Does planning and organising really float your boat? 

OR…do you live in unorganised chaos, but long to kick-ass at organising? 

Either way, you might be surprised about how Microsoft tools can help you!  

In this blog you will learn: 

• Why it’s a good idea to give your presentation a practice run 
• How to practise your presentation using PowerPoint’s ‘Rehearse with Coach’ feature  
• What ‘Rehearse with Coach’ won’t correct you on (TLDR – your facts!) 

Why it’s a good idea to give your presentation a practice run  

If you regularly present, and you regularly smash it, this blog post probably isn’t for you. 

If you’d like to get more organised and more confident about your presentations – give me a read! 

Some people seem very capable at ‘winging-it’ when it comes to presentations. They can fling together a slide deck at the last minute, turn up having not rehearsed AT ALL, and still deliver a killer session that makes all the attendees feel like they gained a lot of value. 

That’s not me. 

Not you either? Oh hi there 🙂 

If I’m called upon to present – (which is not often!) I like to pull together the deck at least a week in advance, I give it multiple reviews, and I rehearse it. Out loud. To myself.

It makes me feel a bit silly at first, but it really helps because: 

• It builds muscle memory, so that by the time I’m doing it for real, it’s not so scary 
• I can weed out any weaknesses in my content, which means I avoid looking like I don’t know what I’m talking about
• I get all my stutters and stumbles out of the way early, so the real version looks a lot smoother 

Something I’ve found really helpful with this process is the ‘Rehearse with Coach’ option in Microsoft Powerpoint. 

How to practise your presentation using PowerPoint’s ‘Rehearse with Coach’ feature  

You’ll find the ‘Rehearse with Coach’ option in Microsoft PowerPoint under Slide Show: 

Once you click on it, your presentation will start, with a little box in the bottom right to turn on the coach: 

As soon as you click ‘Start Rehearsing’ – the PowerPoint coach will listen to you. (Probably goes without saying but I should mention it here – you’ll need access to a microphone for this to work, and if your device doesn’t have one, I’m afraid you’re stuck rehearsing to your mum/the dog)

You can also tick or un-tick the box to choose whether you want to see the feedback come in as you’re talking, or summarised for you at the end. 

If you choose ‘show real-time feedback’ this is what you’ll see as you talk (along with a little pop noise): 

Maybe a little distracting? You can turn them off using the bell icon. 

When you end your presentation, you’ll be given a report: 

This will give you lots of pointers about your presentation, including your pace, and potential refinements you should make to your wording, like this recommendation here that my use of the word ‘comfy’ might be too informal: 

It will also call you out if you’ve fallen into the trap of reading directly from your slides (a big presentation no-no; we can all read!!) and how ‘exciting’ your tone of voice is: 

All of the suggestions are based on research. You can find out more about how the Coach makes recommendations on the Microsoft Support pages here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/suggestions-from-speaker-coach-25e7d866-c895-4aa1-9b90-089b70a4ea38?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us 

You can rehearse as many times as you like to see if you can improve based on the Coach’s suggestions. Although note that the reports aren’t saved, so once you close them, they’re gone – take screen shots if you want to compare multiple sessions. 

 Plus, it’s not a real person! So it’s way less embarrassing than rehearsing in front of your mum, and way more useful than rehearsing in front of your dog. 

What ‘Rehearse with Coach’ won’t correct you on

Rehearse with Coach is useful for making sure your presentation style is on track, but it won’t call you out if you’re all style and no substance. If the content in your presentation is lacking, or your facts are wrong, the Coach won’t have a clue and won’t pick you up on it. 

So it’s still your job to make sure that the content of your presentation meets the needs of whatever the session is about. Plan your preparation and leave yourself time for reviews. Have you got numbers? Triple-check them and make sure they’re right. 

Have you got charts? Make sure you understand them enough to talk about them. 

If you’re not organised enough to plan your content in advanced, your audience will no, no matter how good your presentation style is. 

If you know someone who would benefit from this blog – please share!