It seems we live in a deck-filled business world. Yesterday's business cards are today's PowerPoint presentations. Every meeting, internal or external, appears exposed without a "deck" to provide guardrails for the conversation.

How can you make a good presentation even more effective? Promotional Consultant Today passes along these top tips for success when you are behind the lectern.

1. Show your passion and connect with your audience. It's hard to be relaxed and be yourself when you're nervous. But time and again, the great presenters say that the most important thing is to connect with your audience. The best way to do that is to let your passion for the subject shine through. Be honest with the audience about what is important to you and why it matters, and the audience will respond.

2. Focus on your audience's needs. Your presentation needs to be built around what your audience is going to get out of the presentation. As you prepare to speak, you always need to bear in mind what the audience needs and wants to know, not what you can tell them. While you're giving the presentation, you also need to remain focused on your audience's response, and react to that. Make it easy for your audience to understand and respond.

3. Keep it Simple: concentrate on your core message. When planning your presentation, you should always keep in mind the question: What is the key message (or three key points) for my audience to take away? You should be able to communicate that key message very briefly. And if what you are planning to say doesn't contribute to that core message, don't say it.

4. Smile and make eye contact with your audience. This sounds very easy, but a surprisingly large number of presenters fail to do it. If you smile and make eye contact, you are building rapport, which helps the audience to connect with you and your subject. It also helps you to feel less nervous, because you are talking to individuals, not to a great mass of unknown people. To help you with this, make sure that you don't turn down all the lights so that only the slide screen is visible. Your audience needs to see you as well as your slides.

5. Start strong. The beginning of your presentation is crucial. You need to grab your audience's attention and hold it. They will give you a few minutes' grace in which to entertain them, before they start to switch off if you're dull. So don't waste that time by explaining who you are. Start by entertaining them. Try a story or an attention-grabbing (but useful) image on a slide.

6. Remember the 10-20-30 rule for slideshows. This is a tip from Guy Kawasaki of Apple. He suggests that slideshows should contain no more than 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes and use a font size no smaller than 30 point.

This last tip is particularly important as it stops you from trying to put too much information on any one slide. This whole approach avoids the dreaded "death by PowerPoint."

As a general rule, slides should be the sideshow to you, the presenter. A good set of slides should be of no use without the presenter, and they should definitely contain less, rather than more, information, expressed simply.

If you need to provide more information, create a handout and give it out after your presentation.

7. Tell stories. Human beings are programmed to respond to stories. Stories help us to pay attention, and also to remember things. If you can use stories in your presentation, your audience is more likely to engage and to remember your points afterwards. It is a good idea to start with a story, but there is a wider point too: you need your presentation to act like a story.

Think about what story you are trying to tell your audience, and create your presentation to tell it.

8. Use your body, too. It has been estimated that more than three quarters of communication is non-verbal. That means that your body language, as well as your tone of voice, is crucial to getting your message across. Make sure you are giving the right messages: body language to avoid includes crossed arms, hands held behind your back or in your pockets, and pacing the stage. Make your gestures open and confident, and move naturally around the stage, and among the audience too, if possible.

Source: Founded in July 2011, SkillsYouNeed is an expanding web service that produces and publishes high-quality, well-researched and easy-to-read information about essential life skills. With years of experience in education, both face-to-face and through distance learning, the team provides skills needed to help improve people's lives, both professionally and personally. The content is not only used by individuals but also by schools, colleges, universities and commercial organizations around the world.