PowerPoint navigation is an underutilized feature. You can use navigation to create interactive presentations, kiosk presentations, directories and much more.

Let’s explore how to use PowerPoint navigation to create a self-guided client presentations that your clients can browse themselves.

The Scenario

For the purposes of this video and article, we are taking the approach of a financial planner wanting to create a presentation to show their clients their retirement savings options.

The basics of this approach can be used for any sales presentation. This could be done for selling new cars, homes yachts, consulting packages or any other type of larger priced product or service.

Tools We Used

To create this presentation, we used 3 tools:

• PowerPoint
• Excel spreadsheet (for financial calculations)
• DataPoint (PowerPoint add-on to pull data from the Excel spreadsheet)

PowerPoint Navigation Client Presentation Steps

Here are the steps we used to create the presentation:

1. Created the spreadsheet for calculations
2. Created presentation in PowerPoint
3. Used DataPoint to connect charts and text boxes to spreadsheet
4. Added PowerPoint navigation using shapes in PowerPoint

The Spreadsheet

To start, I built a retirement calculator using an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet had inputs for such variables as:

• current savings
• monthly RRSP contributions
• expected work pension
• expected government pensions
• expected rates of return
• years to retirement

Once the inputs are all entered, the spreadsheet automatically calculates their retirement income at age 60 and 65.

Create Presentation

Once the financial calculations are in place, I created a simple PowerPoint presentation with slides for:

• current financial snapshot
• regular retirement at 65
• early retirement at 60

Connect Slides to Data

Then I went to each of the 3 financial slides and connected the text boxes to the appropriate data from the spreadsheet using our DataPoint add-in for PowerPoint.

Making Changes on the Fly

You can easily open the spreadsheet on a separate laptop or tablet and change the inputs (such as increasing their monthly RRSP contribution) in real time, changing the results automatically. This allows you to support your client with additional “what-if?” scenarios.

Create PowerPoint Navigation Buttons

Now that I have the slides created and the data connected, it is time to create the PowerPoint navigation buttons. To do this, within PowerPoint click on Insert, then Shapes, then Action Buttons.

Link PowerPoint Navigation Buttons to Slides

The next step is to choose which slide you want people to go to for each navigation button. Just choose the correct slide from the pull down menu.

The Result

Once you have completed all these steps, your navigable presentation is complete. The connected spreadsheet acts as your calculator for “what-if” scenarios and your clients can easily self-navigate your presentation. Look at the video above to see how the presentation turned out.

Need help creating your own PowerPoint navigation presentation? Contact us. And, as always, we would love to hear about the creative ways you are using our software.