Roger Love is the number one vocal coach in America, having worked with the likes of John Mayer, Bradley Cooper, Reese Witherspoon, the cast of Glee, and many other Oscar and Grammy award winners.
In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Roger explains the power of using our voice as a tool to influence and demand authority.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- RogerLove.com
- Book: Set Your Voice Free: How to Get the Singing or Speaking Voice You Want
- @RogerLove1
- ThePerfectVoice.com
Transcript
Will Barron:
Coming up on today’s episode of the Salesman Podcast.
Roger Love:
So most of the time, the person that was maybe born with a voice doesn’t even do anything with it. They just take it for granted and get immediately overpassed by someone who works at their voice to overcome the shortcomings and learns what it’s possible. What the voice can really do, and they become more successful.
Will Barron:
Hello, sales nation, and Will Barron host of the Salesman Podcast. The world’s most listened to, B2B sales show. If you haven’t already make sure to click subscribe and with that, let’s meet today’s guest.
Roger Love:
My name is Roger Love. I’m a voice coach. I help people figure out what sounds should come out of their mouths so that they can be more successful in their business and personal lives, and if you want more information about me or to reach out to us, you can go to rogerlove.com.
Will Barron:
On this episode of the show with the complete legend that is Roger we’re diving into our voices. How we can use our voice to become more charismatic, to become more authoritative, to have more influence in a sales or business conversation. And of course, this translates elsewhere as well. This is one of the best shows we’ve ever done on this topic. I’m really grateful to have Roger come on and share his wisdom with us. And so with that, let’s jump right into it.
How People Who Speak with Confidence Master the Art of Vocal Influence · [01:20]
Will Barron:
To set up the conversation, because we want to talk about how we can speak in the world of business and sales with more confidence and perhaps more charisma as well. Clearly a leading question here, because it’ll be a short interview otherwise, but for the people who have this down, that we’re perhaps observing and looking up to an admiring who speak with confidence and charisma is this learned skill that they’ve acquired over time, or is this something is in their genetics and something that they were born with?
Roger Love:
Great question. I get that question, asked a lot with regard to singing and speaking people who think you’re born with an amazing singing voice and it’s not true. People who think you’re born with an amazing speaking voice and it’s not true. Yes. Mother nature gives us some things to start with. So when some little kids open up their mouths to speak, they might be a little louder or one might be a little bit more nasal all based on the size of your nose, the size of your sinus, the size of your mouth. So many physical things that you were born with, but the truth is over the years, and I’ve been doing this for X number of decades.
“If you take someone that is born with what we say, oh, that’s a nice voice and someone that was really born with nothing and they both work towards achieving something. It is about what you learn and what you overcome. So most of the time, the person that was maybe born with a voice doesn’t even do anything with it. They just take it for granted and get immediately overpassed by someone who works at their voice to overcome the shortcomings and learns what is possible, what the voice can really do, and they become more successful.” – Roger Love · [02:24]
Roger Love:
If you take someone that is born with what we say, oh, that’s a nice voice and someone that was really born with nothing and they both work towards achieving something. It is about what you learn and it is about what you overcome. So most of the time, the person that was maybe born with a voice doesn’t even do anything with it. They just take it for granted and get immediately overpassed by someone who works at their voice to overcome the shortcomings and learns what it’s possible, what the voice can really do, and they become more successful.
Mastering the Art of Vocal Influence Starts with Overcoming Personal Beliefs · [03:01]
Will Barron:
So how much of this then comes down to our… Even at perhaps at a young age, our beliefs about our voice and our singing ability. And I’ll give an example of, hopefully the audience can understand what I’m saying as I’m talking on the show and you only have to look back to the first 100 or 200 episodes and hopefully you can see improvements since then. With that said, I cannot sing. I’m a terrible singer. I play drums for a reason. There’re no keys or rhythm or rhyme along with that. So I clearly have this mindset block of I can’t sing is. So what’s the first thing we need to overcome. Is it the belief that we are a good speaker, a charismatic speaker, whatever it is that we want to or is it’s the physical elements of speaking?
Roger Love:
The first thing we need to realise is that we are not the voice today, that we were born with. We actually were born with an instrument and the way we learned to speak is we started imitating people. So we wanted to connect with our parents. We wanted hugging. We wanted a food, we wanted sustenance, we wanted to survive. So if mom spoke with a really airy light voice, we ended up growing up and speaking with an airy voice because we liked being fed and hugged and if dad spoke with a really nasal voice, we ended up speaking to him with a nasal voice because we wanted to be carried everywhere. So what happens is suddenly we’re adults and we are the imitation of the voices we were listening to when we grew up and we’ve never really thought of the voice as an instrument. So I absolutely love it when adults come to me and they think that’s the voice that they’re supposed to have, and we start again from scratch and we create a voice that’s filled with sounds that makes everyone who hears them sense confidence and strength and knowledge and humour and love.
Perception Versus Personal Beliefs on How we Can Use Our Voice to Influence Others · [05:00]
Will Barron:
So how much of this then is, and we’ll get into the practical elements of this in a second because clearly that’s the crux of the conversation, but how much of this is perceived versus how am I going to… How much of this is genetically in us, in that perhaps a deeper voice leads to or assuming that someone is more of an alpha in this scenario, that they’re a leader. Things of that nature and how much of it is learned in that, for example, I’m from Liverpool a scouse accent here. I don’t know if this translates across the world, but it’s a bit more of a how to describe it without offending all my family. It’s a bit more of a common accent, versus the Queens English. So people might make assumptions. People might have stereotypes of that versus individuals who have a Queens’ English accent or a London accent or things nature. So how much of this is wired into us and how much of it is perception?
“We have to realise that whether we like it or not, we only have seconds before people start making value judgements about us. They hear the sounds that we make without knowing us and they decide, oh, this person maybe is this old and this person maybe went to this amount of college or didn’t go to college at all. Or they’re from this place in England, or they’re from this place in some place else in the world. So they ask themselves questions about you because they want to start having a relationship.” – Roger Love · [05:50]
Roger Love:
Well, first of all, we have to realise that whether we like it or not, we only have seconds before people start making value judgements about us. They hear the sounds that we make without knowing us. And they decide, oh, this person maybe is this old and this person maybe went to this amount of college or didn’t go to college at all. Or they’re from this place in England, or they’re from this place in some place else in the world. So they ask themselves questions about you because they want to start having a relationship and then they start answering their own questions. Well, he is probably this old, well, he probably grew up in Liverpool. Oh, he probably has this much money in the bank.
“Science says that we’ve got about three seconds to make a good impression before they ask the wrong questions to themselves, then it’s really important to just learn certain sounds that anyone can make that takes over those few seconds and makes people perceive you the way you want to be perceived.” – Roger Love · [06:27]
Roger Love:
So if people are going to do that in its human nature, and science says that we’ve got about three seconds to make a good impression before they ask the wrong questions to themselves, then it’s really important to just learn certain sounds that anyone can make that takes over those few seconds and makes people perceive you the way you want to be perceived.
How Can We Know if We’re Good at Using Our Voice to Drive Perception and Desire? · [06:53]
Will Barron:
What is the starting point for this then? Do we need to understand and learn how the instrument is played and how it works? Or are we speaking in front of a mirror? Are we recording ourselves? I guess a better question. How do we know if we are good at communicating? If we have a powerful, strong, charismatic voice or not? Because I guess that’s the starting point and we can, we can judge even away from there.
“What you have to understand is that the voice is an instrument like any other instrument. So you have to learn how to play it, so that you can make the sounds that create whatever perception of you want.” – Roger Love · [07:18]
Roger Love:
Got it. Perfectly. First what you have to understand is that the voice is an instrument like any other instrument. So you have to learn how to play it, so that you can make the sounds that create whatever perception of you, you want. The voice is actually two instruments. It’s a wind instrument because you have to learn how to control the air, to get it in, and then to get it out. All of your sound is riding out on that air. And then secondly, it’s a string instrument because you have to learn how to use the vocal chords and the vocal chords operate like any string instrument, like a guitar you got to learn how to pluck the strings.
Roger Love:
So, I really have spent my lifetime breaking it down into what people need to know about the instrument. So for example, people need to learn to breathe in through their noses instead of their mouths. Why? Because when you breathe in through your nose, it becomes moist air because it goes through little filters, so that when it goes to your throat, it doesn’t dry your throat out. Every single person that’s listening to this podcast should open up their mouth right now and take a breath in like this, go ahead, do it with me. Do you feel the dryness in the back part of your throat, open your mouth again, like this[inaudible 00:08:31]
Roger Love:
It’s drawing to the back part of the throat. Now close your lips and breathe in through your nose.
Will Barron:
This will give a weird sounding episode for everyone who’s just listening to it and not watching the videos.
Roger Love:
That’s right. And you got to learn how to breathe without making so much noise because there’s nothing, all that sexy about this sound.
Will Barron:
Yeah.
“If you get used to breathing in through your nose, the air that goes to the vocal cords doesn’t dry them out. So technically you could speak 300% more in the day if you just stopped breathing in through your mouth.” – Roger Love · [08:54]
Roger Love:
So you just gently breathe in through your nose and if you get used to breathing in through your nose, the air that goes to the vocal cords, doesn’t dry them out. So technically you could speak 300% more in the day. If you just stopped breathing in through your mouth. Also I’ve broken down the whole concept of what your voice should sound like into a few variables. You have to control the pitch of your voice. Do you speak really high all the time or do you speak really low all the time? Do you speak volume wise? Do you speak really loud all the time or do you speak really soft all the time. Pace. Do you speak really fast all the time or do you speak so slowly that both think you didn’t make it past the first grade and then melody, do you have melodies? Does your voice go up or does your voice go down like a good song?
Roger Love:
So with pitch, pace, tone, whether it’s airy or edgy and melody and volume, you literally realise that you have total control over your voice to create any melodies you want, to create any volumes you want to create any rhythm changes, which makes you kind of like a singer when you speak and that’s a good thing because then you can really control all the sounds that come out.
Are People Always Accurate at Predicting Their Voice Volume, Pitch, Pace, and Melody? · [10:13]
Will Barron:
When you work with someone, this is fascinating or hopefully it’s fascinating for me to ponder on how accurate are they at predicting those four elements in their own voice and I’ll do it with you now, Roger. And obviously we’ve only just met each other but I’m sure you’ll you can even tell me if I’m right or wrong. I believe my voice is for a dude, somewhat high pitched. I tend to speak quite loud and a girlfriend will attest to this of me. Waking everyone up in the house every time I kind of enter and leave it. Pace, I believe I speak quite fast with probably not enough pauses and the melody. I have no idea. I’m not sure if I go, I went up then, but I’m not sure if I consciously do that, especially on the podcast or not. So I guess two questions, am I somewhat accurate in predicting what my voice is like right now? And then how accurate are people in general at getting this baseline?
Roger Love:
You are amazingly accurate, because as far as volume you speak loudly because you have a message and you’re trying to connect to people and a certain amount of volume is great. What happens is, and I’ll just because I’m a teacher, I’ll just throw in a little something. What you need to sometimes work on is realise that there’s volume here. That is your constant volume, but then sometimes you could make it a little softer. So that there’s a variation between, this is what I’m really passionate about and this is what I’m excited about. So your volume’s great, but you could sometimes get a little softer when you come to a point that you really want to hammer home, it’s okay to be a little louder. Also your voice is high, but that height is what’s giving you an exciting voice.
Roger Love:
I love it. I’m over people just talking way down here, like James Earl Jones all the time, because it gets boring and it’s not a bank commercial. You’re trying to help people unlock secrets so that they can change their business life and their life in general. So you’re high, but I’m perceiving excitement from your high. And as far as melody, here’s the thing that you do, because you’re high most of the time, you kind of stay on one note, kind of hovering around one or two pitches. And then when you get really excited, you go, okay. And then you go to another pitch and then you come back to those ones that you feel that are, your money notes. The ones that already high, and they already have a lot of personality, but I would make a suggestion to you and to everyone that’s listening.
“Most people, if you took their voices and figured out what notes they were actually making on the piano, they would be making one or two notes, that’s it. And you wouldn’t buy a song sung by a singer that only had one or two notes. You’d be bored. You wouldn’t pay a penny for that.” – Roger Love · [12:45]
Roger Love:
And to understand a concept that I call stair, step melody, because most people, if you took their voices and figured out what notes they were actually making on the piano, they would be making one or two notes that’s it. And you wouldn’t buy a song, sung by a singer that only had one or two notes. You’d be bored. You wouldn’t pay a penny for that. You’d you’d flip the channel if you heard it on the radio, but most people are monotone and they don’t realise it. So I want to teach stair, step melody just for a second. Instead of staying on the same note, the whole time, pretend that you’re walking up the stairs. Now I’m walking up the stairs. Now I’m walking down the stairs. So I’m going from, I start on a low note, low, little higher, little higher, little higher, little higher.
“Melody is the direct link to convincing people whether you’re happy or not.” – Roger Love · [13:58]
Roger Love:
Now I start high, higher, a little lower, little lower, little lower, little lower. If you spent more time walking up the stairs, instead of staying on the landing the whole time people would realise it was so interesting. Also, when you walk up the stair using the stairstep melody, when you walk up, you sound happy because when you go down, you sound sad. It’s my birthday. I love my wife. I love golf. So melody is the direct link to convincing people, whether you’re happy or not. So you have a lovely melody. At least you’re up most of the time, but 95% of the people are just going down at the end of every sentence.
Roger Love:
And then they get to a comma and they go down and they get to a period and they go down. So they need to learn to stop doing that because you’re depressing the heck out of everyone that you’re speaking to, not you them. And they need to learn how to do stairstep melody. So it’s little tricks like that, that change dramatically. And again, like I said, give people the opportunity to control how people are perceiving them. I’m happy and I want you to know.
Will Barron:
With the stair, step melody, I probably need to start lower and then work my way up [crosstalk 00:14:46] otherwise you’re going to have cats screaming in the background.
Roger Love:
You need to take smaller steps. It isn’t. Now I’m walking up the steps. Now I’m walking up little tiny steps. Now I’m walking up little tiny steps. Do that for me.
Will Barron:
Walking up little tiny steps. Still quite big. Isn’t it?
Roger Love:
No, that was still good. Now I’m walking up little tiny steps.
Will Barron:
Now I’m walking up little tiny steps. Back down tiny[crosstalk 00:15:12] little steps.
Roger Love:
Still too big because you were up here and look at this. Now I’m walking up little steps and now I’m walking up a few more steps and now I’m walking up a few more steps. You see how much room I still I’m not hitting my head on the ceiling.
The Stair-step Melody to Learning Tonality and Melodies in Your Voice · [15:22]
Will Barron:
So I’m in the process of learning piano. Is this something that we can sit down with a piano or an instrument? As I think I mentioned earlier, I played drums. So, there’s no tone out… the little tonality to that, to go along. Is this something that we could sit down or is there an app? Is there a process where for… I wouldn’t consider myself tone deaf, if that’s really a thing as opposed to something that people say, but kind of don’t really mean, is there a way that I can practise these tiny little steps and put it into practise?
Roger Love:
Yeah, absolutely. First thing they need to do is they need to start recording themselves. You record yourself. So you listen back and you say, oh, I really like that. I felt that, that was great. I really don’t like this. I need to maybe make some change. Even if you don’t know what the change is, you have to start recording yourselves. People just don’t, the first time they hear their own voice on the voicemail message. If they get a new phone there who’s that. And Ugh, that’s not me. I thought this was a new phone. This is an iPhone smart phone, 23 billion and I paid a thousand dollars or more for it. How come the microphone is so bad? but it’s just that we’re not used to listening to our own voices. People need to actually use their smartphone that they paid for and speak into it.
Roger Love:
And then listen back to a few key things. One of them is melody. When you listen back to yourself recorded, did you kind of stay on the same notes and you don’t have to be conductor or a virtuoso violinist. You can be a drummer or a non-musician altogether and realise whether or not you’re staying on the same notes or whether or not you’re having other notes. You can listen back and realise whether or not it’s all airy and you can’t even barely hear yourself that you want to ask smartphone. Hey, could you say that again? because it’s so soft and it’s so airy. You could, you could listen back and see whether or not all of your words kind of have the same length.
Roger Love:
Do you speak generally at the same pacing all the time or do you mix it up? Are some of the words held out where you slow down and are some of the words fast? So you can literally start becoming your own teacher just by recording yourself and just even with those three variables, am I loud enough? Did I have any melody at all? And did I have every single word sound exactly the same length?
The End Goal to Mastering Melodies is to Cultivate the Ability to do it Subconsciously · [17:48]
Will Barron:
So using this framework here Roger, is the end goal that we do all this subconsciously and we don’t have to think about it once we’ve practised it enough or are we treating ourselves like an actor? And we’re thinking perhaps ahead of… and in the business space, if we’re doing presentations, if we’re doing presentations or making sales calls, perhaps we are saying the same thing, 25 times a day, or four times a day, whatever it is, or similar concepts of frameworks or, models of things that we’re describing and discussing with customers and potential customers, are we using this? So as I say, are we using this as subconsciously all goes in? We just do it all. Naturally. We never think about it again or is this something that we treat as an actor of, I’m going to plan this out. I’m going to script it the best I can and then I’m going to go this bit. I’m going to go quiet and kind of build a bit suspense and work that into it that way.
“The goal of being a great student is having a great teacher and the goal of a great teacher is to teach the student how to do it so that it becomes unconsciously competent.” – Roger Love · [18:46]
Roger Love:
That second choice is way too much work. The goal of being a great student is having a great teacher and the goal of a great teacher is to teach the student how to do it so that it becomes unconsciously competent. So it’s really as simple as this people come to me and as if… Let’s use the analogy that they were pianos and they bring themselves as pianos to me, and I say, how many keys do you have? And I look, and there’s a couple of white ones and maybe one black one. And I say, Hey, why don’t you let me build in all of the rest of the keys. So then I’m a piano builder. And I build in all the keys, I fix the pitch, pace, tone, melody, and volume of their voice. And I make them understand how to control that easily.
Roger Love:
Within 10 minutes, they understand how to do all that. Then having all of that facility allows them to speak and it becomes second nature almost in no time, because you do not have enough time to figure out what every word should sound like. You need to make your voice a great instrument and then open it up and let the great sounds come out.
Using Your Voice in B2B Sales to Drive Influence and Express Confidence in Your Product or Service · [19:54]
Will Barron:
What is the difference then if we want to start with the end in mind with this, and especially for the B2B salespeople listening, it’ll be not necessarily more influence, but more charisma, more drive, more impact when they are perhaps on the phone or in a face to face meeting. Are those four traits the certain sliding scales of what we want, or a combination of what we want to be seen as influential or even a powerful person kind of on the back of our voice and how we communicate?
“People perceive volume as strength and when you speak airy, that’s just being perceived as weakness. It’s not being perceived as confidence. So increase your volume.” – Roger Love · [21:09]
Roger Love:
Great. Here are specific sounds of what I call influence and confidence. So volume is a key element. People don’t speak loud enough because they’re used to having the mic on their headset, really close to their mouths or holding the phone and have it be really close. So they’re thinking about getting the sound from their lips, just to that microphone, which is almost touching their lips wrong. You want to move the microphone away from your mouth, and you want to create enough volume that fills up four or five feet in front of you. So that there’s enough volume coming out because people perceive volume as strength and when you speak airy and you think, oh, people just think I’m so kind, and it’s like them going to a psychologist. It’s all about you. It talk to me, it’s all about you. I want to help you.
Roger Love:
And here’s how I’m going to help you. When they’re airy air dissipates in air. And that is just being perceived as weakness. It’s not being perceived as confidence. So increase your volume. Now here’s the main reason that people don’t increase their volume because when you increase your volume, only you sound angry and people don’t want to sound angry that are on sales calls or in any conversation. So when you increase your volume, they’re afraid that they’re being perceived as angry. So what do I do? I add melody to the volume. I do that walking up the steps. So if I just get louder, then I sound mad as heck, and I’m not going to sell you anything and why would you care to buy from me? But if, if I keep the same volume, but I suddenly add walking up the steps, now I’m walking up the steps with the same volume, and now the melody and the volume together, it makes me sound like I’m so happy.
“More volume mixed with melody are two interesting things that you need to increase if you want to have more of an influential voice.” – Roger Love · [22:42]
Roger Love:
It makes me sound like I’m so proud of the product that I’m going to offer. As a matter of fact, that product is the greatest gift I could give you. It’s everything I’ve spent my lifetime creating so that you can have a better life today so that you can sell more stuff today. So more volume mixed with melody are two interesting things that you need to increase. If you want to have more of an influential voice.
How Salespeople Can Tweak Their Voice to Different Selling Scenarios Such as In-person or Selling on the Phone or Through Skype · [23:13]
Will Barron:
It’s interesting how literal that is. And I’m laughing as you go through all this, because obviously you’re somewhat over emphasising getting it. It’s almost hilarious. The timing of it all and how it kind of fits together because it’s obvious. It clearly it’s ingrained into us on a deep level, all these different traits and these elements with that said, as sales moves, perhaps right there, wrongly away from face to face meetings where, there’re other ways to communicate. There’s body language, there’s just the environment that you’re in and a whole of a bunch of different things. How do we, if at all need to change our voice from selling face to face in person versus perhaps selling on the phone or even selling through Skype.
Roger Love:
Great. Well, first, let me tell you that Yale did an amazing study in 2017 that tried to once and for all put aside all of those myths that people were thinking, well, when I speak, how much is my body movement important to you believing me and liking me and buying anything from me. And how important are the words I use in convincing you to buy from me, to like me to start a relationship business or personal, and how important the body language. And I think you can be surprised because in the seventies, people were told to believe that the words counted for about 70% of whether or not anyone believes you or likes you and wants to buy from you. And that your physiology counted for 55%. So what you did with your left eyebrow or your right hand or your shoulder was part of 55% and that, and that the sounds of your voice, the tonality, all of the things that I teach that was 38%.
“The only thing that actually helps you create a relationship with someone is emotion. And the only thing the brain decides is emotional is sound: the pitch, pace, tone, melody, and volume.” – Roger Love · [25:14]
Roger Love:
Well now the latest studies and hundreds of studies since then have basically proven that we’ve learned to lie with our physicality, because let’s say we’re miserable. Well, then we put a smile on our faces, and today I’m going to sell you this, because I’m so happy. And we think that if we have a smile that people just perceive us as happy, no. People have now learned that all the facial expressions, all the body movements, lie and mask what you’re actually feeling inside, and that the words count even less than 7%. And the only thing that actually helps you create a relationship with someone is emotion and that the only thing the brain decides is emotional is sound. The pitch, pace, tone, melody, and volume. So when you realise that whether you’re in person or whether you’re on a call, you’ve got to know the things that I know at least some of them, so that you sound the way you need to so that you’re moving people emotionally to the desired outcome you’re trying to get them.
Roger Love:
I was hired some years ago by Quicken home loans and my job was to take 350 refinance, mortgage brokers. And they were just doing it on the phone and figure out why so many of them, when they got to the close, people weren’t giving them their credit cards and putting down the initiation fee to start the new loan. Well, it was because they were coming across as buddies, they had a little extra air. They were like, I’m your best friend, I’m your pal and so there was no authority in the voice. There wasn’t enough edge in the voice. There wasn’t enough volume. They weren’t spending enough time in the lower part of the range, which I call chess voice. And when it came time to now give me a credit card, they were like, Hey buddy, can you call me back tomorrow?
Roger Love:
I just got to go pick up my, my, my lunch. And so I changed what happened at the close. I brought more volume into it. I used more melody that was melody and then same note so that when it… I had melody during the sentences and then when it got to the words that the credit card and stuff like that, it was the same note to make them think I was solid and strong, and that I wasn’t going anywhere. And they needed to pick up on that strength and feel stronger and believe me more. I dramatically increased the sales. When I go into any company, I’m the voice coach for Zappos. I was hired to train 2,600 employees at Zappos, which is the number one customer service rated company in the world. How to sound more liking to their core values.
Roger Love:
In other words, Zappos was the first company that became public and was saying, we’re all about core values. And one of our core core values is weird, but a little wacky and they have all of these core values. And then all the companies started thinking, oh, we don’t have core values and are our core values good enough? And it totally changed the landscape of business. Well, I had to teach Zappos the sounds of their core values, because if one of your core values is weird and a little wacky, and I get on the phone, I want to buy shoes from somebody. And I think they’re weird and wacky. And then I call the next day. And I think someone is so weird and wacky, they don’t even know how to spell the word shoes well then how is that brand specific? Right? So bottom line is everyone needs to think about their voice science proves it, and their results will be magnified because they spent minutes turning their voice into an instrument. And then they moved people emotionally and to the desired outcome they wanted because of it.
Roger Explains How Salespeople Can Use Warmups and Have Control Over Their Voice Throughout the Day · [28:44]
Will Barron:
So this may beyond voice, but we’ll try and narrow it down to their Roger but this makes total sense for the singer going on stage or an actor going on, the set they know they’ve got to go do 40 minutes, five minutes, whatever it is, they can be focused. They can be in the zone. They can consciously, or perhaps consciously do it at first until they master it and it becomes subconscious over time and for repetition. How do we keep all of the things that we’re discussing from the first sales call at nine o’clock to the last one at seven? And this is something that I don’t particularly kind of encourage people to call. There’s typically better ways to go about doing larger deal size B2B kind of business. But there are people in the audience who are call calling all day, every day.
Will Barron:
So for those individuals, how do they keep those four traits top of mind? And how do they, when they’re going through the same thing over and over, and it’s perhaps getting a little bit laborious, how do they make it work until kind of five, six o’clock at night? When clearly if you’re only winning business at one half of the day, you’re missing out on 50% of your commission’s over side of it.
“The reason that most people are burning out and sound boring and have a hard time even dialling the next number is because their voice is boring the crap out of themselves. They’re sick of talking in a monotone. There’s no energy being created. When you learn how to speak with the right pitch and pace and melody and volume, the sounds that come out of you, not only make other people feel things, but you start to feel things, and it actually releases endorphins into your brain that makes you happier.” – Roger Love · [30:37]
Roger Love:
I got you. First thing that I do is I make sure that they don’t lose their voices because most people come to me because they’ve lost their voice, or they’re having some problem. They can’t go, from nine to five, because their voice is getting horse and their voice is getting scratchy and their voice is getting all dry. And no matter how much water they drink or tea or suck on lozenges, they can’t make it through the day. So first I put them in a little programme where they’re where they do these warmups, and it only takes minutes a day. You can do it easily in the ride to work, you can do it easily, 5, 6, 7 minutes before you start your sales calls and those warmups will make it so that you’ll be able to speak and create the sounds you want all day. Also, the reason that most people are burning out and sound boring and have a hard time even dialling the next number, is because their voice is boring the crap out of themselves.
Roger Love:
They’re sick of talking in a monotone. There’s no energy being created. Nobody’s throwing logs on the fire to keep the fire going. When you learn how to speak with the right pitch and pace and melody and volume, the sounds that come out of you, not only make other people feel things, but you start to feel things, and it actually releases endorphins into your brain that makes you happier. So I do stuff like this a lot all day. I’m doing warmups with people, right? And you’re like, how do you not lose your mind? Well, because when I’m in that place where I’m creating beautiful, great, powerful, charismatic sounds, my whole body gets involved.
Roger Love:
And I’m my own energy source. And yes, I’m tired by the end of the day, trying to do miracles one after the other and change people’s voices and change their lives but I’m also so invigorated. So it’s really about learning to create sounds that energise yourself and your body so that the time flies, instead of using the same sounds, you’re using all the time. And you’re bored after the first phone call, you’re bored with yourself and so are your next listeners.
How to Use Body Language to Modulate Your Voice in Sales · [33:02]
Will Barron:
So the body side of things is what I wanted to wrap up on here. And this might be complete nonsense. So tell me if it is, but I know when I’m speaking on the show, and even when I’m doing it with my voice now, as I’m pondering on this, I tend to move my arms around robotically and ridiculously and make big arm movements consciously. It looks better on camera than me just sat sheepishly but then as I’m going back forth for yourself, Roger, you tend to move your arms and your body, and the way you move back and forwards in front of the camera, in the microphone gentle is not the word, but more elegantly. It’s probably the word to describe it. It’s almost like you’re dancing around with your arms as opposed to I’m flailing them. And I’m confident that reflects in voice and other things and in kind of body language and perception as well. So with that said, whether we’re on the phone, maybe it’s two questions, whether we’re on the phone or in person, are there ways that we should be, or shouldn’t be using our body to affect our voice and how it comes across.
Roger Love:
First of all, you’re not flailing. I think your hand gestures very much physicalize the sounds that are coming out of your mouth. And I believe that voice is a full body sport. I believe that if you’re just sitting there with your shoulders rounded forward, then you’ve closed off your ribs. So you can’t get any air in and out. So you have to have posture. I believe as you move with your hands and your whole body, you’re asking your whole body to create the sound. That’s why my voice is strong. That’s why I can go so low. That’s why I can go so high. That’s why I can create all of the sounds, because it isn’t just, I’m trying to make everything from I’m here. And the rest of my body is comatose. So yes, when you are on a call and not on a video, you should totally be moving your hands.
“When you are on a call and not on a video, you should totally be moving your hands. You should be moving your head. You should be going back and forth and engaging your whole body. Because if you don’t, you won’t able to create the energy you need to get the sound out.” – Roger Love · [34:06]
Roger Love:
You should be moving your head. You should be going back and forth and engaging your whole body. Because if you don’t, you won’t able to create the energy. You need to get the sound out and you say, Ugh, isn’t that tiring, Roger, how could I do that all day? And the answer is it’s not tiring. It’s engaging it. It makes you feel good. It keeps you awake. And I never make the same pitch the same way. I have live events where I do seminars and I could script it all out and put it on teleprompters, but I maybe have five or six things written on the, on the convenience monitor in front of me. And then I’ll speak for days on five or six notes. So it’s also important to even if you have a script that you have to go in and out of your script, you have to make changes. So you’re looking at words and you’re not married to every single one of those words I go in and out and in and out, even when I’m reading from a teleprompter and I have a specific script, I change words. I leave myself in the moment. So I think that, connection physicality is so important. Even if you’re in a closet in the dark, you still want to engage your whole body.
The Things Roger Recommends Salespeople Do Before a Sales Call or a Presentation to Make Them Conscious of Using Their Voices · [35:42]
Will Barron:
And final thing on this. Well, I’ve got one final question to ask everyone that comes on the show, but be before that, the final question before the final question, do we do anything before we sit down to get ourselves psyched up for a call, a meeting, a presentation. So I know you’ve worked with the likes of Tony Robbins and many other people. And having seen Tony Robbins before he gets on stage, he has a kind of a ritual, a routine. I gets him kind of, we call it in state or gets him, excited and in a position where he can share his energy with an audience. Is there anything that we could do or you’d recommend that we do that perhaps singers do more than sales people that we can bring to our game to get us kind of in the right? Not even in the right frame of mind, but to make us conscious of using our voices. So when we hit the stage anf we’re making those sounds, it’s amazing for the audience to see where we are and how we’re doing
Roger Love:
Yes. If you watch that documentary that Tony made, you’ll see, he’s practising my exercises. That’s my voice, taking him through [inaudible 00:36:30] before he goes on stage, he would never go on stage without doing my vocal warmup. Forget about singers and speakers. If it’s now just voices, you’re a singer, I’m a singer, you’re a speaker, I’m a speaker. We’re all public speakers and we’re all singers. Some of us are just speaking bad songs. So the answer is the perfect way to do it is to do the vocal warmups and then in 5, 6, 7 minutes, all of your voice is warmed up the pitch, pace, tone, melody and volume. The air is coming in. You know how to bring air in, you know how to control how the air comes out. So you’re fully energised.
“I teach people that they should start every conversation, whether it’s a sales call or whether they’re asking somebody on a date with the sounds of happy and grateful, everyone wants to hear when they hear your voice, that you are happy.” – Roger Love · [37:23]
Roger Love:
And then when we hit the stage after making those sounds, it’s amazing for the audience because they’re already catching us right at the beginning in our most powerful state, in a very happy state. I teach people that they should start every conversation, whether it’s a sales call or whether they’re asking somebody on a date with the sounds of happy and grateful, every everyone wants to hear when they hear your voice, that you are happy, but how many times are we going down and melody, and then you enter the call and they say, oh, well, you’re sadder than I am.
“If you make the sounds of happy and grateful within the first five to 10 seconds of a conversation, and you’ve already warmed up your body, you just made a friend. And probably more importantly to the task at that moment, you’ve created a relationship that will lead you to the sale that you wanted to achieve at that particular conversation end.” – Roger Love · [37:50]
Roger Love:
Why would I want to have it? And how many times are we sounding not grateful? And there are specific sounds of grateful. So if you make the sounds of happy and grateful within the first five to 10 seconds of a conversation, and you’ve already warmed up your body, you just made a friend. And probably more importantly to the task at that moment, you’ve created a relationship that will lead you to the sale that you wanted to achieve at that particular conversation end.
Examples of a Voice Warmup Exercise · [38:05]
Will Barron:
So I’m sure there’s a whole bunch of them. There’s different for different applications, but what would be an example of a warmup exercise?
Roger Love:
Literally, we would go[inaudible 00:38:25] Something that simple but these exercises are designed to control the air and send just the right amount of air to the cords and then put the vocal chords in the right position so that they can go low and high and strong and powerful. And then you finish those exercises and you feel like, wow, I am in total control over the sounds that are coming out. And then you deliver. So, I mean, there’s no way around learning a little bit of technique and don’t you want to separate yourselves as salespeople from the pack. My salespeople are the number one sellers in the world. Every time I work with an individual or a company, they become the top salesperson in that industry, whether it’s online or whether it’s in person or any medium.
“I’ve uncovered a secret that the rest of the sales teams aren’t learning, it isn’t about what words they’re using, it’s about the sounds they need to make.” – Roger Love · [39:28]
Roger Love:
So I’ve uncovered a secret that the rest of the sales teams, aren’t learning, I get hired by huge companies to come in and train their sales team. That it isn’t about what words they’re using. It’s about the sounds they need to make. So, I’m always about how do I deliver it to people that’s why I do interviews. That’s why I do podcasts. That’s why I do show social media. I have a very simple goal that I am trying to achieve in my life as a career person. And that is I’m trying to save the world and the only way I can do it is one voice at a time by making people sound the way they’re supposed to sound. So it breaks down all of the barriers.
Roger Love:
It breaks down the barrier that you have an accent, and I don’t have an accent or mines a general ugly American, an accent. And yours is an amazing English accent, or that we’re from different parts of the country, or we have different political views or we have different religions. Why don’t we learn the sounds that move people emotionally and then we can turn our conversations into emotional things that move people to whatever action we want, whether it’s selling them or whether it’s having them say, yes, I will marry you Will.
Roder’s Advise to His Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [40:46]
Will Barron:
Love it. I love it. Well with that. Roger, I know that you’re not an out and out salesperson, clearly you’re a business owner entrepreneur, so you will have insights on this I’m sure. And the final question I ask everyone that comes on the show is if you could go back in time, speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give him that has nothing to do with voice or training on that side of things that would help him become better at selling?
“Selling someone is completely based on your ability to move them emotionally and unless you can move the emotion, they will not care about anything you have to sell. And the only way to move people emotionally, that is based now in science and in practical application, is to figure out the sounds that you’re making that are making people feel things, and then act on the opportunity to have a relationship with you.” – Roger Love · [41:07]
Roger Love:
Selling someone is completely based on your ability to move them emotionally and unless you can move them emotion, they will not care about anything you have to sell. And the only way to move people emotionally, that is based now in science and in practical application is to figure out the sounds that you’re making that are making people feel things, remember things, and then act on the opportunity to have a relationship with you, which starts with a sale.
Parting Thoughts · [41:48]
Will Barron:
Powerful stuff. Well with that, Rodger, I’ve had a blast chatting with you mate, I want you to tell us a little bit more about the book. I know you’ve got some online training. There’s a live event. Tell us where we can find out more about you and in the effort that you do make, because I’m sure there’s a tonne of people listening to this now who want to take that next step with their own voices.
Roger Love:
Thank you so much. I really would love people to go to theperfectvoice.com because I want them to find their perfect voice. I don’t want everyone to sound the same. I want you to have all the authenticity and originality and I want each person to do it. So at theperfectvoice.com, you’ll be able to check out my programme called the perfect voice training collection. And I have simplified everything into just small little tiny steps that will absolutely within minutes, give you control over pitch, pace, tone, melody, and volume. The way you breathe and the way sounds are coming out of your mouth and I always want to make it as affordable and as much of a gift as I can, because that’s why I’m here on the planet. I’m supposed to teach what I learn. I want to make it easy. So I’m going to give $50 off of the price.
Roger Love:
If you go in and you put in the promo code training just for your listeners, because I want you to join with me, the only way I can save the world is by having more people who speak the way that they should so that they’re moving people emotionally. And yes, you’re going to be the greatest salesperson, but you’re also going to be the greatest dinner partner. And you’re also going to be the greatest friend. And you’re also going to be the greatest boyfriend and girlfriend and husband or wife, because your kids are going to listen to you. You are going to listen to them in a different way. And every conversation you have is going to be about connecting you with people that could really start relationships that could lead to amazing places. So go to the perfectvoice.com. Use the promo code Training, and buy at a discount price at something that I’ve already made a gift price to begin with and let’s start training your voice so that you can be a million times better than every other salesman that you know, and you’re competing with right now.
Will Barron:
Do you know what Roger and a no bullshit for you or the audience here? I’ve got the book in front of me. I’ve read it a number of times over the years. I’m literally going to go and purchase it right now. And I genuinely mean this for the audience. Roger, you’ve had a real bit impact on me on this show and kind of double on everything that I know or what I thought I know about the importance of the voice. So with that, I want to thank you for your time, your insights, clearly your lifelong work on this mate and for joining us on the Salesman Podcast.
Roger Love:
Thank you so much for having me and I’m so proud of you for the way that you’re using your voice to change people’s lives way to go.
