Killer presentations begin and end with a commanding, credible and memorable voice. The finer distinctions in the clarity, tone, pitch and rhythm of your voice convey hidden messages to your audience.

An understanding of the underlying physiology of the voice can help improve any performance, visit http://www.online-communicator.com/audtal4.html for a brief appreciation of this fascinating area of your voice power and influence.

Voice Inflection and Tonal Markings are one of the most powerful forms of subliminal persuasion currently known, and are used by celebrities such as Paul McKenna, Derren Brown and General Mike Jackson. The main difference between the three of them, is that Paul and Derren use inflections with deliberate awareness of the meaning and unconscious instruction being given, and General Mike Jackson has only one way of inflecting, and that is down. As a Professional Presenter you will have mastered all three.

• Voice inflection up

• Voice inflection middle range

• Voice inflection down

These three inflection tones have natural meaning in our speech patterns, and as a presenter when you use all three with supreme confidence and deliberate affect, you will have become a Master of subliminal persuasion.

Voice Inflection Up; is interpreted by the listener, that you are asking a subliminal question with your tonal marking, this may result in you 'not’ being taken seriously. Bring to mind the comedian Joe Pasquale, Joe has a natural voice that is high toned and inflects upward. It is no surprise that his chosen career is one of comedy. With his natural tones he achieves exactly what he wants, and that is for you to not take him seriously and more importantly, to laugh at his silly voice and way of behaving, note also, that the behaviour mirrors the voice.

In terms of presenting, voice tone inflection up is used when you want to place a rhetorical question for the audience to ponder, or when you wish to lighten up the atmosphere after a serious point has been made. You would definitely make use of inflection up in the first five minutes of your introduction in order to raise laughter and build rapport in the audience.

The vital element to understand, is that if inflecting up is your only form of speech tone, it will initiate a question in the listener’s mind about your professionalism, credibility and knowledge. Your audience will begin to question your levels of confidence, and trust in your deliverance will diminish. In their minds they will be questioning whether 'you really know what you are talking about’ because your voice tone is sending the subliminal message, that you do not.

Voice Inflection Middle Range; is interpreted by the listener, that what you are saying is indeed a fact, or that it is a statement to be considered, not judged nor challenged, simply considered. Your tonal marking will be devoid of high or low emotion, it will be even paced with care over the deliverance of numbers, words and phrases. Recall former Conservative Defence Minister Sir John Knott, who was in office in 1982 during the Falklands War. At that time there was much televised footage of Sir John, informing the country about the casualties within our Armed Forces and the victories we were achieving. For those of us who witnessed this event or similar, you will remember that the voice tone used was one of 'tell it how it is’. By keeping emotions out of his voice inflection this minimised emotional effect and maximised impact of the facts, figures and statements of correctness.

In presenting, voice inflection middle range is an essential tool to build focus of short-term attention, toward data, statistics and information such as the results of research or survey’s. This form of tonal marking attracts short-term attention without over influencing its reception. The result is that the audience accepts what is being delivered, at that time.

It is important to deliver facts and figures in this tonal mark, because with the input of emotion your audience will begin to judge your deliverance on confidence, truth, accuracy and quality. What follows will be debate, and it will probably be heated. The other result that you will achieve, if you consistently speak with middle range inflection, is that you will send your audience to sleep.