You are travelling less, with more meetings taking place over the phone. This means you have no ability to impart body language or read cues from others. Now it's up to you to control the meeting with your 'voice presence'. How much of an advantage can you give to your business by improving speech performance? Recent research* has shown how much time is wasted time on conference calls.

Imagine running a manufacturing operation with that level of efficiency. So how do you change this? Speech Impact - skills based training from Plantronics and Tony Crawford.

The research for face-to-face discussions shows that just 7% of a conversation's importance is attributed to the message, 38% is tone of voice with body language at 55%*. Whereas in voice-only calls 13% is attributed to the message and 87%** accounts for tone of voice. The difference is clear - get these factors right and not only does productivity increase, but customer engagement and loyalty increases as well.

There are four methods defined by Tony Crawford our Speech Impact Expert, available to you to raise your speech impact, and really stimulate people using your voice.

Vary the power, or loudness of your voice. Speaking softly can add emphasis, and authority when used to give instructions. Suddenly switching to a louder voice for one or two words can grab attention. Constant variation will be a distraction for everyone, so use changes in power sparingly - soft for instructions, and one or two louder words at the beginning of sentences to ensure you have attention.

Change the pitch, or tone of your voice for emphasis. Adding subtle variations to the pitch - such as raising the tone at the end of a sentence helps you to indicate this is a question and you are looking for an answer. If you lower the tone, then this adds a level of seriousness to your voice.

Slow down! The rule is that if you think you are speaking too slowly, then you are speaking at the right pace!

Nothing gets peoples' attention more than a break in the conversation. If they are used to hearing you speak, then the break in talking captures the attention and enables you to add emphasis to what follows. Don't, pause, after, every, word - this sounds scripted and false. Add a pause in just before you want to ensure you have attention, or just before you summarise.

With the significant advances made in other technologies, you would assume that overall voice quality of phone calls has gradually improved. Yet with the growth of mobile phones, VoIP and other network variables, audio quality has actually declined - to the point where it has become less reliable and less intelligible. Your voice travels on a significant journey on calls made across the wide range of networks and phones available. The result is that the sound quality of calls can vary dramatically - and in turn, can increase the potential for misunderstanding, repeat calls and poor business relationships.

The modern headset is fast becoming the communication tool of choice for business users like you, because it is a professional grade product designed to meet these new and challenging conditions, making your life easier with intelligently designed technology that delivers faithful, high quality reproduction. And that means in any conditions, or any location.

When you work in areas of high background noise - Plantronics noise-cancelling microphones enable you to be heard clearly, rather than just the airport announcements. AudioIQ2® technology adapts listening levels automatically, making sure that your customer is also heard clearly. And when you work outside, microphones with Windsmart™ help to eliminate off-putting 'wind blowing' noises.

The net result is better conversations. And better business.

Headsets not only help to overcome intelligibility issues with new technologies - they also help to maximise your potential. If you are working with the latest wideband IP networks, the HD voice capability built-in to the latest Plantronics headsets, takes the standard telephony bandwidth and doubles it to 6.8KHz - dramatically improving the intelligibility of the consonant sounds in your voice that would lose energy in standard telephone conversations.

The desk phone is undoubtedly on the decline - mobility is now the driving factor for the demands of modern working. Yet the rise of the lightweight headset is no overnight sensation; it is a 50 year design evolution from the first headset specified for NASA's historic moon mission through the deployment of innovative technology.

And innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology. In Plantronics, ergonomic design is real and honest design for real-life interaction - and has never been more prevalent than in today's headset solutions built for everyday use. Ultra light, Plantronics headsets are built for high satisfaction and to suit your needs. From ear size measurements to sizing alignment, weight and balance - superior comfort is crucial. No two ears are alike, and as a technology innovator, Plantronics conducts the industry's most comprehensive research into the human ear to maximise comfort for all of its user base. Advanced, functional design is paramount to providing you with high satisfaction.

This leads to tangible benefits delivered back to your business through enhanced productivity benefits and a reduction in posture related ailments.

Whether you already have experience with a UC audio device deployment or this is your first project, Plantronics can help.

We've taken first-hand customer experiences plus lessons learned and created the Plantronics UC Toolkit. Specifically designed for the IT professional, the UC Toolkit will help you conduct a smooth UC audio device deployment, which results in high user adoption.

The Plantronics UC Toolkit is a portfolio of IT best practices, recommendations and off-the-shelf tools aligned with five phases - Trial, Plan, Deploy, Adopt and Evolve - designed to let you leverage the most relevant information for your own UC environment and company goals.

Leesman is Europe's leader in measuring workplace effectiveness, with our audit services providing deep insight into how well corporate environments support the productive work activities of the teams they accommodate. Our database is set to become Europe's largest resource of consistent workplace effectiveness data.

The Leesman Index is the first unified and truly independent workplace effectiveness benchmarking tool. The Index e-survey captures employee's sense of productivity and engagement with their work environments and provides businesses with critical insight into how their buildings are performing.

With an unparalleled suite of easily and inexpensively deployed high performance tools, we can provide a range of qualitative and quantitative audit services that provide executive boards, project managers, workplace designers, corporate real estate teams and change management consultants, clear line of sight to timely and accurate, benchmark performance data.

e-Work.com is an industry leader in delivering highly interactive, e-learning training based upon leading global best practices in new ways of working. The course blend work practice with workplace providing a holistic and integrated approach.

e-Work.com's training and management tools provide employees and managers with the skills and confidence needed to ensure maximum performance and enjoyment in the virtual workplace. The web-based training not only incorporates advanced learning techniques, but it is also highly customizable so it can take on an organizations specific look and feel...all at a very reasonable price point. It makes change management and training compelling, consistent and globally scalable. The typical timeframe to deploy is about two weeks.

The product was originally co-developed with Microsoft in 2006 and since has been leveraged throughout organizations such as AT&T, Nissan, Lilly, Plantronics, Sony, Pearson Education, Partners Healthcare and Intuit and a host of other world-class organizations.

Skill training generally focuses on professional call centre users or telephone sales teams. The projection of "brand personality" or "voice signature" through voice based presentation from the rest of the business is often not even considered.

Yet it doesn't take a big investment to seize the opportunity. Competitive edge can easily be achieved by using straightforward measures to tune voices with: pace, pause, power and pitch.

Tone over content - the figures are remarkable. The research for face-to-face discussions shows that just 7% of a conversation's importance is attributed to the message, 38% is tone of voice with body language at 55%*. Whereas in voice-only calls 13% is attributed to the message and 87%** accounts for tone of voice. The difference is clear - get these factors right and not only does productivity increase, but customer engagement and loyalty increases as well.

Speech Impact is an academy from Plantronics designed to maximise and dramatically improve a company's business performance by harnessing the power of the voice over the phone. The aim is to engage, train and motivate all levels of management and staff with a high value education programme to improve communication results. It features proven audio techniques and methodologies from Tony Crawford, Europe's leading communication and presentation expert.

* Face To Face: Mehrabian, A. (1971). Silent messages. Wadsworth, Belmont, California.
** Telephone: Mehrabian, Albert & Morton Wiener (1967): Decoding of inconsistent communications.