I hate to trash a childhood fantasy, but Practice doesn’t really make Perfect … it only makes Permanent. Only Perfect Practice makes Perfect!
I’ve ranted before about why presenters shouldn’t try to memorize their routine workplace presentations. They should learn them through practice and refinement of message content and structure. So, Practice Till You Sizzle so you can Sizzle When You Present:
- How much should you practice? Doing so effectively involves a lot more time and effort than merely looking at your outline or slides a few times before you start talking. Ask yourself these three questions:
- How comfortable are you with presenting in general and with the specific content in particular? The more comfortable, the less practice time is necessary to achieve your intended outcomes.
- How important is the presentation to you and the organization you represent? Said another way, what’s the cost of failing or missing the mark? The more important the presentation, the easier it should be to justify adequate practice time.
- Learn it, don’t memorize it – there’s a big difference. Memorizing your presentation will take way too long and if you forget something, you can choke and lose credibility and confidence. Rare does any workplace presentation need to be memorized.
- Practice your presentation enough to really know what you want to say and how. The audience doesn’t know what you could have said or should have said. They only know what they hear you say.
- Create a detailed full sentence content outline capturing your clear, concise audience-centric structure and content. Practice delivering from that outline until your delivery sizzles.
- If you practice it enough, you’ll hit 90% of the content the same way each time – and that should be good enough to accomplish your objectives and those of your audience. But, practice it out loud, standing up, using gestures and imagining a room full of people so you can work on your eye contact.
- If you have the time, interest and motivation, audio tape your practice from that outline, but don’t read it – deliver it. You can self-critique that recording. You can also transcribe it – or, use transcribing software – to fine-tune your word tracks, flow and phrasing.
- At some point, shift to a very brief speaking outline with only large key words, facts or stats.
So, while practice only makes permanent and only perfect practice makes perfect, these suggestions will help you Practice Till You Sizzle.