There are a number of common mistakes that presenters make and these can be covered in soft skills training.

One of the worst assumptions you can make when you are to give a presentation is to think that your audience know what you’re going to be talking about. Don’t just launch into what you want to say as you will probably lose the interest of many of the people present.

It may sound almost too simplistic for words but there is a very effective method for ensuring that whatever else may be said about your presentation, people will at least know what it’s about. There are essentially three elements, although if you wanted to be completely reductive, you could say this method consists of one piece of advice repeated three times.

First of all, tell your audience what you are going to say. In other words you should introduce your presentation with the reason they are there, your subject, your objective in giving the presentation and how long it will take.

Tell your audience exactly what you said you would in the introduction.

Finally, recap the points you have covered. Remind your audience what you have talked about and summarise the key points. Remind your audience of your stated objective and demonstrate how you have achieved that.