I’ve described the classic art of persuasion as getting your audience to Aha! To be truly effective, however, one Aha! is not enough. The Power Presentation is a continuous series of end-to-end Aha!s.

Making presentations is very much like massage therapy. The good massage therapist never takes his or her hands off your body. In the same way, the good presenter never lets go of the audience’s minds. The good presenter grabs their minds at the beginning of the presentation; navigates them through all the various parts, themes, and ideas, never letting go; and then deposits them at the call to action.

Notice the verbs in this analogy describing the work of a skilled presenter: grab, navigate, and deposit. All three can be reduced to a least-common-denominator verb: manage. People are the deciding factor in business decisions, and management is the number-one factor in investment decisions. The good presenter is one who effectively manages the minds of the audience. Therefore, the subliminal perception of the effective presentation is Effective Management.

Of course, no one is ever going to conclude explicitly that a good presenter is an effective manager, a skilled executive, an excellent director, or a superb CEO. That’s a bit of a stretch. But the converse proves the point. Unconsciously, the audience makes assumptions. If they are subjected to a presentation whose point is unclear, they will be resistant to responding to the call to action.

Influential investors from Warren Buffett to Peter Lynch subscribe to the commonly held principle of investing only in businesses they understand.

When your story is not clear, when it’s fragmented or overly complex, the audience has to work hard to make sense of it. Eventually, this hard work begins to produce first resistance, then irritation, and then loss of confidence.

A book by Steve Krug about Web design has little to do with developing your story, but its title states our point succinctly: Don’t Make Me Think.

The effective presenter makes it easy for the audience to grasp ideas without having to work. The effective presentation story leads the audience to an irrefutable conclusion. The journey gives the audience a psychological comfort level that makes it easy for them to say “yes” to whatever the presenter is proposing. Presenting, therefore, is essentially selling.

Of course, one can never minimize the importance of having solid factual evidence that validates your business premise. A well-honed presentation is no substitute for a well-conceived business plan, just as a commanding speaking style is no substitute for personal integrity. You must have the steak as well as the sizzle. Yet when two companies or two individuals of equal strength are competing, the winner is likely to be the one who tells the story more persuasively.

In the end, the most subtle impact of a clear and compelling presentation is perhaps the most powerful effect of all: The person who is able to tell an effective business story is perceived as being in command, and deserves the confidence of others. When you are in command of your story, you are in command of the room. Your audience will follow where you lead, and so will money, influence, power, and success.

This is the core message and value of this book to you, no matter what role or level in business you currently occupy. Perhaps one day you’ll go public with a company of your own, and then I hope the techniques you’ll learn here will help you make millions of dollars. Before that happens, however, you’ll have to get past many mission-critical hurdles, because every business decision turns on your ability to tell your story. So please use the same persuasive techniques you’ll find in these pages in those scores of other stepping-stones along the way.

To help you master them, you’ll see how Cisco persuaded investors to provide billions in capital to support a technology so esoteric that, even today, few people really understand it. You’ll see how Yahoo! capitalized on the emerging fascination with the Internet by transforming an irreverent brand image into a meaningful investment presentation. You’ll also see how Luminous Networks, a telecommunications startup company, was able to raise $80 million in private capital during one of the steepest market declines in history. I helped create Power Presentations for each of these companies. I hope to do the same for you.

This book is about presentations, yes. But it’s about much more than that. It’s about psychology, about storytelling, about getting every audience to respond to your call to action. It’s about presenting to win.