Business
Sally Prosser is a voice coach who’s all about helping you find your vocal confidence and courage. She says unless you’ve sworn a lifetime vow of silence, your voice matters and is key to connecting with others – whether it’s one person at a coffee catch-up or a thousand people at a conference. Sally’s background is quite diverse but speaking is a common theme. She ran a Speech & Drama studio, read the news on radio, reported it on TV and was the spokesperson for Queensland’s largest water company (not all at the same time, might I add!) Sally holds a licentiate teaching diploma in speech and drama with the Australian Music Examinations Board, as well as degrees in Journalism and Law from the University of Wollongong. She also has a podcast called That Voice Podcast. Connect With Sally Prosser Website Podcast Facebook Instagram Twitter TikTok Victor Ahipene: Speaking nation. Welcome to another episode of public speaking secrets. Super excited to have you here where I’m probably going to get judged for my lack of vocal tonality cause we’ve got Sally Prosser who is a voice and presentation coach and she’s had a raft of experience across multiple different industries and different ways that we present, which I’m super excited to be able to dive into. So welcome to the show, Sally. Sally Prosser: Thanks for having me, Victor. Good to be here. Give Victor Ahipene: everyone a bit of a background, I guess, how did you get to where and what you’re doing now? Sally Prosser: Well, I’m sure as most people say, how much time do you have? So it could go on from it. But I guess the, in a nutshell, I started out as a speech and drama teacher. So for anyone out there who’s done a Stedford growing up, poetry, prose, that kind of thing. And then I got to a point where I thought, Oh my goodness, if I have one more child come in the door wanting to do a tongue twister, I, you know, don’t think I can continue. So at UNI I studied law actually and also journalism. And I worked as the broadcast news journalist. So I did radio, uh, then moved into the area where you had to blow dry your hair TV unfortunately. Uh, and then I went from news reporting to PR, which is a very, it’s called crossing to the dark side. So the journalists who cross crossover to PR, that’s what they’re called. And I was the spokesperson for Brisbane’s a water and sewerage company. So there you go. The glamour girl for Siri. Victor Ahipene: Yeah. Does that, does that need lots of spokesperson? Sally Prosser: Well, you know what they say, if you can sell it, then you can sell anything. Right. Um, and then it was while I was there in the corporate setting that I started to understand how much of a skill public speaking, well, how much it was lacking. Really. A lot of people were struggling to speak up in meetings, struggling to speak in front of people, being asked to be on a panel or speak at a conference and be freaking out, wanting someone else to do it. And so about a couple of years ago I left and I’ve started my own business. Victor Ahipene: Nice. Do you kind of diving into that aspect on the corporate side, do you find it to particular level that uh, you know, to put it bluntly, like sucks at the presentational fears, the presentation side? Like is it their middle manager person, is that, you know, still happening at the CEO or the C level side of things? Or is it those, you know, people aspiring, cause I’d be interested from someone who’s going to been in there on the ground level seeing it, Sally Prosser: you know, I saw it at all levels, right? From people who don’t even apply for jobs. If they have to do any sort of speaking, they actually bring up insight. Do I have to do any speaking in this role? And if they say yes, they say, Oh than