You’ve heard repeatedly that you need to test, and in most cases, that’s correct. I’m conducting a split test on my new website right now. (I’ll share the early results in a minute.)

But you should never test something in your sales presentation. If you do, you are bound to fail unless you are extremely lucky.

I’m talking about new, under-rehearsed material.

Once you’ve given your signature talk for a while, you will become bored with it and want to change parts of it simply for the sake of variety. Of course, your audience will see your presentation for the first time so it will be new to them but old to you.

If you have a winning presentation, be very reluctant to test anything new, and if you do, make sure it’s well rehearsed.

I learned this the hard way when I was a professional mentalist. It didn’t go well when I tested a new routine in my show that wasn’t rehearsed. I got to the point where my show was so “tight” that I didn’t add any new material. Why? Because the show worked like a well-oiled machine.

I am not saying you should not test new things in your presentation. When you are building and perfecting it, testing is mission-critical. Just make sure you have rehearsed the new things before you test them. Additionally, find a place where you can be bad.

One of my favorite movies is a documentary called Comedian, starring Jerry Seinfeld. It chronicles his comeback to stand-up comedy. You see him working his new material at open mic nights and bombing. He does this to test his material and find what works before he’s imposed on the HBO stage.

If I have a big presentation coming up, I like to test it out on a smaller audience before I “go live” when it matters.

But once the presentation works, I stop testing and do it the same way every time. My sales decrease if I don’t test something new to avoid boredom.

Big question for you to answer:

Have you changed something that was working for you, and it’s no longer working? If so, a smart test would be to revert to the original and see what happens.

Kick butt, make mucho DEEnero!

Dave “To Test or Not To Test” Dee