Rehearse for success

People hate to rehearse. If you were going to play an important golf match, you’d probably go to the practice range a few times, perhaps spend an hour or two with a golf pro for lessons and play a few rounds with the intentions of fixing that which needs attention.

 

Yet, when it’s time to rehearse a presentation that can lead to more business and a career pointed north, people can’t seem to find the time or inclination.  It’s really criminal to spend so much time putting a presentation together to solve the challenges of your prospect and then not put lots more time into thinking through how you and your team will present it to the client.

 

I will now step off the soapbox and give you a few thoughts on rehearsals.

 

Never rehearse in front of a mirror.  The reason you might get nervous when presenting in front of a group of people is the group of people.  A mirror doesn’t resolve that issue.  Secondly, when you start staring at yourself too long in the mirror you’ll start noticing your imperfections - hair, the whiteness of your teeth and a dozen other things.  Before you ever finish a run through you will have forgotten about the presentation and be focused on a plastic surgeon.

 

Following up on the no mirror rule is the “use people” rule. Every time you rehearse do so in front of real people. They could be your colleagues, family or even people on the subway, but you need people to rehearse in front of to be more effective.

 

Create a safe rehearsal zone. Be very supportive, not very critical. You can't change anyone overnight.

 

If you have a long presentation with lots of presenters, make sure that there is at least one rehearsal with everyone present. NO EXCEPTIONS!  You don’t need to have everyone rehearse their entire presentation, but there’s a value to having people give their open and close then hand the podium over to the next speaker.  This is also a good time to see everyone’s slides so that everyone else can review them and spot typos and inaccuracies.

 

Know your open and close cold and practice it.  The opening gets you off to a great and confident start. When you know the close, it’s a handy device to have in your pocket if you have to get off the stage early.  Just deliver the close, give a big smile and walk off the stage.

 

Another valuable research tip is to have one rehearsal session in which each of the speakers doesn’t give his/her presentation but talks through the logic of what they will be presenting and why it is so important to the audience. Don’t use notes for this session.

 

I’m suggesting many different kinds of rehearsals. Do them all. The more you practice, the more successful you and your team will get.