PowerPoint Tips & Tutorials

Create a visual menu

I recently gave 2 workshop seminars at a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. Both were on Creating Effective Presentations, but one was called PowerPoint 101, for intermediate users, and one was called Advanced PowerPoint, for advanced users.

In the advanced session, I covered using video, Adobe Flash, and animation. I also discussed the concept of a visual menu, with links to sections of the presentation. The concept is very similar to a Web-Style Presentation, which I cover in another tip .

However, in this case, I refined the idea for use as a sales presentation. The conference was for Financial & Insurance Conference Planners, and many "hospitality partners" attended -- sales representatives of hotels and travel companies. These people often use PowerPoint to present their companies' venues and services.

To show you how this works, I've created a fictitious hotel, Shangri-La Hotel, and used it for the presentation. It's a great place to go!

In this example, the representative wants to discuss the following topics with the potential client:

• The beautiful guest rooms
• The sumptuous dining, for guests and for large groups
• The amenities, including the pool, the sauna, and the gym
• The conference and meeting rooms
• The activities available locally

The first slide has a photo of the hotel, with callout AutoShapes pointing to the various areas. Each callout is a hyperlink to the appropriate slide in the presentation. (If you had several slides on each topic, you would hyperlink to the first slide of that section.)

Here's the slide for the meeting rooms. The "I like doing business here" callout hyperlinks to this slide.

The "badge" at the upper-left corner is a hyperlink back to the menu. You place this on every slide, so you can easily click it to return to the menu at any time.

This type of arrangement allows the representative to conduct a client-centered presentation. Some clients are more interested in the meeting rooms; others are more interested in the guest rooms. So you can move around the presentation according to the request of the potential client. It's very considerate of the client's needs and desires. If the client has no preference, the representative can use the hyperlinks in any order to run the presentation.

To insert the callouts, click AutoShapes on the Drawing toolbar and choose Callouts. (In PowerPoint 2007, click the Insert tab and choose Shapes.) Then choose one of the options. You can then enter text for the callout. You can drag the point, shown by a yellow diamond, anywhere you want.

To add hyperlinks, click the outside border of an AutoShape. Then choose Insert> Hyperlink. (In 2007, click Hyperlink on the Insert tab.) In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, click the Place in This Document button on the left. You can then choose the slide you want from the list of slides that displays.

When you place the "badge" on the second slide, add a hyperlink to the first slide. Then copy and paste it to all the other slides. The hyperlink comes along with the AutoShape or image! If you want, you can place the badge on the slide master.

Would you like to see how it works? Download the presentation.

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