Confidently Communicate Competence—Talk Like an Expert 

“You can always tell the strong women in the room—they’re the ones building the others up.”  

In addition to making wise word choice and quitting the qualifiers, speaking has additional components—speed, intensity, and pitch. While all play a role in sounding competent and credible, I’m going to focus on the one that trips my students and me up the most: pitch.  

Have you watched reality TV lately? If so, you’ve probably been exposed to more upspeak than you care to acknowledge. Upspeak—where you end sentences by raising your vocal pitch instead of lowering it—is on its way to epidemic proportions in the United States. Credit the Kardashians or any number of other pop celebrities and you’ll hear upspeak perfected. The problem is that no one takes an up-speaker seriously. They may be cool and hip in pop culture but they’re not running for president, climbing a corporate ladder, or establishing expertise. Put politics aside and listen to Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, or respected journalists like Nora O’Donnell, Leslie Stahl, and Savannah Guthrie (who is trained as a lawyer BTW). They speak slowly, lower their pitch when the sentence concludes, and pause between sentences. 

Once again (notice the pattern here) in our efforts to be likeable and friendly, we engage in upspeak. We are so desperate to come across as friendly and welcoming that we undercut our authority and sound like valley girls. Unfortunately, upspeak only serves to make us sound less authoritative and lacking confidence.

How difficult is it to break this habit? While teaching my students to talk like an expert, I listened to my recorded message on my answering machine. How embarrassing. In my efforts to sound welcoming and friendly, I sounded like an idiot. It took me five times of re-recording to end each sentence with a period and pause. And guess what? I still sound friendly only now I sound professional as well.  

Learning to talk like an expert takes practice. Remember thirty-seven percent of credibility is how you say it, not what you say—so you need not be the ultimate expert on the topic you’re discussing.  

You’ll be amazed how convincing you can sound by varying your speech pattern. When I demonstrate this activity in class, after much practice, it is scary how competent I sound on a topic where I have only general information.   

Now that you’ve practiced talking like an expert, let’s practice being the expert.  

The first time I did this exercise in a group, I was panicked. Petrified. Scared to death. No, I was not in first grade. I had my Ph.D., tenure, and was respected in my field. And yet, I was terrified to claim expertise. When I practice this exercise with my students, I learn I am not alone.  

There are numerous reasons why we are afraid to claim expertise, but none are legitimate and all can be handled gracefully with practice. A common fear is that someone else in the room also claims expertise in our area. So what? Who cares?  Great. There can be more than one expert. Assuming that only one person can have the title expert in a given field is a mindset of scarcity and competition. If there can only be one, your focus will be on besting the other person and excluding them from the conversation so you can build yourself up. In a scarcity and competition mindset, you need to be the expert, so you can win and they then lose. Not a positive environment. Here’s the deal. Stop it. Now. Replace scarcity and competition with a mindset of abundance and cooperation. An atmosphere of cooperation and abundance stimulates the belief that there can be more than one expert and in fact, you can learn and cooperate with each other to enhance the expertise of all. And remember, shining your light doesn’t diminish the light of others; it makes the room brighter. So shine on, sisters. Declare and share your expertise. 

Another one of my biggest fears is not being able to live up to the expert title. What if someone calls you out—questioning your expertise or knowledge in the subject? First, let me share from personal experience, exactly how many times has that happened to me: Zero. That’s right, a big O. Nada. No way. Never. While we fear that people will call us out and we will be publicly shamed, that rarely happens. And if, or when it does, it says more about the person doing the name-calling than your expertise. But if someone points out that you missed something or that you haven’t read his/her latest book on the topic, it still isn’t the end of the world. Do the same thing you do when someone brings a mistake to your attention: smile, say thank you, and ask for more information. “No, I haven’t seen your study but I’d love to read it. Can you send it to me?” The heckler feels good because you acknowledged their expertise and you feel good because you didn’t give away your power. Remember in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt—no one can make you feel bad about yourself without your permission.¹ Don’t give them permission.