Flow

Your voice matters more than your words

5 min read

Say "Hi, I wanted to come say hello" quietly, quickly, with your pitch rising at the end. Now say it at a normal volume, a little slower, ending on a level note. Same words, and two completely different people. The first sounds like he's asking permission to exist. The second sounds like someone you'd be happy to chat with for a minute. Most of what people decide about you in the first few seconds of an approach comes from that difference.

A quick note on the famous statistic

You may have seen the claim that communication is 7% words, 38% tone of voice, and 55% body language. It comes from studies by the psychologist Albert Mehrabian in the late 1960s, and it's widely misused. His experiments looked at how people judged feelings from single words spoken in a tone that didn't match the word. Mehrabian himself has said the numbers don't apply to communication in general.

So no, your words aren't worth 7%. But the underlying point holds. When your tone and your words disagree, people believe the tone. "I'm totally relaxed" said in a shaky whisper isn't convincing.

Volume

Nervous people speak too quietly. It's probably the single most common voice problem in approaches, and it causes a chain of trouble. They can't hear you, they say "Sorry?", you repeat yourself even more quietly, and now the whole thing feels awkward.

Aim to speak a notch louder than feels natural when you're nervous. Not loud, just clearly audible. If you're in a bar, you'll need more, and it should come from your chest and belly rather than a strained throat. You'll know it's working when people stop asking you to repeat yourself. See night game for more on talking in loud rooms.

The opposite problem exists too. Some people overcorrect into a booming, performative voice that the whole café can hear. That puts the other person on display, which they won't enjoy. Speak to them, not to the room.

Pace

Nerves speed you up. You rush through your opener to get it over with, and it comes out as one blurred word.

Slow down. Say your opener at the pace you'd use to give a friend directions. Let the full stop at the end of a sentence actually be a stop. And then pause. Give them a second to respond rather than filling the silence with another sentence.

Pauses feel much longer to you than they do to the listener. A two-second gap that feels like an eternity in your head usually sounds completely normal from the outside.

Pitch and upspeak

Upspeak is when your voice rises at the end of a statement, so it sounds like a question. "Hi? I'm Dan? I just wanted to say hello?" It can make you sound unsure of what you're saying.

Some people do it by habit and it's no big deal in casual conversation. But in an opener, you want your statements to sound like statements. Try ending "I'm Dan" on a level or slightly falling note. Record yourself and listen back. Most people are surprised by how much they do it.

You don't need a deep voice. People sometimes try to lower their pitch artificially to sound more masculine or confident, and it tends to sound forced. Your natural relaxed voice is fine. Tension raises pitch more than anything, so the fix is usually relaxing, not putting on a voice.

Warmth

Smiling changes how you sound. You can often hear a smile in someone's voice even on the phone. When you approach, let yourself smile on the first line. It turns a statement that could sound flat or intense into one that sounds friendly.

Warmth also comes from actually being interested. If you ask "What are you reading?" because you want to know, it sounds different from the same question asked as a technique. People are good at hearing the difference.

Teasing and tone

Light teasing between two people who are getting along is part of flirting. The tone decides whether it lands as playful or as mean. "You've been in this aisle longer than me, you're clearly an expert" said with a grin is fun. The same line said flatly can sound like a dig.

Be careful with teasing early on, especially anything that touches someone's appearance or intelligence. Some pickup advice turned "teasing" into backhanded insults meant to knock someone's confidence. That's negging, and it doesn't work the way its fans claim. Negging explained goes into why.

Common habits to watch

Exercises that help

Record your opener. Say it into your phone three times. Listen back. Check the volume, pace, and whether it ends on a question-y lift. Adjust and record again.

Read aloud for five minutes. Anything works: a news article, a few pages of a book. Read slightly slower and louder than normal. It gets you used to hearing your own voice at a comfortable volume.

Warm your voice up before you go out. Hum for a minute, chat with a friend on the phone, order something and say thanks clearly. Your voice is often tight after a quiet day. Warming up before you go out covers more of this.

Use low-stakes conversations. Asking a store clerk a question is a good place to practice speaking clearly and ending on a level note.

When your voice lets you down

Sometimes your voice cracks, wobbles, or comes out at a strange volume. You can pretend it didn't happen, or you can acknowledge it with a smile: "Wow, my voice decided to do something new there." Usually it gets a laugh and both of you relax. Then carry on.

If they say "Sorry, what?" don't panic and don't mumble the same thing again. Take a breath, step a fraction closer if it's loud, and say it again more slowly and a bit louder.

The other half of the picture

Your voice works together with your body language and the moment you choose. A calm voice with tense shoulders still reads as nervous. A relaxed posture with a whispered opener still gets you a "Sorry?" Work on them together and the words you use start to matter much less. That's also why openers that work spends more time on delivery than on lines.

Voice is hard to judge from the inside, so outside feedback helps. The forum in Flow has a field reports section where people write up how an approach went, including how they came across, and others reply with what they'd try next time.