Does your voice support your brand presence?

A plea for intelligent vocal branding

It flashes on my screen, a new e-mail has arrived. Since I don't know the sender, I skim the subject line and take a quick look at the first paragraph. "Easier to gain promising business contacts on LinkedIn," it says. Interesting, I think – and curiously click the link.

At first glance, the website looks clear and professional, decently designed. The portrait photos of the man who promises me in the headline to improve my income with his course are well chosen – the first impression fits.

I click on the play button of the video – and now comes the disillusionment. What looked so promising at first glance is already atomized during the first spoken sentence. My ear is out of tune – with a short click on the left mouse button, the video is over.

Surviving in the daily flood of signs

Our brain protects us. It works its way from the coarse to the fine. It makes decisions for us at incredible speed. Therefore, the first Signals so important – and except on the phone, the eye gives us the proverbial first impression. And it immediately puts massive filters in our perception. In psychology, we speak of the primacy or halo effect, the overshining and filtering of subsequent impressions that lasts up to ten minutes. Anyone who, like me, has ever wondered how you can go into a high-level meeting with only a bright red Mickey Mouse tie and then been distracted by the topic for minutes, knows what I'm talking about.

However, as we all know, the external appearance can be "well designed" to a certain extent. Clothes, glasses, hairstyle, iPad case ... already man and woman of the world appear. "Personality according to catalogue"? In a conversation about developing a personal brand, style expert Elisabeth Motsch urgently warns against the illusion of being able to design clothes and accessories against the core of personality. Here, too, it is important to avoid dissonances as much as possible, to adapt shapes and colors, texture and other visible signs sensitively to the individual.

 

Our ear is relentless

The fact that it is especially important in the profession to shape the visible appearance is probably no longer questioned today. But if, according to a Karmasin study, only 7% of those surveyed Leaders with their voice and way of speaking, this shows the low awareness of "vocal branding" in the business.

Terms that are already quite common in marketing, such as "audio branding" or "corporate sound", have so far been limited to the sound design of slamming car doors, the really crisp sound when biting into the biscuit in TV commercials or advertising jingles and audio logos. As if the tonality of the same company's communication were secondary.

How does the managing director sound in the radio interview? How does the back office talk to the salesperson? How in the video tutorials the developer explains the software? These highly effective unconscious signs are far too rarely used intentionally.

What the voice reveals about the "brand me"

So let's first take a closer look at what competitive brand attributes can be seen from the voice and the way of speaking of a person can be read out!

Just like when looking at a brand logo, we first capture the rough information from the voice:

• Doesn't that sound like Swabian? Does the pronunciation sound like Hamburg, Vienna, Munich or Innsbruck? This means that the regional origin is quickly assigned.
• Well-groomed language or shirt-sleeved speech? Broad dialect or High German? Not only where we have grown up is audible. Also in which social and societal environment we are talking about is grasped at lightning speed.

Innovative or persistent?

But what the voice reveals about the "brand I" has a completely different dimension. Because where we grew up, we cannot be held responsible for that. Nor could we choose which milieu we were born into. However, whether and to what extent we have decided in the course of our lives to develop ourselves further and to empancipate ourselves is clearly expressed by our voice.

• Our voice lets us hear where we grew up – but also whether we stopped there. And have independently and curiously sought new ways into the world
• Our voice allows us to hear the environment we were born into – but also whether we have emancipated ourselves from our origins according to our own will. And thus we have developed autonomously at our own discretion and independently of social norms.

The audible inner readiness for personal development is one of the particularly effective brand attributes of the human voice. After all, who wants to work with a person who always insists on the existing and closes himself off to fundamentally new things?

Does this voice arouse brand sympathy?

Give it a try and check the voices on your next phone calls the three most important sympathy factors:

• I recognize this voice spontaneously again on the second call – and is that comfortable for me?
• I feel Similarities ? Perceived parallels create a strong attraction.
• That's how I want to speak or sound! Pleasant features (particularly full-sounding, special timbre, etc.) are unconsciously referred to as exemplary perceived.

Does the language correspond to the offer, appearance and values?

Suppose you read about an interesting product and then shortly afterwards you see a well-made commercial on TV that reinforces your good first impression even more. Curious, you pick up the phone to ask if the item is really in stock – and after ringing the bell for a long time, you hear an uninspired voice that reluctantly gives you information.

Whether on the phone, on the answering machine, whether in a video message or in an appraisal interview, the voice either expressively fulfills the brand promise – or the brand is damaged.

What should you do to support your brand presence vocally?

Check the most important touchpoints where voice is particularly meaningful to internal and external customers.

For the time being, define precisely which sound characteristics you assign to your brand:

• Sluggish or alive and full of energy ?
• Thoughtfully or inciting ?
• Objectively cool or full of human warmth ?
• Playful and imaginative or clear and structured?
• Sparkling and refreshing or round , full and aromatic?
• Shrill, garish and colorful or rather conservative and sedate ?

What vocal impression do you want to create in the many moments of the first impression?

• by the Report on Telephone
• when opening a Meetings
• in the first sentences of your Presentation
• with the first words of your Videos
• with your telephone Mailbox

Which of your brand values should the voices represent in important moments of internal company communication?

• By the Delegate of tasks?
• In Criticism discussion ?
• At Meetings in the company?

The voice in personal branding – the underestimated element

It was the Roman speech trainer Quintilian (30-96 AD) who recognized "He who insults the ear does not penetrate to the soul!" A good argument for shaping not only the visible but also the audible appearance. Voice works. Make sure that the unconscious signals of your voice reinforce the well-considered effect of your tasteful corporate design, your outfit and the clever choice of your words and do not - as is so often the case - abruptly nullify them.

Read also:

• How to create your vocal brand profile
• Harmoniously positioned! (Book tip)
• The sound also makes the music in the video call

If you've read this far:

What do you think now? Where do you see your most important starting points for sharpening your vocal brand? If I was able to give an impetus with this article to appear even more precisely in line with your brand values at your next vocal "touchpoints", I would be particularly pleased!

Let me know in the comments: What tips do you think are particularly useful? Which vocal expressive qualities are particularly in line with your brand values? I look forward to your thoughts!

"Be unique! Don't sound like everyone else!"

Yours, Arno Fischbacher

 

 

 

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The author:

Arno Fischbacher is a business voice coach and rhetoric expert, speaker and author. He prepares executives and employees of the top companies in Germany and Austria for negotiations, presentations and media appearances. Fischbacher is the author of several books, past president of the German Speakers Association (GSA) Austria, chairman of the European Network of Voice Experts, stimme.at.

If you would like to learn more about specific training opportunities with Arno Fischbacher, make an appointment here free information talk.

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