Why The Way You Sound Communicates The Authenticity Of Your Brand Personality

Did you know you can become a more influential speaker simply by improving the way that you sound when you speak?

I recently spoke with personal branding expert Kitty Lai about how the way you sound communicates the authenticity of your brand. 

Personal branding is all about how to get people to know, like, and trust you in a way that is honest and authentic to who you are and what you represent. And the way that you sound will either attract people to you or repel them away from you.

So training your voice to sound better will help you to magnify the impact of your personal brand and become a more influential speaker.

You communicate the authenticity of your brand more effectively by training your voice to better represent your personality and the value of what you have to say.

Here's a bit of our conversation about the way that you sound and how that communicates the authenticity of your brand.

Kitty: I'm really interested in vocal training. Why is that important, because I hear
you talk about it a lot. What is it and how is it important to us? Especially to the members in the group. We're all entrepreneurs solopreneurs and business professionals. How can that help us?

Joshua: Well vocal training, people think of it as singing. First of all, what I do is not teaching people to sing, there are better people for that. I like to sing but I'm not a
professional singer, I'm a professional speaker.

The reason that it's important to train your voice is the same reason it's important to train your body. We go to a gym to build our physique and our musculature because it responds to exercise. Well your voice is part of your body. Your voice is a muscle. You've got four muscles raising your vocal cords or four lowering them, depending on what you're doing when you speak. For instance, yawning or swallowing causes your vocal cords to expand and contract and move in different ways, so when you learn to improve your your breath support, your the aspects of your physiology that impact your tone of voice, you become a more influential and effective communicator.

That's that's really what I talk about, because well, as a jumping off point, communication is not about content. I know online people are fond of saying "content is king". To a point. But if the delivery style that you use to communicate that content repels people rather than attracts them, or bores them, then they won't stick around long enough to hear the meaning of your message.

7 percent of communication is the words that you use. The other 93 is body language and tone of voice. And body language actually influences and, when done properly, can support and magnify your tone of voice. So what i talk about is how to increase the impact of your style, in terms of how you deliver what it is that you know.

Kitty: Amazing. I mean hopefully my first 10 seconds on this show didn't repel everyone to switch off.

Joshua: Not at all. What I hear from your voice for instance Kitty, I hear a lot of warmth. I hear a lot of enthusiasm  - and one definition of salesmanship is the transference of enthusiasm. You have a sort of an ease about you, an easy smile, a laugh in your
voice. If i had the camera turned off, if this were a podcast for instance,  all of that would come through.

We're we're all energy. Not to get too metaphysical, but we are all walking, talking energy fields, so how you resonate, resonate is a sonic term a sound term but it's also
a way of describing the feeling that we emit, and the way that people respond to us. What feelings do you evoke in other people when you speak? The feelings that you evoke, at least with me Kitty, are fun light and easily approachable, and that's a big part of it because it's a platitude but... we do business with those we know like and trust. And your sound is already very likable, so that's a good key component right there.

Kitty: Thank you that's really great. So I just think obviously with this group
it's all about growing personal brand, so i'm interested in how you communicate your personality. I mean is that what you've already just spoke about or how can people express themselves more and bring out that in their tone of voice?

Joshua: I'm in the arts. I'm coming from a background in the arts, as opposed to a background in business. And in the arts we talk about the pursuit of truth and beauty.
So that's my aesthetic, in that I think honesty is at the core of what's important when you communicate. If you strip away all the veneers, all of the masks of the ways in which we represent our personas to other people, and we get down to who we are
fundamentally and how it is that we're going to connect on a deep level with other
people, what we get down to is honesty and integrity and I think those are the most
important qualities in a speaker.

So why don't people tend to approach communication and speaking that way? Because we take a risk when we do that. We take a risk that perhaps we'll be judged or perhaps we'll seem silly or will be exposed for not knowing everything. Being an expert doesn't mean that you know everything. It's better to have a beginner's mind honestly. Suzuki talked about that. That the the trap with expertise is that you become like a sponge which can be filled, rather than maintaining a beginner's mind which allows you to
take in and assimilate and incorporate new concepts, information, and perspectives.

Honesty, that is the most important quality I believe because we have a deficit of trust in our society right now and as human beings when we hear authenticity and vulnerability and transparency it cuts through, it resonates and we
connect with that, so i think it's worth the risk.

Kitty: Absolutely brilliant.

Contact Joshua Seth at https://linktr.ee/joshuaseth
Contact Kitty Lai at https://linktr.ee/mebrandconsulting

Find Out About Joshua's Online Voice Training Course