Why Presentation Skills Training?

Presentation skills training is often misunderstood. Many organisations invest in it because they want people to stand up and speak more confidently, deliver information professionally, and represent the organisation well.

Confidence is a major driver. For many people, standing up in front of others is uncomfortable, intimidating, and stressful. Organisations hope that presentation skills training will help people overcome this fear and give them practical tools to present with confidence.

However, confidence alone is not enough.

Key Takeaways From This Blog

• Presentation skills training is about confidence, structure, and engagement, not slides.
• Many people can present information but struggle to engage an audience.
• Reading PowerPoint slides is not presenting and causes people to switch off.
• Effective presentations rely on questioning, storytelling, and involvement.
• Poor presentation skills damage learning transfer, decision-making, and credibility.
• Presentation skills are both a workplace skill and a life skill.

This is a theme we regularly see in both trainer development and leadership development. It links closely to our Train the Trainer programmes and our Leadership and Management courses, because confident communication is a core part of effective performance.

Why Organisations Invest in Presentation Skills Training

From my experience, organisations usually invest in presentation skills training for two main reasons.

First, they want people to feel confident standing up and speaking in front of others. This could be in meetings, briefings, training sessions, or formal presentations.

Second, they want people to communicate clearly and professionally. Whether someone is delivering a short update or a longer session, organisations want information to land properly and be taken seriously.

This is also why many organisations choose in-house presentation skills training, where real workplace scenarios, real content, and real expectations can be used rather than generic examples.

What Most Presentation Skills Training Gets Wrong

We regularly work with people who have already attended presentation skills courses elsewhere. Many of them are not bad speakers. Their voice is clear, their tone is fine, and their body language is reasonable.

What is often missing is the ability to engage.

A common issue is an over-reliance on PowerPoint. People read slides, talk at an audience, and assume that because information has been delivered, it has been understood. This is not effective presentation.

Presenting is not about reading information aloud. If people can read what is on the screen, they do not need someone to say it to them. When this happens, audiences switch off.

Presenting, Training, and Facilitating: Knowing the Difference

Presenting, training, and facilitating are often treated as the same thing, but they are different.

Presenting is about communicating information clearly and confidently.

Training is about developing knowledge and skills. This requires engagement, questioning, and checking understanding. These are the same principles we develop on our Train the Trainer programmes.

Facilitating sits somewhere between the two. It involves guiding discussion, drawing knowledge out of the group, and helping people make sense of information together.

You need to understand which role you are performing. Confusing them leads to poor outcomes, particularly when people expect learning but only receive information.

When Presentation Skills Training Makes a Real Difference

We see the biggest impact when people learn how to structure a presentation properly and engage their audience.

One simple technique we teach is what we call the GRAB. This is about immediately capturing attention at the start of a presentation. When people understand how to open confidently and purposefully, their confidence increases straight away.

Once structure and engagement improve, credibility improves as well. People feel more in control, more confident, and more comfortable standing in front of others.

When Presentation Skills Training Fails

Presentation skills training tends to fail when it focuses too heavily on theory and not enough on practice.

Some people arrive expecting to be “given confidence”. Confidence does not come from theory. It comes from doing, practising, and receiving feedback in a supportive environment.

What Presentation Skills Really Matter in the Workplace

From experience, the skills that make the biggest difference are not theoretical.

Practice is essential. People need time to stand up, speak, make mistakes, and improve.

Engagement is critical. This includes storytelling, involving the audience, and occasionally using short activities to keep people thinking and involved.

Structure matters. People need to know where they are going and why.

Questioning plays a major role. Rhetorical questions and reasoning questions get people thinking, even if they are not speaking out loud.

This is why we focus on training people to engage rather than tell — because it is the difference between a presentation that is “delivered” and a presentation that actually lands.

The Impact of Poor Presentation Skills

Poor presentation skills have a direct impact on learning transfer, engagement, and decision-making.

When people read slides or deliver information without engagement, audiences stop listening. Attention drifts and information is rarely absorbed.

Why Questioning and Engagement Matter

Talking at people rarely works unless the content is exceptionally interesting.

Questioning, storytelling, and engagement force people to think. We often describe this as “throwing the monkey” — placing responsibility for thinking with the audience rather than carrying it all as the presenter.

Who Presentation Skills Training Is Really For

Presentation skills training benefits anyone who needs to communicate information at work.

Managers often benefit significantly, particularly those who lack confidence standing up in front of others. This is why presentation skills frequently form part of wider Leadership and Management development programmes.

Why Slides and Templates Are Not Enough

Do you want people wasting time in ineffective presentations? Do you want staff members standing up feeling anxious and uncomfortable? Or do you want confident people who can communicate clearly, engage others, and deliver information that actually lands?

Effective presentation skills training develops people. It builds confidence, credibility, and capability — particularly when delivered in-house, using real content and real expectations.

If you want to develop confident, engaging presenters within your organisation, explore our Train the Trainer programmes or our Leadership and Management courses, or speak to our team on 0800 302 9344.