Do you inform large audiences of legal updates, tax laws or special announcements?

Do you sell products, services or advice to a room full of people?

Do you educate employees, sales professionals, or create curriculum to transfer skills?

If you have ever spent hours creating a PowerPoint, Keynote or other type of presentation then I will be able to at a minimum cut your labor intensity in half.  (We will use PowerPoint as an example even though there are many presentation tools out there.)

There are 3 types of presentations you can make:

• Sales presentation
• Presentation to inform
• Educate or skills transfer presentation

Whatever type of presentation you create you will be able to use this methodology making some natural assumptions.  Please customize according to your own needs.

A one-hour presentation

The length depends on how long the host/meeting planner or you have allocated.

4-5 major points

Each major point is a branch from the main theme or topic.  Major points can be specific outcomes, results you want to accomplish, or actions you want the audience to take.

3 sub-points for each major point

Each sub point could be a story that you tell, a video you want to show, some research or statistics you want to introduce, or some exercise you want the group to perform.

Now that you have a simple process to create the presentation how can you create it as quickly as possible?

Answer.  Mindmeister

Mindmeister is known for being a robust mind-mapping tool however there are some hidden features and tricks you can use to simplify the presentation creation process and provide additional learning aids for your audiences.

Check out these unique features of Mindmeister…

Visual Mind Map

Visual learners love mind maps because they can quickly see how presentations are developed, organized, and focus on the top priorities.  Create the Mindmeister presentation by choosing a blank template, enter in the title, and then hit enter and tab to create main points and sub points quickly.  Avoid existing templates because you will be more concerned whether something is a circle vs. a square rather than getting the job done.

You can go into as many branches of sub points as you wish.  Keep in mind a mind map is a visual not a place to insert paragraphs even though you could if you wanted.  Use links with the http:// inside which make them active links someone else could click on if you shared it with them.

Also, if client’s ask you to create a timeline for a course just insert the times into the main points so they know what will be covered when.  This is great for continuing education and self-study courses.

Export to PowerPoint

Once you have finished creating the bullet points, sub points, and resources inside the mind map you can export the mind map into PowerPoint.  This creates slides for every major bullet points and inserts the text.  This way you can use the PowerPoint outline view to tab and shift tab to organize the slides how you want before you add pictures or do any further formatting.  If you don’t like creating slides just simply share the Mindmeister mind map or exported PowerPoint presentation with someone who specializes in creating them who can take it from there.

Export to Word

Do you ever make a handout for your audience?  After you finish the mind map in Mindmeister export the presentation into a Microsoft Word format.  This will create the table of contents for you and give you space to add more descriptive content.

Those tips right there will save you hours and hours creating your presentations.

But wait… There’s more.

Hidden Tricks of Mindmeister

Insert links and pictures inside the mind map.  You can link to YouTube videos, assessments, and links to provide more additional information to the presenter/audience member.  Add pictures to add more visuals to explain process, charts, or diagrams.

Collaborate in Real Time

Share Mindmeister mind maps with collaborators so you can edit in real time with your team, boss, or customer who helps you create it.  They can see you make the changes at the same time you are viewing the map.  This cuts down on going back and forth emailing versions of presentations and getting approval to move forward to publish.

Public Mind maps

Mindmeister mind maps can be made public so they can be shared as hyperlinks in emails, text messages and social media by clicking the share button.  Take it a step further by integrating the public map into your existing email campaign or embedding into an existing page on your website.

Mindmeister is great for SEO 

Mindmeister has a page rank of 8 and all of the content (bullet points, sub points, and links) are search engine friendly.  My advice is to load your mind map with the key words you want to be known for, Ping the link using RSS syndicators, and optimize the description if you want your mind map to rank high on Google.

A Tour of MindMeister from MindMeister on Vimeo.

Author’s note:

People ask me how do I keep customizing my presentations for my clients because I make so many of them each year.  Mindmeister is a huge time saver for me and my consulting clients so they see the outcomes and activities involved in the process from the 30,000 foot view.