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•Drink Plenty of Water

The major enemy of a good clear voice is dehydration. The more you talk, the more water is utilized. A dry throat is a voice at risk. Coffee or tea is not adequate. First they have an immediate drying action on the throat – this includes decaf. Secondly, the caffeine in either will cause you to lose more moisture than you gain. You need a large glass of plain water on your desk, and need to empty it frequently. Don’t talk more than ten minutes without water.

It’s commonly thought that by drinking water, one moistens the vocal cords and larynx directly. This is not correct. Both of these items can be reached only through the trachea, which is the passage for air, and even a few drops of water will cause an uncontrollable coughing reflex. Rather, the water travels through the esophagus to the stomach, and from there is absorbed into the bloodstream. This causes the entire body to become well hydrated.

When this happens, the salivary glands operate at full capacity and the mucous glands surrounding the larynx radiate a slippery coating that allows the vocal cords to slide together with minimum friction. Speaking is a very moisture-intensive activity. The engine of your vocal apparatus burns a lot of oil (in this case, water) and requires frequent refilling. This is why extra trips to the restroom are not uncommon consequence of increasing your water intake; you’ll be probably expending that extra water with every word and every breath, and your voice will be the beneficiary.

•Avoid Ice

Extreme cold freezes and irritates the throat. It also tightens the muscles of the throat, thus having short and long-term negative effects. Overtime, it’ll even thicken and alter the quality of your vocal cords.

•Use a Humidifier Especially in Winter

Dry air will suck the moisture from your body. A dry throat is not a smooth throat. If you looked at it under a microscope, you would see small cracks, which results in a rough voice. A dry throat is also far more prone to infection.

Keep a humidifier in your bedroom at night and preferably in your office during the day. A well-known ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) specialist once said ‘If everyone drank lots of water and used a humidifier, I’d be out on the street selling apples!’

•Find a Good ENT Doctor

You need experience, not experiments. Get a specialist. And the best ones are old and grumpy.

•Away from Business, Cultivate Quiet Lifestyle

The voice is not like a muscle that grows stronger with exercise. Rather, it’s more like a battery that will recharge itself with inactivity. Most serious long-term professional speakers are rather quiet people away from the platform.

•Avoid Excessive Force

The vocal cords physically are two cords about three-eighths of an inch long, with accompanying folds through which air passes. The passageway is called the glottis, and the cords and folds altering in thickness, changing tension and touching produces varying sounds. When you shout, these cords actually slam together with great force. Were you to smash your hands together with force, they would first begin to hurt, then become red, and eventually become bruised and swollen. Precisely the same thing happens to your vocal cords when you yell consistently, as at a football game or prolonged loud argument.

•Don't Speak Under Extreme Stress

What does stress do to your voice? Try a little demonstration for yourself. Put your hands on the sides of your chair seat, and try to lift it off the ground, with you sitting in it. Lift hard. Then, without easing the pressure, speak a sentence or two. How does your voice sound? More importantly, how does it feel? Rough? Tight? What do you think an entire day like that would do to your voice?

Stress creates tightness. The more stress, the more tightening of your muscles. It’s the reason people sound so ‘stressed out’ when a loved one passes away, and why they typically lose their voice within a week of the funeral. Their vocal cords have tightened up as a result of stress. They keep talking, and after a while, their vocal cords are so abused, the voice is totally gone.

A stress-free life, of course, isn’t likely or even desirable. This does not mean you should react to normal personal or emotional difficulties by not working. If you try to ignore the stress and work to ‘take your mind off the problem’ you won’t be working long. You can’t fool your voice.

•Limit Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol dehydrates. Too much of it dehydrates a lot. It also irritates your throat. If you drink more than you should, remember to consume extra water during the day to compensate.

•Take Vitamin C

Vitamin C strengthens the immune system. Talking all day puts extra stress on your throat. A gram of Vitamin C per day will help to prevent problems. If you have a scratchy throat, increase to one gram, three times a day. Vitamin C won’t replace antibiotics if you’re genuinely sick, but it will help.

•For a Mild Sore Throat, Gargle with Salt Water

If you’re sick, see your ENT specialist. But a mild problem will be helped by salt water, a half teaspoon to a third of a glass of warm water. Gargle frequently, letting a little drop down your throat. Keep a small bottle of salt in your desk. Use at first sign of a problem.

•Get Plenty of Sleep

Lack of sleep leads to reduced resistance to illness. Given stress on our voices, that illness is most likely to manifest in a sore throat. Sufficient sleep will improve your chances of a strong voice the next day.

•Learn to Breathe Properly

There are two ways of finding the breath it takes to speak. One is shallowly, from the upper chest. The other is deeply, from the bottom of your lungs or diaphragm, letting your exhaling breath carry your voice. The latter is much more conductive to a strong, resonant, and long lasting voice. To determine whether your breathing is really bad, try this simple exercise:

Sit erect in a straight back chair with one hand on your chest and the other flat on your abdomen. As you breathe, which hand moves more obviously? If your breathing is too shallow (which is quite common), the hand on your chest will move more; if you’re breathing from the diaphragm, the other hand will move more obviously. If you’re breathing shallowly, you’ll eventually strain your voice, and tire more easily as well.

Women in particular tend to ‘suck in the stomach’ and breathe in correctly. Only a good voice coach, speech pathologist, or material arts instructor can reliably teach you to breathe properly.

•Avoid or Reduce Smoking

•Use Decongestant, Not Antihistamines

You’ll see both marketed for colds, but they are not the same. Decongestants won’t dry you out, antihistamines definitely will, and will also make you sleepy whereas decongestants will keep some people awake at night. And if you need either of these to begin with, don’t forget to drink plenty of water, get lots of rest, and take your Vitamin C.

•Rest Your Voice Throughout the Day

Care of the voice is very different for the different types of speakers. The type of work you do is very different from that of a platform speaker, and so is the type of attention you need to give your voice. You have a great advantage over a platform speaker in that you can take short “rest breaks” throughout the day.

Every time you put the phone down to look up a number, every time you write notes of your conversation, every time you put a file away or review notes before calling, your voice will rest – if you let it. On the other hand, if you’re constantly chattering with the person who sits next to you, talking on breaks, communicating at lunch, never taking a moment for a quiet breath or sip of water, your voice will plain run down.

You should obviously work hard and make lots of calls; that’s part of being successful in our sales business. Still, be alert of the innumerable opportunities for ‘rest breaks.’ Take three good breaths; drink some water; have lunch by yourself sometimes. Don’t let pointless non-essential non-sense drain your voice. These rest breaks, if done properly, won’t decrease your time spent on the phone one bit, and will make a big difference in your voice’s durability.

•Find Your Natural, Comfortable Vocal Tone

Voice control is important, but that doesn’t mean altering your entire voice. There’s no question that a high-pitched voice can lack strength, but lowering your whole range is not the solution. Slow your pace and work on more vibration. You’ll get plenty of authority without harming your voice.

Finding your own natural vocal tone is more complicated than it seems. Many people have inadvertently adopted an inappropriate pitch for themselves, and are completely unaware of it. The techniques for finding your natural vocal tone are too extensive to be covered here; but may be obtained in a book entitled Change Your Voice: Change Your Life, by Morton Cooper, and this video.

•Avoid Persistent Throat Clearing

Throat clearing, as done by most people, physiologically consists of slamming the vocal cords together to free them of excess self-lubrication. While there are ways of accomplishing this without harming the voice, the easiest thing to do is just to be sure that you don’t have the habit of clearing your throat frequently. Listen to yourself on the phone and ask other people with whom you work. If you do have this harmful habit, you won’t know it yourself.

•If You Speak Too Loudly, Get Your Hearing Checked

Do people ever ask you to lower your voice? Do you speak other than quietly on a regular basis? Do you play the TV or radio with the volume turned up high? If so, don’t assume you’re just an energetic individual, or pride yourself on having a strong voice. There’s a big chance that you have some degree of hearing loss. Our modern society is a noisy one, and we, having grown accustomed to this, tend to tolerate the noise. But our delicate hearing apparatus was designed long before rock music, jackhammers, airplane or traffic noises were invented.

Primitive people experience very little hearing loss with age. A loud voice is frequently a compensation for marginally decreased hearing. And a large voice is eventually neither durable, nor flexible. You need both to have a long-term career in e.g. sales. If you speak other than quietly, get your hearing checked.

•And Finally

If this seems like a great deal to remember, or even require some changes in your habit patterns or lifestyle, there are four things you might consider:

oBe grateful you’re not a platform speaker or trainer. The people speak for several hours straight, with no breaks. Then they break for 15 minutes, frequently answering questions during that time, and then speak for another two hours! An article on care of the voice for them would be easily three times as long, and contain completely different material.

oRealize that proper voice care will not only affect your voice utility; it will affect your health. Abuse or neglect of your speech apparatus absolutely leads to real physical problems that go well beyond simply a sore throat. Short-term problems will eventually mean long-term problems. Many long-term throat problems can be corrected only with surgery, and the results of surgery in the throat will frequently result in permanent voice changes. These changes are rarely positive.

oYour voice is the instrument of the transmission of your knowledge and skills. A voice that is even a little ‘off’ is distracting to the salesperson and reduces results considerably, hence reduced income.

oIf you’re truly a professional, you take a great deal of pride in just doing things right. The really great ones in any field take care of their tools.

The voice is a marvelous and robust instrument, but the more stress we put on it, the more prone it is to breakdowns. You do a specific type of speaking – many relatively short two-way conversations throughout the day into a telephone or in person. For those purposes, the preceding suggestions will allow you to keep your voice durable and healthy, and to maximize your income throughout a long and successful career.

Your voice, which is so important in describing to the world who you are, dresses at least half as much attention as the rest of you. Balance and use the mask (the upper two-third – mouth and nose; avoiding the lower one-third – the throat). Have a good breath support – breath from the diaphragm not the chest.

Volume should be produced comfortably without strain, and should be appropriate for each situation. Inappropriate volume is either too soft or too loud. Rate of speech should be easy, natural, and flexible in response to the demands of the circumstances. Fast delivery can set the listeners nerves on the edge. A slow rate can bore listeners.