How To Sell Yourself

52 How to Sell Yourself

conversational, “living room” voice, not your “professional,” “au-
thoritative,” “mature,” or “leadership” voice.

Get rid of the artificial person you think you’re supposed to be.
Become the person you really are. This is about being yourself.

The real you.
When in doubt, speak even more quietly. You need only enough
volume to be heard. Emphasis and energy should be added by
using pitch and rate changes rather than by adding volume. Pitch
and rate are the storytellers’ tools.

Once

up

on

a

tiii

me.

Try saying these sentences without any expression:

• She’s a remarkable person.


• It was a delightful movie.


• He’s a dynamite speaker.


• You believe that liar?


• It was an overwhelming experience.


• He’s never done an honest day’s work in his life.


• Just who does she think she is?

Open up

Get the brows up. Gesture—illustrate with a hand—on the
emphasis words. Make it meaningful by making it important. The
pitch and rate should follow.

Say those sentences again. It makes a huge difference, doesn’t
it? When you put it all together, it makes communication nothing
less than a performing art. Not acting, mind you, but presenting
yourself in a dynamic, interesting, attention-grabbing way.

When the mind, face, body, and voice are working together
for the benefit of the audience, the end result is almost always
likability, and likability wins.

It works. One of my clients brought me to her staff annually.
When the training was over for the department heads, she invited
the receptionists, secretaries, and all the people who were early
phone contacts for callers or visitors. I would work with them for
half an hour on the face and voice relationship and had them do