Business

Persuasiveness Checklist Vocalic Pleasantness Cues

 Fluency in speech is pleasant because of its rhythm and flow. It should be easy and smooth. It has a cadence that is easy to follow. Verbal interjections, such as “ums” and “ahs,” ruin fluency.

 Voice quality is also important. The more pleasant your voice, the more persuasive you can be. Comedians such as Joe Pesci and Gilbert Gottfried have created movie characters we do not trust by irritating us with the sound of their voices.

 Pitch variety is the third component of vocalic pleasantness. Pitch encompasses the highs and lows of your voice. People without pitch variety in their voice speak in a monotone. While a monotone is not a grating sound, it tends to bore people.

Kinesic Immediacy Immediacy has to do with your presence. Kinesic describes movement of your body. Kinesic immediacy cues include eye contact and gaze, and smiling and facial movement. Vocalic Potency Cues Vocalic potency cues are concerned with how we use our voice to convey our emotions.

 Tempo--we want to have a variety of tempos and our speech. Just like good music, every time we speak we want to have fast parts and slow parts.

 Amplitude and Loudness--Amplitude describes the intensity of a person’s voice. Loudness describes the volume. Intensity and volume are not synonymous. Consider music for a moment, you can have a very intense piece of music playing at a very low volume on your iPod. It’s still intense; it’s just not very loud. Vary amplitude and volume to create interest.

 General tempo is the speed at which you speak. Too fast and you appear overly excited and careless. Varying the tempo makes your story interesting

 Fundamental frequency of your voice can either be high pitched (squeaky) or low pitched (rumbly). Pitch tends to get higher when we’re stressed. If you’re too high-pitched you’ll lose credibility.

Kinesic Dominance Cues Kinesic dominance cues let the listener know that you own the audience.

 Your facial expressiveness carries a lot of your meaning.

 When you use your hands to illustrate your meaning, the movements you make are called illustrator gestures.

Kinesic Arousal Cues These are inappropriate ways of dealing with stress. We do them to pacify ourselves.

 Body adaptors included playing with your clothing, pens, change, possessions, etc.

 Body tension is when you go into your first stress-response mode—you freeze. You become stiff and tense. Body tension kills your ability to persuade. You should look relaxed.

 Random movements such as constant swaying, fidgeting, snapping your fingers, pumping your arms tell people you’re nervous. Kinesic arousal cues kill persuasion.