Mind Mapping for Business

Marketers need plans. But more importantly, you need "buy-in" from everyone involved to ensure the plan receives maximum support. Without that support, you'll find it much harder to gain traction.

Using NovaMind, those planning sessions are not only more enjoyable, they're infinitely more productive. All the key performers in your business have input into the mind map, and this relationship causes them to "get on board" and get excited about implementing their ideas. By getting all the information down, a group can see where they are and what's coming up next. It's a concise insider's view.

Like a compass that steers you toward a better course, a mind map is also an excellent tool for guiding and measuring your progress over time. For example, did that "Gen-Y" strategy amount to much? Are your priorities still in line with your efforts in time and cost? Do people know the customer goals to reach for and are they still heading in the right direction to meet those goals? A marketing mind map is a powerful resource with insight about a project's status and health.

As the strategic planner for your company, your key priorities involve helping your company to identify and work towards goals while also giving direction and inspiration to the staff.

Using a mind map, you can effectively scope out the business plan by identifying goals that are short and long term, and then fill in the details using branches to develop a complete strategy.

You can, of course, move forward at any time, and complete the mind map with additional levels of detail. This added detail (the sub branches) help you track the lessons of a strategy implementation, causing you to add new information to your map.

The easy visibility of key activities a mind map reveals can also readily point out corrections - something everyone involved in strategic planning knows is both essential and non-trivial.

Strategic plans using a mind map provide great situational overviews. Circulate them to get the word out, and everyone will be able to move in unison in the same direction, which massively improves your results.

The search for new company direction, mission statement, business plan, product ideas, clients and service often begins with brainstorming, right? Well NovaMind is the key tool everyone reaches for when brainstorming. NovaMind is used to conduct, guide, and record the outcomes of brainstorming sessions. Users often wonder how they got anywhere without it.

Important contributors may join a business development effort at different stages of a project. What better way to bring them up to speed than with a mind map? A NovaMind mind map presents the situation visually, so the reviewer can immediately see what is involved and how the elements link together, with additional details available in each task or objective. Project management is much easier when everyone understands the project in this way.

Once the initial planning is done, the mind map can be opened in Merlin (on a Mac) for detailed project management. This means that all the information you record is immediately available for use.

But it doesn't end there. Suppose a framework needs to be redefined? You can pursue additional questions and link to a brand new mind map. Information that is concise and easy on the eyes will make a great impact on everyone involved.

NovaMind helps you sell your ideas to colleagues, bosses or clients. A common challenge is how to help people understand the benefits you perceive from doing certain tasks. For example, often people object to the time something will take, so immediately dismiss a benefit out of hand.

Using Mind Maps, you can show all the objectives and sub-objectives, and the tasks that make up the objective. They will be able to see instantly where the item being discussed fits in with their overall goals, why it is necessary, and the justification of the costs.

Also, just the process of going through and making a mind map will help you develop your thoughts clearly before involving others. You will be able to present a clear and concise picture to them.

And finally, back up data such as priorities, progress to date, reasonable resource allocations and expected project completion milestones can all add weight, and help bring your selling proposition to a positive close.

When you need that injection of cash to get your project going, presenting in Mind Map format means that the investors can see why you need the money, what you are going to be doing with it, and how you will meet your objectives (and theirs). This appeals to a much wider audience than pages of reports or Gantt charts with minute details on them.

It is the effort to make the very best pitch and finding the tack that considers investors' particular needs most inclusively that will lead to a positive outcome. And no other tool moderates that detail to each particular investor as successfully as a mind map will.

We're confident your results will speak for themselves. Just look at this example: NovaMind allowed this business to win £22 Million in funding for a development project. Each step of the process was planned, drafted and executed brilliantly - 22 million reasons to use NovaMind!