I'm going to talk a lot about testing in this course I wanted you to test on yourself. First, I want you to test on one or two friends or colleagues, as you're refining your presentation, I want you to test it in front of me and your colleagues here in this course. But the final test is the actual audience you're giving your presentation to, in real life. A lot of people do all this testing up to that, and then they just quit. Big, big mistake, the most important judges of your presentation skills are the people you're actually speaking to your professional audience, your colleagues, your clients, your customers, your prospects. Anytime you give a presentation to more than five or 10 people, there's typically someone will come up to you and say, Hey, good job did a good presentation.
Most of us just say, Oh, thanks. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Don't do that or don't just do that. Instead. Say, thanks.
Tell me what stuck. What do you remember? See what comes out from the actual audience? If they're telling you the messages they that they heard that you want it, you know you're successful. Even more significant. Did they do what you want?
Did they sign a contract? they sign up for an initial consultation? Did they hire you? This is really important for businesses, anyone in a sales capacity or an account representative capacity. When you give a pitch and someone hired you, ask them, why did you hire me? What did you like about my pitch?
It can seem awkward or embarrassing to do this, but most of the time, people are happy to talk about that. they'd much rather talk about why they did hire you. Then tell you why they didn't hire you. It's always awkward asking someone Why did you hire someone else? What did you not like about me? pitches kind of like, at a back in high school asking someone, why do you not want to date me?
It's embarrassing and it's awkward. No one really wants to tell you that. But they will tell you what worked what stuck out what really resonated with them. That's useful because it may be something you said just in the question and answer session as an afterthought. If that's what moved your audience, you now know to use that example that message the next time in your set presentation. So be sure to get valuable feedback from real audiences.
Every time you give presentations.