TJ Walker says test your important presentations like you'd test written work: run them by colleagues first, then ask what they remember, not if they liked it. Replace anything they forget. Real confidence comes from evidence, not hope.
Chapters
If you had a really important press release or document or memo that you had to send to all of your customers, all of your clients, to regulators, to the media, would you just wing it? Would you just dictate it once and send it out as is? I don't think so. You'd want to test it. You'd want to spell check it, review it, possibly have a lawyer in your organization look at it, a trusted advisor, investor relations person. You want other checks on the process before you just send out your text communication. Well, when it comes to spoken communication, you can also test. So, for example, let's say you're giving a presentation, a sales presentation, to 20 really important prospects on Thursday. My advice is get one or two of your colleagues together, or maybe someone who works in a different office down the hall to join you in the cafeteria or empty conference room. Give them your presentation. And when you're done, ask them not what do they think? Because they'll tell you, oh, you're wonderful. They want to be helpful. Don't ask them what they think. Ask them what they remember. Do they remember your most important points? Do they remember your slides and the message that is contained in the slide? If they don't remember all of your messages, you got a big problem. If they don't remember your slides, you got a problem. The problem isn't get rid of those people and find another test group. The solution is you need to go back to your speech to make your ideas more memorable. You need to throw away the slides they're not remembering and replace them with slides that actually work. Because if you test on an audience and they're understanding all of your messages and remembering them, and they're remembering your slides and understanding the messages embedded in the slides, then when you go into the actual presentation to communicate on Thursday, you're going to be filled with confidence. And it's not confidence because of some rah rah, cheerleader, generic stuff. It's going to be because you have actual evidence that the presentation you're going to be communicating works. That's what's most important. Not just feeling good or visualizing a standing ovation, but testing your messages. You're trying to communicate in advance and having a sense that it's actually working.
