How to Practice your Presentation
In this episode I share tips and ideas to show you how to practice your presentation to increase your chances of presentation or sales pitch success
So why practice?
Firstly it will increase your confidence overall because you will feel more familiar with the presentation and more comfortable about delivering it
Secondly practising will help you get the timing right, this is really important if you have a set amount of time such as 10 or 20 or 30 minutes
Thirdly practising will help ensure that you focus on the purpose of your presentation and that it flows because the more it flows the easier it will be your audience to absorb it
So why don’t people practice?
The three most common excuses I hear are:
- I haven’t got enough time – my answer is: so clearly the presentation or pitch is of no importance to you
- Practising feels false I don’t like role-play – this is not role-play this is serious practice
- I’ve been presenting for years I don’t need to practice – but professional golfers who have been playing longer than you have been presenting still practice
So how to practice your presentation ?
I advocate three run-throughs as follows:
In run-through number one don’t time it, don’t record it and don’t deliver it standing in front of a mirror! Stop frequently and make notes because almost certainly you will have something that is missing, or something that needs taking out, or something that is in the wrong place. This run through literally is a walk-through and will take quite a while.
Time the second run through and try to go at presentation pace and make sure you use your voice as you would during the actual delivery. You may need to take notes if things are in the wrong order and aim to finish in around 80 to 85% of the allocated time. Take off a couple of minutes for the notes that you’ve made whilst going through it but if you have missed the time target then you have to get rid of some of the content.
Run-through number three is at presentation pace all the way through. You should be feeling comfortable with the flow, the content should be right and you should be able to deliver in that 80 to 85% time zone.
Team presentations will take longer to practice, particularly the handovers which you don’t to look ad feel clunky in any way
This is episode 225 of the Better Presentations More Sales podcast – the previous 224 episodes are available on your usual podcast app or you can listen and download them via this link.
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