Help, I sound like an intern.

May 5, 2013 10:04 AM

How do I sound older (35+) on conference calls?

I started a new consulting position in a new industry about seven months ago. A great deal of my work happens on the phone -- calling subject matter experts, calling executives, gathering consensus with contacts across the US. I'm well over 35, but during these calls I often get mistaken for early 20s, even during non-technical calls. Most of our other consultants are in their 40s and 50s and sound more mature.

Obviously, picking up the taxonomy/alphabet soup of a new industry takes time, so I understand that a likely contributing factor is my not having the correct lingo at 100% just yet. Also, I have been mindful of removing words like like from my standard vocabulary.

I'm very candid and approachable on my calls, I'm a good listener, and I often strike an instant rapport with my contacts, but I sometimes get thinly veiled (and thickly shrouded) questions about my experience level. Last week, a contact said he wanted to drink whatever I was drinking (I was stone sober).

I love the phone aspect of my work. I want to sound my age (35+), but keep the approachability/candor. I have a solid reputation with my ongoing contacts, but the new ones definitely get thrown for a loop at first. I feel like sounding young makes me have to take more steps in building their trust in me.

If you used to sound young on the phone, did any changes work for you? Do you know of techniques for dropping an octave? Are there words and phrases I should banish forever?

posted by mochapickle to Work & Money (15 answers total)

It's probably not the voice, per se, but the phrasing, speed, word choices, a lot of um's and like's and you know's, etc.

As a first step, just try slowing down. Take a breath before speaking, relax, and refrain from using slang and colloquialisms.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:16 AM on May 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

Last week, a contact said he wanted to drink whatever I was drinking

Are you sure your problem is that you sound too young?

Between that and the fact that your contacts are asking about your experience level, I'm wondering if what you're intending as 'candid and approachable' is actually coming off as overly informal or unprofessional. I do a lot of consulting work with people over email or phone, and I find that people take me a lot more seriously if I save the friendly banter until after I've developed a relationship with them. For the initial contact, keep it more businesslike. This doesn't mean you have to be cold and robotic, but if people are feeling comfortable openly speculating about your age or whether you're drunk(!) on your very first call with them, you're probably erring on the side of way too chummy and informal.

Do you have a supervisor or colleague you'd feel comfortable asking for feedback on your phone manner? Someone who can actually listen in on one of your calls is going to be in a much better place to offer useful advice than we are.
posted by ook at 10:26 AM on May 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

I got taken infinitely more seriously on conference calls when I started purposefully dropping my voice. I tried it as a result of noticing the increase in respect I got when I had a bad cold and my voice was naturally lower. I just imitated my "have a cold" voice for reference and it was successful. I kept a bottle of cold medicine by my phone as a reminder. I slipped up occasionally but still in general it worked. Good luck.
posted by onlyconnect at 10:40 AM on May 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks all -- to clarify, the "whatever you're drinking" comment was with someone I'd spoken with for weeks (and who was on his way to Vegas on a Friday afternoon) so that might be a red herring. I should have included more detail on that, ook. You made a good point.

Backing away slowly now...
posted by mochapickle at 10:54 AM on May 5, 2013

Do you uptalk? (The speech pattern where it sounds like the person is asking a question even when making declarative statements). When I hear people talk like this, I feel subconsciously that I can't take what they say seriously, even though rationally I know better.
posted by pravit at 10:56 AM on May 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

This might not be anything you're doing--are most of the people who mistake your age male, and you are female? They could just be sexist or weirdly flirting unfortunately. I talk on the phone a lot for work and some people have no idea what appropriate small talk is.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:56 AM on May 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Perhaps you sound overly enthusiastic? I've often noticed that the younger a worker is, the more "giving 110%" they tend to sound. They're overly chipper, they speak quickly, and, well, they sound like this is their first job and they're really eager to help. Older workers with more experience have a more measured, thoughtful tempo.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:06 AM on May 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

Vocal fry may also be an issue for you, in addition to uptalk (mentioned above). This was my first thought.

You might want to focus on stuff like:
- Confidence!
- Speaking from your diaphragm (speak from your stomach, not your throat)
- Try to talk slower

You might say "like" a lot, which is a tip-off that you're younger.

If you're very serious about this problem, hire a vocal coach. They can help you work on the problem and you will probably get results fairly quickly.

And also - I'm not sure that sounding young is necessarily a problem. It can be irritating when people bring it up, but in my experience people tend to think I'm young because I'm short (which isn't a problem on the phone) and because I am really, really excited about my work and I haven't gotten ground down by 20+ years in the business (I'm 30). You know what? More people should be excited about what they do, in my opinion. If your problem is that you sound young and excited, and you're still able to articulate what you need to articulate using the right vocabulary, this won't be a problem. If someone makes a comment about how young you sound, you can say, "I am just really excited about this; I love my job!" and go on from there.
posted by k8lin at 12:17 PM on May 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

You could try recording yourself and see if anything pops out at you. If there are phrases or words you use repeatedly, pay attention to them and see if you think you need to change them.
posted by dottiechang at 1:40 PM on May 5, 2013

I spend a lot of time on calls with people of various hierarchy levels, some I know, some I don't know personally. And I deliberately equate hierarchy with age here because you're implying that you're being challenged due to your age, which I understand as proxy for perceived lack of seniority.

In my experience the most senior people on my immediate team listen, ask fairly specific questions and make statements because they've made a decision. They are never effusive with their language but clear and considered and deliberate.

The more senior people outside my immediate team don't necessarily listen as much, but they are always clear and considered in their use of language. I can always tell who's in charge and who isn't based on how people use language, especially when talking to a team I have never met, where I had no prior contact and cannot distinguish who's who based on the sound of their voice.
posted by koahiatamadl at 1:45 PM on May 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

I'm 43 and if I'm not on alert, I can sound 'young' or 'unprofessional', depending on how you look at it. I try to turn off my over-usage of 'like' and my go-to's of 'cool' and 'awesome' when I am on the phone with people who are themselves more professional than I am or who don't know me or whose professional status means they don't horse around (e.g. lawyers). I also try not to swear. I'm not always successful with those things, but I do try to modulate their usage.

An ability to manage informal conversation appropriately is a real professional skill, I've noticed. I'm not that good at it, so I tend to be all on or all off, but people who can remember a personal detail or joke on a conference call that puts others at ease, yet remain authoritative and professional, impress me.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 2:22 PM on May 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

You're getting good advice here. I used to have this problem and what helped me was: talking more slowly, using fewer and more-carefully-considered words, asking fewer questions, eradicating slang, doing less mirroring / less reflecting the person's words back to them, ditching the uptick, letting the conversation breathe (pauses), dialing back my enthusiasm, ditching all reflexive self-effacement, plus deliberate use of phrases like "in my experience."

(I did that purely when my goal was to seem authoritative: if my goal was to build intimacy or get someone to talk openly, I did other stuff.)

Never reference school experiences or internships or parents or childhood, or anything else that marks you as young. My worst experience ever in that regard was when I was introducing a new executive hire to my boss. My boss, making small talk, asked if the guy (who had relocated for the job) had brought his family with him. And the guy, confused, said "no, why would I do that?" It was instant status loss: the new hire was referencing his parents, while the boss was (obviously) referencing wife and kids. Ouch!
posted by Susan PG at 6:06 PM on May 5, 2013

Record yourself. It's really painful to listen to at first but it's immensely helpful.
posted by radioamy at 9:27 PM on May 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was just scrolling down to say what radioamy did just above.

Record yourself and listen back. It really does suck, and you will hate your voice. But it also helps.

I teach a lot of sales people to do technical presentations, and they improve by an order of magnitude after watching one of their own recordings. It's incredible.
posted by Thistledown at 11:44 AM on May 6, 2013

Voice coach and speech pathologist Carol Fleming wrote a book titled "The Sound of Your Voice". The audiobook version of that book (here on Amazon) might be an aid to you in retraining some of your conversational patterns.

Fleming echoes some of the good advice in this thread, including the advice on recording your own conversations. She provides training patterns of words and phrases which, once you've recorded them and listened to your recordings, helps to identify some of the common techniques by which we fail to allow our voice to best represent us.

If you are in a state that permits one-party consent to telephone recordings, I would also record one or more of your actual teleconference calls and use them for your own analysis.

Most of the business-class audio teleconference services that companies use provide you with the option to obtain a recording of any conference calls that you directly schedule with them. They automatically obtain all-party consent (with standard "calls may be recorded for training purposes" disclaimers upon joining a teleconference.)
posted by dott8080 at 11:53 PM on May 8, 2013