How Professional Speakers Rehearse Presentations, and Why This Process Will Be a Game Changer for You, Too!
The 3-Step Process to Optimizing Your Preparation Time for Better Presentations
As the old saying goes, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, Practice, Practice.” But when it comes to business presentations, who the hell has time to practice?! This article lets you backstage by discussing the rehearsal process used by live performers for millennia. I dare you to try it before your next presentation. Spoiler Alert: It will be a game-changer for the overall quality of your presentations, an increased level of engagement from your audience, and your overall comfort and confidence.
For the entire existence of live performance, a process has been employed to help those on stage ready themselves for when the curtain opens. This rigorous preparation dramatically increases the show’s success rate, allowing the audiences’ experience to elevate, the production company to acquire more loyal customers, and ensure career growth for the performers. But is it fair to label a business presentation a performance? Absolutely! It is not to suggest that when you present ideas and information in a business environment, you are “acting,” per se. Nevertheless, it is fair to infer a heightened level of communication. How you deliver the content of your presentation is arguably just as important as the content itself. Picture the best, most personally impactful speaking performances you have experienced as an audience member. Whether it was via TED Talks, keynote or motivational speakers, CEOs, product launches, preachers, politicians, and the like, you can guarantee they all have one major common denominator; what they said was rehearsed. Heavily.
Assuming we agree that our presentations would improve if we rehearsed, let us also acknowledge the pink elephant in the room: TIME. There just never seems to be enough time to rehearse adequately. The slide deck needs to be tweaked, meetings about the presentation must be attended, other work that has nothing to do with your presentation has to be accomplished, your kids need to be taken to swim practice, and that slide deck has to be tweaked, yet again. I get it. And yet, your audience still deserves your best.
While teaching soft skills to professionals like you over the past twenty years, I have also worked as a professional actor and musician. In fact, in addition to studying education and music at University, I have a BA in Acting. I have found the core rehearsal process used in live theater and film is what your favorite speakers likely used when rehearsing, allowing their performance and information to leave with you a lasting impression.
One of the most common observations I make among my clients who manage to carve out a bit of time to rehearse their presentations is an ineffective use of their limited time. Here is a typical approach: After getting an outline written and the slides in order, they start their rehearsal at the beginning of the presentation and work their way through to the end without stopping. If possible, they repeat this process. Believe it or not, this approach is NOT a good use of your time. This approach does not allow you to improve or reflect on many of the finer details which genuinely impact the live performance, like adjusting the content flow, your physical and vocal qualities, transitions, storytelling, clearer explanations, analogies, and so on. While this common approach may seem logical, it is the opposite of how any piece of theater, music, film, dance, etc., is rehearsed. A musician begins working on a song one measure of music at a time before putting them together to form a verse. Next, they figure out the chorus. Eventually, they can put it all together to play an entire song. Actors rehearse small moments first, then whole scenes before putting it all together to tell the full story. A dancer…well, I think you get the point.
To be fair, these types of performers are expected to be perfect, including expertly timed entrances and exits, hitting every mark on stage to be in the best light, all while being sure they are memorized. They also need to replicate this performance night after night to remain dependable and predictable for the tech crew and their fellow performers. The expectations are incredible. In fact, it has been widely assessed that professional performers spend at least an hour preparing for every minute of stage time. Now, imagine you had to prepare a thirty-minute presentation. Do I expect you to find thirty hours for it to be ready? No. My point here is to suggest that you cannot over-prepare, despite what many people’s instincts tell them. What you can do is give over at least a little more quality time to your rehearsal process than you usually do, and it will make a world of difference. It will especially make a difference if you consider The 3-Step Rehearsal Process.
The 3-Step Rehearsal Process
Talk Through | Stumble Through | Dress Rehearsal
The following is a process that will optimize your limited time, ensuring excellent results. Your anxiety with public speaking will go down while your confidence goes way up. The 3-Step Rehearsal Process is a win/win for you and your audience. However, this process is NOT intended to occur in a single session or even one day. Try using this process little by little over several days. Block out time in your schedule, like you would with a meeting. Perhaps you only have fifteen or thirty minutes at a time to devote to this process, and that is OK. Think of your presentation as a series of little puzzle pieces — your efficiency when building a puzzle increases when performed in small, short sessions rather than marathon sessions where it becomes easy to miss details. Also, know this process may be used for demos, team meetings, sales calls, etc. Enjoy!
NOTE: The following three steps have one common thread — they ALL happen while speaking OUT LOUD! I cannot stress this point enough. The human brain can process up to five hundred words per minute, but the mouth, when speaking aloud, can only handle an average of a little over one hundred words per minute. This discrepancy is one of the primary reasons for all those pesky filler words like “um” and “ah.” These filler words occur because your mouth is attempting to keep up with your brain. It is a losing battle, unfortunately. If you are speaking your presentation aloud for the first time in front of an audience, you are doing yourself and your audience a terrible disservice. Our human ability to communicate is incredible but also highly complex. Give your brain, mouth, and body a break by getting used to hearing yourself speak out loud a lot. It can get annoying, but it continues to be the best way to develop muscle memory for your brain to eloquently shape your thoughts into spoken sentences while connecting those words to the body for more natural movement. No, I am not recommending you memorize your presentation word-for-word. However, with this rehearsal process, you will have the necessary muscle memory to perform well, even when nervous or anxious. Again, the following three steps are optimized when spoken.
1) Talk Through: First, break your presentation into several small sections, commonly done with a presentation outline of sorts. A “section” is like a puzzle piece; it carries major significance if it is properly shaped to make it seamlessly fit into the whole picture. Examples of a section could be your introduction or a key point. It could also be a slide, a single bullet point, or a transition from one section to the next. Second, read through your written materials speaking all the details, especially what is not written in your outline, to hear the flow of your presentation. Take one small section at a time rather than talking through the entire presentation. Make observations about what feels/sounds clumsy or unclear about that section, then make the necessary edits and try it again before moving on to the next section. This step will allow you to round out the rough spots. You will be able to ask yourself where you could improve a description, add a short story, provide a better example, and adjust slides, all while beginning to build muscle memory for speaking your thoughts. This step is more cerebral than physical, meaning you get to focus more on content than performance. The performance rehearsal step happens next.
2) Stumble Through: Time to add movement! The Stumble Through is where you begin to add in the performance aspects of your presentation and slowly wean yourself off the script. During the Stumble Through, stand up, use gestures, find focal points in the room to practice eye contact, and speak in a louder voice than you did during the Talk Through. Notice the word “stumble?” Do not worry about making this too pretty. It is called a “stumble through” for a reason. Continue to work in small sections, which polishes the metaphorical puzzle pieces. After each attempt, analyze what you have done and make the necessary performance adjustments, and then do it again to build muscle memory for that section. Again, this repetition is not for you to memorize the words you are saying but rather to build essential muscle memory for putting your thoughts into words. I also recommend that you try communicating your thoughts during each attempt using slightly different words. By doing this, you will arm yourself with the ability to be agile when under pressure.
3) Dress Rehearsal: It is now time to put all those little puzzle pieces together and attempt to do the whole presentation from beginning to end. The Dress Rehearsal is your opportunity to perform like it is the actual presentation. Simulate, as close as possible, the real presentation. Give it all you got and treat it earnestly. If you make a mistake, it is OK! Try to manage these little blunders as you would in front of an audience. Now is the time to get those hiccups out of your system!
Pro Tips for Better Dress Rehearsals:
✔ Video-record yourself! Recordings allow you to experience firsthand what your audience will experience. While recording yourself may seem a bit extreme at first, just think of all the professionals who use this technology on the regular, like actors, musicians, speakers, and even athletes. Athletes of all kinds will watch video footage of their practice, not to mention actual games, to better reinforce what they do well and learn where they can improve. Video footage of your dress rehearsal is truly a window into what the audience will see and hear from you. Although watching and listening to yourself can be extremely uncomfortable at first, consider this: The more pleased and comfortable you are with what you see of yourself, the more pleased and comfortable your audience will be with you, too.
✔ Practice in the actual space! If you do not have access to the exact space in which you will be presenting, create a mock environment simulating the room. You may need to ask for pictures or a diagram of the area but know that the more information you have on the room you will be presenting, the more comfortable you will be walking into said room. A living room, an office, or a hotel room can all be slightly adjusted to create a pretend stage and audience. Connect your slide deck to the TV or set up your laptop behind you to simulate the PowerPoint screen. If you plan to hold a microphone, grab a filled water bottle, and use it as you would a microphone. Create an imaginary audience to practice eye contact by using focal points like a lampshade, the corner of a picture frame, a light switch, or even the dog. Remember, this is all a simulation, providing you are not in the actual space, so make every adjustment you can think of to recreate the environment you will be performing.
✔ Dress for the show! Wear the clothes, especially the shoes you will be in when you present in front of an audience. Your outfit impacts how you feel, and it tends to influence your movement to some degree. Consider this tip a continuation of simulating the actual environment.
✔ Use actual audience members! A co-worker, friend, parent, or spouse can all be excellent rehearsal tools when preparing your presentation. It can feel extremely vulnerable, even scary, but if you can get the nerves out with them, imagine how much better you will feel in front of your actual audience. Before presenting to them, share some of the challenges you observed about yourself during the Stumble Though. This information will help guide their eyes and ears. Finally, ask them for feedback. You do not have to use it all, but it is a healthy way to put yourself on the spot and grow.
✔ Time yourself! There is simply no other way to assess the actual length of your presentation without doing the whole thing out loud from top to bottom. If you are running short, consider where you might tell a story that drives home a point and connects back to your presentation. If you are running long, do not speak faster, but do make cuts. Remember, your audience will never miss what you never told them.
In Closing
Although you may never aspire to perform at Carnegie Hall, why not aspire to achieve your best whenever you present? An audience, whether there because they genuinely want to be or because to have to be, deserves their time spent positively. The 3-Step Rehearsal Process is long proven to provide the best results for your final performance. Use this process to optimize your limited rehearsal time. My wish for you is that this process increases your confidence, decreases your anxiety, and benefits your career. Of course, if you want to unleash your inner mic-dropping presenter self further, contact me for presentation skills training. Your next level awaits.
David Marcotte, Head Coach of Marcotte Coaching, is a communication skills development specialist for corporate professionals. For nearly 20 years, through various topics such as presentation skills, storytelling, emotional intelligence, leadership, and team building, David has developed online and in-person learning to help professionals of all levels bridge the gap between themselves and others.
To book live, online soft skills classes with David Marcotte — visit the Complete Professional page of the Marcotte Coaching website. To read David’s other blogs and learn more ways Marcotte Coaching can help your organization thrive, visit us at www.marcottecoaching.com.
