As a manager, it is essential to be able to deliver presentations. Managers need to be able to communicate with staff and potential clients, and if they don't focus on effective delivery, it can cause issues from staff and potential clients.

Unfortunately, managers can deliver a presentation without understanding the techniques or skills required, and this is where the issues occur. The following are common issues.

No structure - An effective presentation needs an intro, main-body and a summary. In other words, tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them.

Over-reliance on PowerPoint - We have all been to presentations where the presenter reads slides out. This practice isn't effective, and people switch off.

Too busy slides - If you are using PowerPoint, don't make your text too small, people can't read it, and again even if they can it's boring. Slides should be punchy or contain some images.

Appearing underconfident - when you deliver a presentation, stand up, use effective open body language, hands open and shoulder-width apart. Move around the room like you own the place and watch people follow you.

Reading notes - Worst of all are managers who just read from a script. It looks boring, sounds boring and yes it is boring.

No interaction - Audiences like interaction and participation, by not interacting, you are missing out on finding some great ideas as well as a real indication of how much they really know.

So ensure you don't do the above headings to deliver an excellent presentation. Remember, practise makes perfect, and we all start somewhere. The more you practise and the more you get feedback, the better you will be.

We have a journal available to record your presentations and to reflect on how you did. You can see this on the Amazon website here. Moreover, we offer training (one to one and group) on effective presentation technique.

Ralph Moody is the founder of Target Training and specialises in trainer and management development.  You can read more about him here.