Does practice make perfect when it comes to giving presentations? Simply put, no.
The permanence of practice.
Not just practicing, but practicing perfectly, should be your aim. Whether something is right or bad, the more you do it, the more natural it feels. Therefore, when we rehearse our presentations, we must do it correctly.
Understanding a subject does not ensure success. What matters is your ability to clearly communicate your point and engage your audience, and excellent preparation can help you do this.
Practice Has Helped Me...
A recent sales presentation about the potential of BRODY Professional Development that I was requested to give serves as a personal illustration of how effective perfect practice is. I gave my presentation to one of my account managers after arranging it. She made a few recommendations, one of which was that I begin with a tale.
I practiced my presentation with one of our facilitators who attended the meeting after I modified it. She collaborated with me to make the presentation more dynamic and sensitive to the client’s particular demands. We also practiced how she may lead some of the conversation.
In addition to practicing our timing, we also practiced segues between the two of us to make sure they were seamless. Even our seating arrangements in the room were discussed to maximize audience participation. We practiced it three more times in the car on the way to the customer site in New York.
The good news is that we achieved results (we closed the transaction) when we came because we were prepared, had anticipated their queries, and the time was perfect.
Practice Will Help You, too.
Presenting on the spot rarely yields the desired outcomes. Here is the strategy that, dare I say it, always produces positive results for me.
I’m going to assume that you have prepared:
- Know your PALTM (Purpose, Audience & Logistics).
- Gather information that is current, accurate, and pertinent.
- When necessary, include examples, tales, emotive appeals, and some images to help illustrate the statistics.
- Create a tale by arranging the resources in a way that the information flows logically and there are seamless transitions between the concepts.
- Prepare a potent introduction and conclusion in advance.
- Make the final draft user-friendly so that it is simple to refer to it without reading it.
- Presenters frequently complete all the steps before visualizing their speech in their minds.
Although visualizing is helpful, speaking aloud exercises should still be done. Too often, practice is postponed until just before a presentation, by which time it is already too late. The purpose of practice sessions is to make presenters completely at ease with the material, the slides, and the timing so they can focus on engaging the audience during the actual presentation.
8 Recommendations for Effective Presentations
While visualizing is helpful, speaking aloud is still necessary.
Here are my top eight suggestions for flawless practice:
- Exercise aloud.
- The presentation should be spoken aloud three to six times.
- Use a range of exercises.
- Keep your presentation personable; don't remember precise sentences; instead, vary how you say it each time.
- Be mindful of the time.
- Allow time during your practice session for questions from the audience, etc.
- Practice in front of a live audience that resembles your intended market.
- Practice in front of a group that is representative of your "actual audience." It's best to find out in front of this group rather than the "real audience" whether there is any terminology you're using or concepts you're trying to explain that they don't understand.
- Include impromptu Q&A in your routine.
- Make sure your practice audience is doing the same if you expect to get questions or interruptions during the presentation.
- Give the speech's start and closing additional time.
- The commute is a wonderful time to practice your opening and closing.
- Develop your timing.
- Depending on how much interaction or questions you anticipate, the rehearsal shouldn't run more than 18 to 25 minutes if the entire presentation is 30 minutes long.
- Try recording yourself to practice.
- If the presentations are extremely important, record yourself on camera. It's simple to operate the brand-new Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera. You can instantly connect to a computer's USB port to do a self-analysis.
Is this something I would want to sit through? is an excellent question to ask. What must you do to alter the presentation if the response is “No”?
The executive I mentor, who works for a sizable pharmaceutical company, had a big “town hall” meeting coming up to introduce new company policies. He anticipated that the audience would be tense and possibly hostile. His presentation’s outline was heavily data-driven when we first discussed it.
He was in no way connecting with the feelings that people were experiencing. He started to practice and “own” the material once we changed the presentation’s structure.
He claimed that this repetition made him feel at ease during the meeting and completely in the moment, which allowed him to connect with the audience on an emotional and psychological level. He now demands that all his direct reports follow the eight practice standards I advised him to follow.
I don’t think practice is enjoyable. But there isn’t a replacement for it.
