My last post, Make Feedback your Friend, described how experimental opera performers subjected themselves to the potentially painful criticism of a live audience.  An extreme form of rehearsal and rehearsal is something many pitch teams go out of their way to avoid. They settle instead for the run-through.

Is this enough and what’s the difference?

 The run-through is a necessary activity. It will involve talking through likely content, who says what and for how long, a discussion on visual aids, working out timings and hand-overs,  who sits where  or stands, how the room will be propped, where will the client sit, what are the likely questions and who fields them and so on.

Necessary but not a rehearsal. Pitching is performance and it is no good escaping the ‘pain’ of rehearsal with a run through. To improve performance you need an audience  in front of you. Other members of your team are not good for this. They already know what you are going meant say and will be be more concerned with content than your style.

Any non-participant, given a simple briefing of the context, can raise the value of rehearsal.  In any pitch you are putting on a show and in rehearsal you need someone to show off to.

The lively Riverside Studios in London’s Hammersmith are hosting this week  The Opera Festival. It is run by tete-a-tete, an organisation that sets out to help groups and individuals grow as artists. New and experimental performances take place on stage in front of a paying audience.   This not a rehearsal but it is a form of product testing.

The audience are more or less coerced into filling in a feedback form before they leave. The possible  overall ratings range from:  (1) =Sorry. didn’t work for me to: (4) =Bloomin marvellous. Then you can chose any three of;

Challenging.      Passionate.      Loved it.      Unengaging.       Unfinished.       Serious.       Original.       Commonplace.         Not my cup of tea.    Confusing.    Ship-shape.    Ship-wreck.

Listening to ‘funny’ amateur  reviewers discussing their feedback over drinks in the bar made you feel a touch concerned for the would be artists but this was an intelligent and brave exercise. Improvements will come, even if egos suffer in the process.

Pitches are performances yet it is surprising how few companies will put themselves through a similar feedback process.  It is called rehearsal. They are the ones who will be “unengaging” at best and “ship-wreck” at worst.   And “sorry it didn’t work for me”!

In any pitch, no matter how apparently mundane, when push comes to shove it is not the clever solution or the carefully crafted argument that wins the day. It is the sense of theatre that captures and makes the emotional connection with the audience.

Fine words are important, yes, but it is the look, the feel and the tone, just as in drama, that make the lasting impact.  Cameron and Clegg understood this in what was a make or break first joint press conference.

” The extraordinary press conference in Downing Streeet’s rose garden could have been directed by Richard Curtis, a light romantic comedy with the male leads played by Hugh Grant and Colin Firth”.(Sunday Times).

It was calculated performance. Calculated to make us feel good, after days and months of uncertainty, about them, the coalition and, for a while anyway, the future. And it worked. They understood that in any pitch the judges, us in this case, are  thinking ‘Do I like these people? Do they like each other?’

What happens in too many pitches is that teams are so concerned about getting the words absolutely right that they concentrate on this at the expense of performance. Their natural likeability is diminished, enthusiasm becomes forced and  confidence falters. 

All pitches call for some level of theatre that allows personality to make an impact and this in turn calls for rehearsal.

Only through rehearsal can you work on the dynamics of the team and see how people ‘come across’  as opposed to simply ‘what are they saying’.

And, rehearsal makes nice people nicer!

Last  Sunday evening in a church in Notting Hill there was a beautiful performance of Monteverdi’s very difficult Vespers. Some excellent professional soloists and an orchestra, with period instruments, together with the real stars the amateur, 45 strong, Skolia Choir.

  The choir, and I know this because  my wife was one of them, rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed, probably some thirty times, for this one perfomance. It paid off. They were superb.

Compare and contrast with how so many companies prepare for their one performance, the pitch. They will spend enormous energy developing their ’score’, the content, and then little or nil on the rehearsal.

Why is this when they know that in a competitive arena the decision will, largely, be down to an emotional response to their performance on the day. Why is there such resistance and reluctance to rehearse? Here are some of the ‘reasons.’

1.  “We needed every moment to improve and fine tune our proposal.” Excuse. A ‘great’ proposal unrehearsed will lose out to the good one fully rehearsed.

2.   “It was not possible to fit in rehearsals due to client meetings.” Excuse. If you can organise diaries for the pitch, you can do so for rehearsals.

3.  “As long as everyone runs through their part, no need to rehearse together.”  Excuse. And chances of teamwork shining through disappear.

4.  “I am better conserving my nervous energy for the pitch itself.” Excuse. The more you rehearse the better you will be, and the more confident.

5.  “We always do a run through just before to check order and charts.” Excuse. This is not a rehearsal, and just before leaves no time for changes. 

Any other excuses? Please tell me.

Pitches are performances. The response is largely emotional.  Compared with the resource that goes into any pitch, rehearsal is your best return on investment. The more you rehearse the more you increase your chance of winning.

The London 2012 Bid team rehearsed 10 times. The Skolia Choir 30 times. Both won!

Amongst the journalistic feeding frenzy following Question Time, this reported comment from a supporter on the BNP website, perhaps not surprisingly, caught my eye.

“Maybe some coaching could of been done so that Mr Griffin could of answered any question articulately”.

What might such coaching have achieved?

For starters, he would have been better prepared.  Whilst few could have anticipated the extent to which ratings hungry  BBC would stage a lynching, he should have anticipated and prepared for hostile questions.

Setting aside the bizarre  to unacceptable nature of his replies, just by rehearsing them he would have come across more persuasively, almost likeable.  A considered pause before  rushing in (fool-like?), a calmer more measured tone and a more relaxed, comfortable  posture.  All would have signalled confidence.

Fortunately for him most of his fellow panellist-opponents performed equally badly.  Jack Straw assumed the ranting role with an over prepared, over-the-top polemic, Chris Hune made no impression and clever Bonnie Greer was too clever. The only natural, and therefore persuasive, one was Sayeeda Warsi.

Fortunate too, because it upped the sympathy vote, that the normally urbane Dimbleby chose the role of attack dog, leading his savage pack, the carefully selected audience.

Great viewing figures for the BBC but Griffin would have got more out of  it with a little coaching. I am not volunteering.

As the political parties start their final jockeying for favour, leading up to the election, team selection (as it is for Capello) becomes critical. It will not be enough to have well qualified individuals in the line-ups. What will matter is their chemistry.

Do we like them? Do they like each other? Are they an attractive interesting team? Basic gut instinct can overule our political sensibility, particularly when real differences are few.  As they usually are in the business pitch.

Many many pitches, across all sorts of business areas, end up with a team of three to six people, presenting to a similiar number, for around 45 minutes.  However heavy the documented proposal, however intense the build-up, these few minutes are often what determine the result.

Fast, instinctive reaction to the team, and how they come across in those precious minutes, lead decisions. Casting is critical to positive chemistry.  They have asked to ‘meet the team’, but what do you do if you have someone who, on paper, is by far the best qualified but who comes across poorly in meetings?

 The tough decision must be faced. Who will win the business on the day?

Any response will be emotional. Chemistry will matter and, generally is more positive where the team is made -up of interesting, different and contrasting personalities.

Ten years ago Blair, Prescott and Brown were such a team. Today neither Cameron’s Notting Hill Gate set nor the brothers Milliband or the Balls couple, for Labour, offer such contrast.

In reality, most companies will not have a cast of hundreds to choose from. What they can, and, if they want to win, must do is work on the chemistry of the team they have got.  Use rehearsals to improve performances and confidence. Have an objective rehearsor as you try out different approaches to create interest, surprise, engagement and interaction.

The result can be spontaneous combustion on the day!

Invented in 1967 , not by Einstein but another Albert, surname Mchrabian, the long accepted presentation formula of  “7% words: 38% tone: 55% body language” is dead.

A  campaign, ’Why the stickiest idea in presenting is just wrong’, is dominating the presentation blogosphere. Spearheaded by the admirable Olivia Mitchell, www.speakingaboutpresenting.com  it spells out the weaknesses.  Not least is the basis of the thesis, a limited study based on responses to single words such as ‘brute’ or ‘maybe’.

From this flimsy starting point the formula became ‘fact’.

Given that it cannot, when considered in isolation, make sense- words and content clearly are more than a mere 7%-  why has its use been so widespread?  My own non-scientific, non Albertian, view based on rehearsing teams for business pitches offers this explanation.

Once the invitation to pitch is received, the almost inevitable tendency is to focus every bit of effort to developing the words, the content, of the response.  Can the proposal be improved, is the fee expressed well, have we covered off our credentials and so on.

Too often, a feverish  determination to perfect the words, the content, means little if any time is left to consider the pitch performance. Rehearsal is ignored. No time is spent on assessing the likely impact on the audience.

This is where the “formula” can be a shot across the bows to  help a team realise that, no matter how good their words, they will suffer from poor performance. Words just aimed at an audience like bullets of proclamation rather than in, say, a tone of engagement and sharing, will backfire.

Words, however brilliant, expressed with poor body language will undermine any sense of teamwork and, worst of all, signal a lack of confidence.

Perhaps the “formula” should be replaced with this?  Words =good. Words+tone =better. Words+tone+body language =best.

Or, with these brilliant words  from Proverbs ch. 25, v.17:

 ”A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in  pictures of silver”.

One remark  last week by England’s Test captain, Andrew Strauss, has lead to several thousand mentions on google, with extensive coverage in every newspaper and on  radio and television.

” The Australian side no longer carries an aura of invincibility”

Various headlines developed this. A  favourite was, ”Australians poorer with no aura”.  A  few journalists gave their definitions of the word.  These ranged from “a sort of all round halo” to, from Simon Barnes in the Times, “a subtle, luminous emanation”.

Most agreed with Ricky Ponting, that however you define it, “an aura is created over a long period of sustained excellence and that this has  the ability to scare opposition.”  People expect to lose against teams or individuals with aura.

 A few companies and/or their leaders do have an aura that will  help them in pitch situations. It will derive from  the virtuous  circle of success breeding confidence breeding success. How do you break the circle to compete?

 Taking a leaf out of the Strauss handbook, the antidote is to recognise that an aura is ephemeral and to focus singlemindedly on playing to your  own unique strengths, not worrying about theirs.  Develop your own virtuous circle of preparation and rehearsal breeding confidence-the first step to creating an aura of your own!

You’ve managed to present all your pitch charts without any technical hitches or mistakes, and the prospect is engaged and encouraging.  Home and hosed?  Not quite. This article, written for www.gorkanapr.com, discusses how  the way you answer the Q&A session can influence the final outcome more than your presentation.

Typically, competitive pitches call for a 30 to 45 minutes formal presentation followed by a similar period of time for a Q&A session.  Typically, also, 99% of the time and effort goes into preparing and, hopefully rehearsing the presentation.  1%, or less, is spent preparing how to handle questions.  Here are some of them.

Q:  Why is the Q&A so important?

A:  The prospect’s assessment is lead by their emotional, rather than their rational, response to these key questions.  How will I get along with these people?  How much do they like each other?  How much do they want my business?  It is easier to ‘read’ the answers in the informal environment of the Q&A.

Q:  How can you prepare for the Q&A?

A:  Develop likely questions of three types.  Rational questions seeking clarification, questions that are personal to the questioners and the deliberately hostile/tricky ones designed to gauge your ability to respond.  Note that some of the exact same questions will be asked of your competitors.

Q:  Can, or should you, rehearse?

A:  YES!  Furnish an ‘outsider’ with questions to act as client.  The team leaders fields each question, perhaps with brief response, before passing to the appropriate team member.  The manner of response, the ‘way you say it’ is more important than the clever answer.  And really listening to the questioner is vital.

Q:  How can you reinforce teamwork?

A:  Beware.  It is the people not answering who can undermine, or generate, a sense of team.  If they sit back, arms folded, study their notes, disengaged, they undermine.  If they sit up, focus intently on the questioner, listen with rapt admiration to their colleagues, then teamwork is evident and the meeting is energised.

Q:  What are the pitfalls?

A:  Poor time-keeping that allows the presentation to eat into question time.  Most prospects prefer to talk rather than listen.

A:  Avoid the very long answer, particularly where various members of team, adrenalin-fuelled, butt in to add their comments.

A:  If you get a question you can’t answer, don’t fudge.  With confidence say you will report back later.

A:  Not being ready to answer a tough question on level of fee!

Don’t end on a whimper.  Allow time for a strong closing statement.

A characteristic of tennis, shared by cricket, is the tiny proportion of a game that is taken up by the actual amount of time when the ball is in play. For tennis its around  6 to 8 minutes  per hour on a slow clay court and rather less on the grass at Wimbledon.

This means that as spectators the majority of our time is taken up observing the player’s body language  between points.  The players too have more time to be aware of their opponents body language and be influenced by it.  In my own sport of athletics, the start of the 100 metre sprint is a classic showtime for the confident  swagger of a Usain Bolt or a Dwain Chambers.

Switching on Wimbledon  television as an experiment, with the sound turned down and scores masked,  it is easy to tell who was winning. It is the one with the  energy, the attitude, the freedom of movement,  the  positive expression and an irresistible air of confidence.

In pitch rehearsals I have not yet found a way of ignoring the words completely but have found that using my eyes only can be the best way of judging a  potentially winning performance!