When it comes to preparing for a successful team pitch (or any team presentation) it’s easy to focus on the materials and the performance on the day itself. Rehearsal time can often end up on the cutting room floor. If your rehearsal is brief (or in the cab), you are likely to be leaving opportunities behind. Because it’s your rehearsal that sticks your preparation to your performance.
I spoke with Rachel Burrell-Cook, MD of ThreeTenSeven, who shared how she leverages rehearsal to create team pitch success. And if things don’t work out as planned, to learn from the experience.
She described the following benefits of rehearsal time:
to give the team an understanding of what to expect from others. “It’s useful to know how others are going to perform so you can tailor your own input and ensure a complementary set of performances. A good example is energy; I am an energised speaker, and it can be useful to put me to work at the start of a presentation or to sell in particular ideas. And, when people are acclimatised to what I’m doing, they can step into their own performance more confidently.”
to give the big hitter the chance to temper their style. “Every agency has their star, the person who is ‘wheeled out’, relied upon to deliver just the right phrase, the right question. But the habitual wheeling out of a star is a bit of a cheat, and not always the right call. Not every client loves it, especially if fit isn’t assessed or if they realise they might not get that superstar performer IRL. And it doesn’t give others a chance to shine; often they’ll dominate and it becomes their show! Rehearsal can be a useful way for a leader adjust their approach to balance against what the client might need, or what the other team members bring.”
to give the more senior people the chance to give others a leg up. “I want every person on the presentation and the group to look brilliant, especially more junior team members. Having us rehearse together means more senior presenters can give less experienced folks a leg up. So even if you don’t need to rehearse, someone else probably does.”
be prepared for the first rehearsal to be terrible and for this not to be a problem. “Usually, this is true for us. But this is not a bad thing. We use this time to ask ourselves questions. ‘How are we coming across? How will the client feel about how we’re coming across?’ ‘Are we bringing enough of what the client wants?’ This perspective-taking lets the client into the presentation’.”
use rehearsal to get closer to the client.“Our practise time is often where ideas emerge around what additional ‘theatre’ might be right for this opportunity. This element of the presentation can be valuable in getting the client into the right frame of mind pre-presentation. Bearing in mind what they might have been doing immediately before (eg. seeing another prospective agency) we can design something that will get into the right space before we start.”
rehearse in front of an audience:“Depending on the scale of the opportunity we will bring a non-exec into the room to watch and listen to our presentation.”
feedback from your client-to-be feeds your future confidence: “Win or lose, we try to get feedback. We ask for feedback on the basis that we’ve earned it. If we win a pitch, we ask for feedback. What we hear tells us what and how to keep ‘being’ when we start to work together. If we lose a pitch, it gives us learnings to take forward – or confirm that perhaps it was for the best.
Get your rehearsal working well and you’ll make many more successful and satisfying team pitch presentations.
Thanks for reading. And huge thanks to Rachel Burrell-Cook (pictured below) for your generosity in sharing your experience of what works.
