***If You Are Soft-Spoken, We Can't Hear You!

You know others ask you to repeat yourself (a lot) and you know that you lose control of the conversation when people talk over you. You know you have great ideas but those ideas are not being heard because you are often interrupted. You know you are frustrated when you hear, “What did you say?” Being soft-spoken is not a quality that is highly regarded in the business world today. Business is moving faster than ever and if you expect to be taken seriously, you must be heard the 1st time you say it or business will pass you by. It is also possible that you are not comfortable addressing this issue because you wrongly believe that if you increase your volume, you will be shouting. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is very important to recognize that if you are soft-spoken, more than likely you have been speaking at a .8 volume level when everyone else is at a 1.00 or Volume Level 1 as I refer to it. Now you may think that a .8 or is no big deal but it is. Think of it this way: at .8, you are using 20% less volume than the majority of the population. And that is not normal. Another way to look at this picture is to imagine the volume control on your remote. Let’s say that you are watching a movie and you have the volume set to hear the conversation comfortably. Maybe the levels on the remote are at 50% of output. Were you to drop the volume down to 40%, there would be a noticeable difference in the volume output which means that you would not be able to hear much of what was being said. And, if there is other noise in the background, you probably would not be able to understand anything that was being said. Everyone has the ability to speak at a Volume Level 1 naturally. What is not natural is that you have pulled back your volume. Perhaps you were raised in a quiet household and you are imitating your parents. Maybe you were raised in a loud household, were uncomfortable with the volume level of your family, and spoke softly so as not to sound like your loud siblings or parents. Whatever the reason for your lack of volume, if you want others to listen to your words, then they must be able to hear you. No, I don’t want your volume to be ‘loud’ – just normal. If you are tired of the words, “We can’t hear you,” then it is time to make the change.