“Why do I
have to rehearse” is a constant refrain that I hear. “I know my part” “I
don’t have the time” “I don’t want to appear over-rehearsed” “I have a client
meeting” “I don’t want to look stale”
These are all reasons I have heard to try to avoid rehearsal.
First, let’s
talk about the goal of rehearsal.
Rehearsal is not about learning your part. You learn your part at home or in your
office, not in front of the pitch team.
By the time you get to rehearsal, you should already know your
part. Rehearsal is about knowing your part so well that you can focus
on the subtleties of presenting, connecting with the audience. Think
about actors when they are rehearsing. They don't stop when they simply learn
the lines. They stop when they have somehow found a way to connect thith
the audience.
But there is
more to rehearsal than simply connecting with the audience. Part of
rehearsal is about letting the rest of the pitch team now what your are going
to say. Whey everyone is aware of everyone else’s part, they come across
s a single pitch unit instead of a bunch of presenters each presenting somewhat
disconnected sections of content. This ability to connect as team
goes a long way toward giving the client the impression that you will be able to
work with their team.
I get it…you
don’t want to rehearse because you don’t want to rehearse. It is uncomfortable, awkward and generally
unpleasant. You are self-conscious
because you make mistakes. My point is
that we need to get that self-consciousness and those mistakes out in rehearsal
otherwise the mistakes will be there in front of the client.
One final
reason EVERYONE on the team needs to rehearse is that once one person doesn’t
rehearse, the non-rehearsal bug spreads like cancer and suddenly, no one is rehearsing.
The fact of the matter is that teams that rehearse more tend to win more.
Rehearsal doesn’t cure a bad deck but by the same token, endlessly
tweaking the deck at the 11th hour doesn't make it any better either. At some point, the presentation will benefit
from more rehearsing and less tweaking.
A client probably won’t notice the last few hours’ worth of changes to
the deck but they will notice if you do a poor job presenting.
So to answer your
questions....Yes you do have to rehearse.
