The Power of Numeric Graphics

Numbers play a key role in any business presentation. Revenues, units shipped, profits, and market share are the hits, runs, and errors of the business scorecard, and everyone in business understands their importance.

This is not to say that everyone in business feels equally at home when it comes to interpreting numbers. There are the green-eyeshade types who immediately recognize key trends and can quickly pick out the most important item in a column of figures. Then there are the rest of us, who need a little time and a lot of context to fully grasp the meaning of a profit and loss statement or balance sheet.

When you're in a persuasive situation, you want to win the agreement of both the number-savvy and the ...

Get Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.