5 Tips to Rehearse your Presentation

The most elite athletes, musicians and actors and performers on the planet make their respective crafts look deceptively easy.

Sure, they are super-talented. However, behind the scenes, they have invested countless hours, not to mention blood, sweat and tears, in honing their skills and perfecting their performance.

Likewise, as a public speaker, you need to take a leaf out of the top performers’ books and thoroughly rehearse your presentation before presentation day! 

Have you thoroughly rehearsed your PowerPoint presentation?

I’m not talking about memorising it like a TED Talk. I’m simply talking about being so familiar with it that it’s become “part of you”, that you deliver it seamlessly and effortlessly, and that your words just roll off your tongue.

Some people think that, armed with the PowerPoint slide show that they have slaved over creating, they simply need to mentally rehearse the presentation a couple of times, and they are then ready to deliver the presentation to their audience.

Not true!

Working through the presentation in your mind is not the same as delivering the presentation in front of an audience.

There is no substitute for doing real end-to-end presentation rehearsals and doing lots of them!

According to Carmine Gallo, author of several public speaking books including Talk Like Ted, has said that “rehearsing is the single best use of time before a critical presentation. More preparation means less panic and more confidence.”

Steve Jobs, the late founder and chairman and CEO of Apple, was famous for his brilliant keynote presentations. He used to spend hours and hours perfecting his presentation before going on Stage.

If you want to ace your presentation, here are some rehearsal tips before the big day:  

1. What to rehearse

You need to rehearse and be comfortable with:

• what you will say, and in particular, what you will say on each slide, if you are using a tool like PowerPoint

• your gestures

• your vocal variety

• your movements

• the technology – e.g. in the case of video conferencing software like Zoom, the features that you will use. For example - how to share the screen, how to play video clips, how to set up and run a poll, how to run break out rooms.

2. How to rehearse your PowerPoint presentation

Make use of the Notes feature in PowerPoint!

In Notes mode, for each slide, type up some bulleted notes that pertains to the slide.

Each time you rehearse the slide, refer back to these notes, until you don’t even need to reference them anymore.

That’s when you know you’ve got the content down pat.

3. What to memorise

Unless you are delivering a TED talk, rehearsal should not entail memorising every word.

Instead, it’s about you being super-familiar with the content and flow of your speech or presentation.

Having said that, it’s important to start and end strong.

Starting strong will boost your confidence and signal to your audience that they should stay tuned because this is going to be a good presentation!

Likewise, ending strong is important, because people are left with a great impression. Just like when you finish a meal with a great dessert, this is the part that you remember the most!

So, learn every word of your introduction, and every word of your closing section.

4. Rehearse lots

The key is to feel comfortable with delivering the whole shebang from start to finish.

You need to know your content like the back of your hand.

Carmine Gallo recommends rehearsing your presentation in its entirety at least 10 times.

However, you may want to rehearse different sections of the presentation over several days, or rehearse it in one fell swoop - the choice is yours.

The main thing is that you feel comfortable and relaxed delivering it!      

5. Get feedback

Rehearse your presentation in front of a trusted and savvy colleague, friend or family member.

Ask them what you can improve and go about implementing those improvements as long as you agree with their recommendations of course!

You should also consider filming yourself, and then watching yourself back. How do you look? How do you sound? Are there any annoying tics you should aim to eliminate for example, the use of filler words?

I have a confession to make. I do not enjoy rehearsing all that much. It can feel a bit painful, tedious and even contrived.

But I know how important rehearsal is to help me show up as the best version of myself on the day of my presentation.

As acclaimed actor Donald Henry Pleasence once said: All the real work is done in the rehearsal period.

© 2020 Susan Weser.  All rights reserved.