Ross Saunders (00:00)
Hello and welcome to This Is Not What I Signed Up For, the podcast for new managers teaching you how to swim so that you don't sink with your new responsibilities. And today I am very happy to have David Goldberg with me. David is the CEO of Edge Studio, which is a voiceover recording and training company in Times Square, New York. And David helps people build trust with strategic words, speaking patterns and presence. And...

His techniques are used by over 10,000 CEOs, politicians, podcasters, entrepreneurs. That's amazing. That's very, very cool. Uh, and I met David recently and he was just so kind and generous with his time and his words and chatting to us. And I'm very excited to have him on the podcast so he can share that warmth with you as well. So David, welcome.

David Goldberg (00:53)
Ross, thank you so much for taking the time to bring me into your podcast.

Ross Saunders (00:59)
I'm so glad to have you. So today we are going to be talking about trust and influence, but from your voice, which I think is going to be really, really cool to get into for the folks that have just got into management and things like that. ⁓ And finding out how your voice can influence the trust or influence you, your trust, your influence and so on in the workplace. So David, I'm going to jump right in. How does your voice relate to

Trust and Influence.

David Goldberg (01:30)
It doesn't just relate. is trust and influence. really is. Human voice, our voice is the most direct connection we have to our listener. Without question, this has been studied and researched and my goodness. It's such an important aspect of who we are, how we communicate, how we influence others, how we establish trust out there with colleagues, with customers. Yet the irony, the thing that really cracks me up is that

Ross Saunders (01:34)
Ha ha.

Mm.

David Goldberg (02:00)
It makes me ponder, I should say, is that it's not really taught. I look at my own kids in grade school and they're not taught how to use their voices. They're told to give oral presentations in school in front of all the parents and they're frightened because they've never been taught how to do that. And so most of us go through this world and never take a coaching session on how to speak differently or better. And as a consequence,

Ross Saunders (02:04)
Hmm.

David Goldberg (02:29)
Lots of people don't come across as brilliantly as they are. Lots of people don't get promoted as they should. Lots of people are held back for a whole myriad of reasons because they haven't learned some techniques that can help them really do well in this world, ⁓ in the job and off the job, in life and, you know, I guess I would say in life and in the workplace. ⁓ Once you learn a couple of key skills, it is amazing.

much more successful you can be.

Ross Saunders (03:02)
You made me think back to when I was in school as well. speaking aside from the odd presentation in front of the class was a separate extramural that you had to sign up for and you had to really want to do it separately. And it was like part of the debate team. And I think that was one of the best things I could have done in school was going through ⁓ SA Guild speaking, which is what I did. ⁓ Yeah, it really does.

You've made me think just what you're explaining there, how I've seen it kind of play out in the workplace for myself and seeing people who've got that command of it and how it works for them. ⁓ How do you see it with the folks that you've dealt with and all that? How do you see all of this playing out in the workplace? You've mentioned bit of it now, ⁓ but what are some of the situations that play out?

David Goldberg (03:55)
Every situation plays out, honestly. People have all different kinds of speaking habits they've picked up along the way. Sometimes they're due to just ⁓ culture, demographics, language, their parents, the way they were brought up. Sometimes it is ⁓ due to just, ⁓ I don't know, just the way they feel that they should be, the way they feel they should communicate. They want to be like their friends. People speak all different ways for all different reasons.

And most people don't recognize the fact that they could go further once they learn these skills. I think the telltale sign is that when people listen back to themselves in a speaking situation, like for example, if someone gives a keynote speech or a toast at a wedding and they watch the video back, probably 99 out of 100 times they'll watch that video back and say, ooh. ⁓

I didn't realize how fast I was speaking. I didn't realize how slowly I was speaking. I didn't realize how choppy I sounded. I didn't realize this. I didn't realize that. And unless you have that opportunity, most people never recognize the fact that they're being held back.

Ross Saunders (04:52)
Thank

That's interesting. And in that kind of situation, do you encourage people to watch their themselves speak? ⁓ To kind of learn those kinds of things, get that awareness?

David Goldberg (05:17)
Yes, sometimes yes, sometimes no. If you don't know what to listen for, then listening to something that may not be the best speaking pattern can do worse for you because you'll be, you know, like engraving that, that lesser quality speaking pattern into your brain. So if you know what to listen for, if you know how to make adjustments that are tailored for you, then it can be great. It's also, a lot of it comes down to understanding your ability, how far your voice can go. We all can't sound, ⁓

Ross Saunders (05:26)
Hmm.

that's interesting.

Hmm.

David Goldberg (05:47)
as good as the person we may aspire to sound like. Maybe I can't sound like Morgan Freeman. My voice is not deep enough. I don't have that gravitas, you know? And I could look around and say, oh, I wish I spoke like that person or, oh, I wish I spoke like this person. We all have our DNA to some degree, our abilities.

I was born hearing impaired and I was an extremely delayed speaker and I have my limitations. You know, I'm very conscious of the way I speak. know already three or four times in our three minutes together, I've had a fumble for work that happens to me. And it took me years to accept the fact. And I can't sit there all day long and think, I wish that didn't happen because I would never get anywhere in this world. We all have to understand the limitations of our voice, how much we can grow with our voice.

and then and understand how to tailor our own voice for the different situations that we face in life. Once you do that, then you can listen back to yourself and learn.

Ross Saunders (06:44)
That's interesting. ⁓ I think something I've learned recently as well is also kind of accepting some of the things in my speech and all of that. ⁓ I feel like almost my brain gets ahead of my mouth. I end up stumbling and tripping over my words as well.

David Goldberg (07:03)
Yeah. And you know, it's funny, a lot of people have a concern about speaking publicly for a variety of different reasons. And like I said, for me, it's, it's fumbling for that word. It's forgetting the next word. It does happen. And it, it's something that if you can accept, then you can be much more comfortable on stage or in a boardroom meeting. I will tell you that there is a large percentage of the population who will not speak up when they have something to say. And once again,

relating back to your first question, those people are held back in business, in the business world, and probably in their personal lives as well, because they don't speak up for fear of saying the wrong word or coming across incorrectly. That is a shame.

Ross Saunders (07:48)
And I think that that kind of ties into one of the questions I wanted to ask you as well. ⁓ And, you know, bringing around your voice affecting your performance. And you were mentioning now like people might not want to raise their voice or something like that. ⁓ Are there other ways that it affects your performance? thinking like performance in a work environment where you've got KPIs that that measures your performance.

on paper that, you completed these tasks, therefore you are performing at 100%. How does your voice come into that? Because there must be some sort of effect there as well.

David Goldberg (08:31)
Yeah, it's hard to measure. So if you look at KPIs, they're great. They definitely have this place in the world. We use them in my business. You can look at someone's metrics and did they reach a target and, you know, in timeline, did they reach a dollar amount, a percentage of whatever. That's all great. And there's certainly merit to, to looking at those numbers and studying them and understanding someone's ability and how well they've done with the business. But as I said earlier, the, our

the direction, rather the connection that we can create through human voice is so strong, yet it's hard to measure. So if you use your voice really well, if you connect with people, are you effectively a better leader? I would argue yes. And so if you can lead teams better, well then the company may be more successful, but how do you measure that by the way you speak? How, know, on a scale of one to 10, do people like following you as a leader? mean, it's not an exact KPI, it's very subjective.

Do you build credibility better for you or for your team? Do you represent your company better because you speak better or you tell or those under you kind of follow your lead and use your words and now they also represent the company better. Everything comes along with how you speak. It's all about connecting, making that relationship. Truly, it's all about building trust. So for all of these years, I've studied voice and the nuances of voice and what does it mean when someone speaks poorly versus someone who speaks clearly?

Ross Saunders (09:43)
Hmm.

Yeah.

David Goldberg (09:59)
comfortably, confidently, competently. And when you speak well, you establish that trust. You make amazing, amazing first impressions. You make people more receptive to your messages, which means you are a better leader. And you influence those around you. You can really influence, and especially it's great if you want to influence customers.

Ross Saunders (10:16)
Mm-hmm.

David Goldberg (10:24)
Right? So even in that sense, like what customer would buy from a company or a representative if they don't believe in that or trust that representative. And so these metrics that we look at with KPIs are great, but with human voice, there's not a KPI. However, I would argue that it is equally or even more important to use your voice well.

Ross Saunders (10:31)
Yeah.

I think what you've mentioned there is just so many opportunities that, come from building your voice and that trust and influence, ⁓ just in sort of that, that listing that you gave now. ⁓ you know, when it comes to these skills, then are, are there some tips that you can give, ⁓ here or, or anything like that on how folks would start to build these skills? Like say someone is,

very much feeling this like, that's me not kind of making that. Where would someone start? some of the tips to build?

David Goldberg (11:24)
putting together an entire curriculum and now organizing it and trying to think what to say. Okay, I would say the number one thing, ⁓ two things, two overall points I should communicate. Number one, there is no one right way to do anything. There are so many different situations and platforms and audiences who we can speak with. So when assessing how you should speak, you need to look at the demographic, number one.

Ross Saunders (11:28)
Ha ha ha.

David Goldberg (11:54)
What ⁓ matching their voice, mirroring their voice, mirroring their energy and all of that stuff is important. Number two, understand the platform in which you're speaking on. This is Zoom. The microphone is three inches from my mouth. know, lots of listeners have headphones on. I'm not sure if you're wearing headphones, but lots of people have headphones on, which means essentially I'm three inches from someone's ears. I don't need to yell. If I was on stage with a...

a room of 300 people with no microphone, I would need to project. And if I projected that way right now, it would sound really bad. time and place for everything. understanding... Yeah. So just understanding the platform, whether you're a video conferencing, on mic, on stage, online, in person, in a boardroom, at a conference center, which is quiet, or in a conference center, which is loud. Understanding how to use your voice differently in all of those applications is important.

Ross Saunders (12:29)
I would know very quick,

David Goldberg (12:51)
Thirdly, would say understanding the message, the situation or the reason why you're speaking. Something powerful, something where you want to influence, something where you want to just inform. So the number one answer to your question is to know that there's not one right way to do anything. You're always looking at your demographic, your platform, and the situation why you are speaking. The second thing to know is that I believe you cannot look at vague

general techniques in this industry to learn how to do things. need to have adjustments that work for your voice. In other words, just about every, I don't want to, I don't mean to put anyone down, but most public speakers or speaking coaches, ⁓ podcast schools, ⁓ CEO schools, leadership schools, all of these places tend to talk a lot about, they all say that, well, I'm going to say this differently.

They promote that they teach you how to speak. They tell you, we'll get you speaking like a CEO or we'll get you speaking like a podcaster, but they tend to use these very general, vague ⁓ guidelines. For example, they may say, make sure when you speak publicly, you don't go too fast. I never tell people not to go too fast. I think that's meaningless. I tell people how to slow down. There are two or three or four different kinds of

Ross Saunders (14:14)
Hmm.

David Goldberg (14:17)
of techniques that are all simple, super simple, and they work really effectively at helping someone slow down. So instead of telling someone to slow down or don't go too fast, I tell people how to do those things. And so I have, without exaggeration, must be thousands of little techniques that I've built up over the years that just work. And everyone I coach gets a different set of adjustments to make based upon their voice and the platform where they are and the situation while they're speaking and, and so on.

Ross Saunders (14:46)
Hmm, that's fascinating. Yeah.

David Goldberg (14:47)
I'll give you an example.

And it's a fun one. And when you and I met the first time, I did mention this. I'm quite sure I did, but for your listeners, it's so, it's the epitome of what I do. I have a client in Washington, DC. She is, she runs a consulting agency, her and a partner, they run a consulting agency. They help CEOs of large nonprofits, very large nonprofits do their thing. And she's brilliant. She called me up recently and said, David.

I need you to speak to the chairman for this particular of this particular nonprofit. He's giving an investor pitch. It's a three minute timed investor pitch of which you'll have three, uh, three investors on and 200 of the employees at this nonprofit all on this webinar. He's nervous because he feels he has way more than three minutes of content to get through in three minutes. He has to get through this content. So he's nervous that he's going to speak too quickly.

And then he's nervous because he's going to sound nervous. Like he, he, knows he's going to have to speak quickly, which makes him nervous. And therefore he's nervous about sounding nervous. And she said, can you help them? And I said, yeah, sure. Do what you always do. Just send an introduction email. I can, you know, speak with them and give them a coaching session or two. And she said, no, no, no, I can't introduce you by email. The investor pitches tonight. I said, okay.

Ross Saunders (15:52)
Mm.

That's it.

David Goldberg (16:10)
So can you put him on the phone? I'll speak with him for a couple of minutes and give him some suggestions." she said, no, no, no, the investor pitch is like momentarily from now. Like it's happening in a few minutes. Just tell me what to tell him. So I said, okay, tell him to do two things. I said, tell him to slow down the first word of every sentence, to stretch or elongate the first word of every sentence. And I said, tell him to also double the amount of space between sentences.

And anyway, she communicated those two things to the seat, to the chairman. did those two things. Evidently, everything went great. They called me the next day and said like, unbelievable. Those two things saved the day. And, and so I'll, I'll tell you in the viewers why I prescribed those two adjustments. Number one, if someone has a lot of information, they're going to rush. And the moment they rush, they're going to elevate their pitch. When you elevate your pitch, you sound like you're nervous.

And so by telling someone to lower their pitch, they will no longer sound nervous. But I don't know, does this guy know anything about pitch? I don't know. He may understand what pitch is, he may not. Yet if I tell him to slow down the first word of every sentence, that's easy. Anyone can understand what that means. And when you slow down a word, also subconsciously, unknowingly, you lower your pitch. So I want this guy to make sure, I want to make sure he doesn't sound nervous. That's my number one thing. Because, because

Ross Saunders (17:21)
Hmm.

Hmm.

David Goldberg (17:39)
No investor will invest in him if they think he is nervous. You need someone who's comfortable, confident, can handle themselves in crisis. If you can't even get through an investor pitch, how can he handle the whole company? So I tell him to slow down the first word of every sentence and that lowers the pitch. now, like I said, while he may still be nervous, he won't sound nervous.

Ross Saunders (17:45)
Yeah.

David Goldberg (18:05)
And then the reason I told him to take double the space between sentences is kind of weird because it sounds counterproductive. Like he has so much content to get through. Why would I tell him to take more time? However, by taking a break in between sentences, it means that he can always catch his breath. He can think about the next word. He can avoid getting tongue tied, speaking in circles, whatever. He can get to the content, ⁓ much more clearly. And so I think ultimately he'll get through more content in less time.

Ross Saunders (18:20)
Hmm.

David Goldberg (18:35)
And because he takes breaks, the audience, the investors can follow along with what he's saying. They will have time to take it in. In other words, a lot of people who are feeling the necessity to get through a lot of content, they go from sentence one into sentence two, then into sentence three, then into sentence four, and the audience cannot keep up with that. And once the audience is confused, once you confuse your listener, they check out. They're gone. They're off to solitaire. So it's a little...

Ross Saunders (18:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

David Goldberg (19:03)
Little things like that. And that's what I do all day. I work with CEOs, lots of politicians, a whole lot of politicians. ⁓ These days, almost as many politicians as CEOs. And CEOs are where I kind of cut my teeth there for a while. I work with lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of startups, and just helping them figure out how to give the elevator pitch, how to give a boardroom meeting, how to sit on a speaking seminar.

Ross Saunders (19:26)
Yeah.

David Goldberg (19:30)
I've really focused a lot also on, a whole lot on presence. I'm down to like the way they point their feet when they walk out on stage, you know, the angle that they sit at, you know, don't, all kinds of things, know, their posture, just everything that goes into it. You know what, think Ross, it comes down to a lot of, about attention to detail. Most of us are unconcerned about so many things that our audience takes in unconsciously.

And so we're not concerned with things that they are taking in. So if you sit there with your legs spread in a weird way, you kind of walk out slouching, you rush your first word, whatever it is, you may not even be thinking, should I do this on the first word or not? But your audience consciously or subconsciously takes all that stuff in. And when you rush through that stuff, it shows a lack of attention to detail. And that's the way you weaken your image. You lose the trust in the audience. And my whole thing is.

Ross Saunders (20:00)
Yeah.

Mm.

David Goldberg (20:30)
Let's build trust. For politicians, you build trust so people vote for you. For CEOs, you build trust so people follow you. You you influence others. And for startups, so they get investment. And that's the whole goal of what I do.

Ross Saunders (20:42)
Yeah. I'm in the startup space quite a bit. And I must say that the amount of speaking that happens in the startup space is astounding. ⁓

David Goldberg (20:53)
yeah, for

podcasts and ⁓ investor pitches, customer presentations. I mean, there's just so many applications to be able to... In today's world, there are constantly more and more applications in which you can speak. And any investor, rather any entrepreneur out there should be completely comfortable going into any situation and knowing how to speak in that given situation. Let's just be prepared.

Ross Saunders (21:01)
yeah.

⁓ Yeah. I think,

yeah. And I think that filters down to kind of every level. ⁓ and I think the sooner you can learn this kind of stuff, the better. ⁓ this has been fantastic, David. ⁓ can you give folks a little tip or a little bit about what you're busy with at the moment and where people could reach you if they want to learn more about this?

David Goldberg (21:48)
Yeah, I am busy at the moment. I'm too busy to answer that question. No, I'm kidding. So I own a, well, you said it earlier. I own a voice recording company for 38 years. We just hit 38 years, which is amazing. And we're based in Times Square. have a whole floor in Times Square. If anyone is in New York City, feel welcome to stop by. It's a very cool place. My teams are amazing.

Ross Saunders (21:54)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Wow, congrats.

David Goldberg (22:16)
I have one employee at years, another employee at 19 years. I have a lot of employees who've been there 10, 11, 12 years. This is my family, their team, they're amazing. ⁓ So we record all sorts of voice and we ⁓ do everything with voice, truly. We record podcasts, we record commercials, animations, documentaries, audio books. Anytime you hear voice rec-

of recording a voice, that is what we work on, the soundtrack for video games and cartoons and all sorts of things. So that keeps me extremely busy. What else keeps me busy is just working my sort of like I step. I'm not, I've never stepped away from my company, but it runs great. And like I said, my teams are great and I spend most of my day working with CEOs and politicians. And so if anyone wants to get in touch with me, my email is David @ edge

studio.com i'll repeat that david at edge studio.com

Ross Saunders (23:21)
And we'll put a link to that in the show notes for this as well. So folks will have that over there and a link to the website as well. I think you've given me a few things that I'm already making like internal notes. I'm speaking at an event on Thursdays. Hmm. Okay. Maybe I should think about slowing down the first words and watch my pitch when I walk out on stage.

David Goldberg (23:41)
May I share one last thing really quickly? The thing that concerns most people about speaking publicly is the fear of something going wrong. That makes sense, right? You know, your fear, like if you had complete confidence that nothing would go wrong, then you probably wouldn't be concerned about speaking publicly. Most people are concerned about something going wrong. And what I would share with anyone is that any fear you have, think of a reason to get around it.

Ross Saunders (23:52)
Yeah.

David Goldberg (24:10)
So it no longer needs to be a fear. And I'll give you a couple of very quick examples. I worked with someone last week or possibly two weeks ago. She told me that she has a whole, like she's going on stage to give this presentation, a rather large presentation in her industry. She's a subject matter expert. She's telling me that she's scared because she has to hold a piece of paper with all her notes on it. And she knows that it's terrible to read on stage, which I get that.

But she still, she she needs this piece of paper so she feels secure. So I said, well then tell the audience that you're excited about this. I said, tell the audience to say something like this. Ladies and gentlemen, I am so excited to offer you a brand new curriculum. I have it in front of me because I don't want to miss a point. I have some bullets here. I'm going to glance over and make sure I nail everything. And like, at least you give yourself permission to hold that piece of paper. So if you have to hold something like a teddy bear, you know, something to ground you then.

Make a point for it. If you think you might forget a section of your seminar or whatever you're speaking about, remember that no one else will know that you skipped something. I may have forgotten to tell you something today that I really wanted to tell you, Ross, but how would you or anyone else know?

Ross Saunders (25:21)
That's one of the best things I've ever had said to me that calmed my nerves entirely. The audience doesn't know what you were about to say.

David Goldberg (25:31)
They

don't. And if you really want to say something and you lose your train of thought, just take a water breaks. Say, everyone, this is a great time for Q and A, know, to do a quick Q and A, like, you know, and also there's nothing wrong. I, in fact, there's everything right, I believe about saying to an audience. That was a great question. I know you asked the question. It was so good. I even forgot what it was. Remind me what that was. And then you show your human being and people respect you more.

Ross Saunders (25:56)
Yeah.

David Goldberg (26:00)
When you show you're a vulnerable, you're a regular person, when you associate you yourself with the audience, as opposed to putting yourself up on stage, so to speak, but you're just one of them, then you are appreciated much more. And that helps grow that trust, that bond of trust. So yeah, if you are scared about speaking publicly, just think about it from their perspective, you're probably okay. and one last thing about this. Almost in every public situation when you're speaking, there is going to be someone playing solitaire on their phone.

or sleeping, don't worry about it. We have this, we're like this draw to focus on the person who's not paying attention. Like someone is like ⁓ on solitaire and you walk over to them and you ask them the question like, come on, what do you think? If someone deems that something is more important, then that's okay. Focus your energy on the people who care about what you're talking about. Don't worry about the people who don't care about it. And nonetheless,

Ross Saunders (26:56)
I love that.

David Goldberg (26:59)
I've had situations when I've given a full hour speech and someone's on their phone the entire time. And then at the end they come up to me and they say, that was great. I took like eight pages of notes. show me on their phone and I'm thinking, that's really freaking cool. You know, and they asked me a question about one thing they missed or something. So ⁓ just accept that some people will sleep. Some people will take, ⁓ will play games and it's fine. Totally fine. You can't please everyone.

Ross Saunders (27:11)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, absolutely. David, thank you so much for this. This has been wonderful. I've loved having you on here. I'd love to chat more sometime as well. ⁓ To our listeners, thank you for being here. I hope you got a lot of value out of this. I know certainly I did, but David, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it.

David Goldberg (27:47)
I appreciate your sharing time with me.

Ross Saunders (27:49)
Till next time everyone, keep swimming.