoughts and feelings with someone, and studies have shown that exercise is a great way to help fight depression.

If you are feeling kind of down and out, try to add protein to your diet. It is a great self help tip that will increase your level of alertness without having to turn to any kind of medications. Include these fatty acids for a natural defense against not being alert when you need to be.

Keeping a journal can be a key routine for personal development and can give you insights into your true thoughts and feelings. If you have ever felt that you don't know what you want out of life, keeping a journal can be the answer to discovering what it is that you really need to be a better you.

When it comes to personal development the best tip one can give is patience, patience, patience. Do not expect to change yourself or the world over night. Take it in baby steps, day by day, and the next thing you know, you will be a changed, happier person due to your patience. Expecting so much so quickly will just cause you to give up.

Knowing where you should improve is valuable information to obtain. Many times you may see that your attitude needs adjusting or your values may be shifting. The key here is to recognize whether or not these are based on a lack of fundamental principles within. Get to the deeper roots of your development and assess the needs you may have at your core.

Things that may limit your personal development primarily stem from a negative state of mind. This inhibits your ability to become more and attain more as a human in regards to your career, finances, and your emotional and physical states. If you limit your beliefs and disregard all of the positive qualities about yourself, you will not be able to move forward with your development.

Helping yourself ensures that you want to change your life for the better and that you want to accomplish your goals. By learning what steps you need to take to get that life you want, you'll be able to get there sooner. So, do yourself a favor and apply the above tips to your self-help plan.

You Matter: Personal Development Tips And Tricks

Sun, 13 May 2012 02:18:18 -0500

Personal development is a topic often broached in times of hardship. What can I do to make myself better? How can I go about doing it? Well you have come to the right place! This article will give you the tips and pointers you need to begin your journey of personal development.

Traditionally, religion and philosophy were seen as paths to personal development. They were keys to finding the meaning of life, to growing beyond a local or narrow understanding, to broadening our mind to embrace the cosmos. Though personal development is often seen today in terms of social enhancement and tangible benefits, the traditional paths are still as fruitful as ever.

Believe it or not, a great tip for personal development is to study physics. Try and understand how the world works and what laws govern them. This will not clash with your beliefs that you have. Rather, it is a great exercise to see how your beliefs reflect what physics has proven.

Try drinking more water on a daily basis. Water is not only essential to your overall health, but it works wonders for your mind too. It cleans out the toxins in your body and can also help clear your mind to help you stay awake. Staying hydrated is essential to a better body and mind.

One great tip with regards to personal development is to make a plan and stick to it. Creating a plan to achieve a goal is great, but it is only half the battle. Understand that setting up goals and making plans is easy, executing them is the hard part.

Picture yourself succeeding. It's no secret that the key to success is being able to visualize yourself achieving your goals. By allowing yourself a taste of what success will feel like, you are recharging your motivation and giving yourself the drive to continue on towards reaching whatever goal you set out for.

A great way to successfully improve your life is to get the support of people close to you. Any problems you may come across are always going to be harder if you try and deal with it yourself. Rather, install a support system in your life that will motivate you.

If things get to a place where you cannot handle them, seek help from someone like a therapist. They can help you to cope with your issues by talking them out and coming up with some solutions. It can do you a lot of good to talk to somebody who is not directly involved in your life; it can provide you with a clear perspective.

Perform a few selfless acts. Do something for someone else. They don't have to be less fortunate than you. You don't even have to like them very much. Doing something selfless for someone else is just a good thing to do. It will help another and make you feel better about yourself.

Assigning blame is, in the vast majority of cases, a waste of time. Part of a successful personal development regimen is learning this fact and giving up the blame game. Focusing on overcoming new problems is more productive and more mature, than trying to find out who is to blame.

Improve your perspective in life by not making a mountain out of a mole hill. When you stress over every little thing that does not work out, you cause yourself undue tension. If you can put your problem into perspective in the larger scheme of your life, you can have a clearer head in tackling your problem.

Get enough sleep. Sleep is not a luxury it's a crucial part of being a human. Lack of sleep can make you feel anxious, more likely to be unable to lose weight, and plain old grumpy to everyone you interact with. Try getting a full 6-8 hours each night and see how much better you feel.

When it comes to personal development make sure that you stand up for what you believe in but that you do not inflict harm on yourself or others in the process. It is important to not be too dominant or powerful because you cannot lead if others are afraid of you.

Seize leadership opportunities as they arise. Throughout your lifetime, you will undoubtedly have opportunities to lead in organizations and your career. Take a risk and seize these opportunities because it will lead to you being a more well-rounded individual with enhanced leadership skills. You will also become a better team player.

A personal development routine that is well-underway can benefit from additional learning just as much as one that is just beginning. In the same way that good personal development is a continuous process of improvement, a good routine can always be refined and made even better. Tips like the ones presented here can help with that refining process.