Are you compromising your authority just by how you present your information? You might be if you do this one thing? And I hear a lot of people doing it?
I’m not going to mince words, it drives me crazy?
Imagine if every sentence you wrote had a question mark on the end (like I did above). It would be pretty hard to accept that person as a confident expert in their field, right? You’d have to doubt whether they actually know anything if they are even questioning themselves.
This is what you are doing if you engage in ANY level of upspeak (or uptalk).
Upspeak is when your intonation goes up at the end of the sentence. The result is a sentence that sounds a bit like a question, even when it’s not meant to be.
This alone can sabotage your efforts to sound like an authority in your field or come across as a subject matter expert.
And the worst part is, so many people have no idea they are doing it.
First thing you need to do is listen to your own podcast and have an ear out for any level of upspeak.
Next, fix it!
The antidote to upspeak is downspeak. You can practice this by having your tone drop down at the end of a sentence. End on an emphatic note. End with some certainty. Drop it down so they know that it’s a fact not a question.
Try putting an arrow on your script at the end of each sentence to remind you to drop it down. You might even want to practice over doing it, just to get the feel of it.
Downspeak has the opposite effect of upspeak. It will instantly boost your authority. It makes you sound confident in your own words. People will feel reassured by this and see you as someone who knows what they are talking about. And, they will trust you and the information you are sharing.
That’s what you want, right? To be known as someone who knows what they are talking about and who can be trusted?
If you are an entrepreneur or business owner who is using your podcast as a marketing tool, then you want your podcast to boost your know-like-and-trust factor. Being confident and delivering information with certainty is going to make you much easier to trust!
It can take some time to break out of the upspeak habit, especially if you’ve been doing it a long time. But, keep at it. It’s worth it. And, you will see the results in how your podcast performs.
And I hope that’s just the tip you need? Ahem, I mean I hope that’s just the tip you need⬇.
Need more help creating or turning your podcast into an authority boosting machine? Book a free 15-minute coaching call and we’ll get down with the details on how to do that.
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