What are some of the most common mistakes you see in business presentations?

Answer 1

The most common mistake I see in business presentations is the lack of engaging structure. Your presentation should be a build up to a closing that starts with a question or need and ends with an answer or solution.

Another mistake commonly seen is a speaker that is self centered and overtly worried about "performing" his or her presentation. Naturally, your audience needs to "like" you and your personality. But that should not take away from the overall goal of your message. A balance between your speaking skills and clarity of your message is what one needs to master for a successful business presentation.

Answer 2

I like to look at presentations as having four corner stones (or the 4 S): structured, succinct, supreme content, stimulating. People tend to be either very structured, organized, and highly prepared but lack engagement and stimulation, or vice versa. In communication, balance is everything. Therefore, speakers need to balance speaking and listening, sending and receiving, stimulating and informing, etc. Finding that balance is probably the most critical skill in public speaking, presentations, negotiating, etc. Of course, there are a lot of other things to bear in mind, such as location, audience, objective, control, roles, anticipation, overcoming objection, timeline, content, summarizing, visualizing, etc. But the good thing is that everybody can become proficient in public speaking; all you need is a good trainer and some practice!