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"I employed as an accountant for eight years, and used Microsoft Excel every day for long periods of time" begins Google Sheets and Apps Script the expert instructor Ben L Collins. "Almost every task I worked on was completed using Excel however, I didn't possess any prior knowledge. I'd written code, but I'd no experience working with spreadsheets.

"Pretty within the first couple of months of my employment I was asked by my boss me to complete a variety of assignments in Excel like "Combine these tables" etc. - but I had to finish it all with my hands!" The boss explained to him how to use formulas to help speed up the process. Ben recognized right then the most important skill for any person who works in the field of finance is to be able to alter data.

"The those who are able to ability be effective in this field will be a long way ahead of the ones who seem chaotic," Ben continues. I thought "Right, I'm going to need to improve my abilities and I found a lot of websites on the internet including mrexcel.com as well as chandoo.org These people did exactly the same thing as I do now, and employing Excel 15 years back."

The more Ben could look at formulas and spreadsheets, the more fascinated he became: "It was this rabbit tunnel that was getting more and more engrossing." Ben realized that some of his training in coding he'd taken in the college years could be combined with other programming languages that work together with databases, like VBA.

During his career as an accountant who was a professional the accountant was primarily fascinated by technology, but not so much in the accounting or finance. "After eight years of work at a job that I adored, I felt as if I had finished!. I wasn't sure what I could do next But one of my initial thoughts was to be a programmer." Ben tells me.

Ben L Collins speaking in an evening event

He attended a couple of classes, and began to apply for positions. "It was not a complete take off, however, I began to build my own website and writing content. The first few articles I wrote were about Google Sheets and they're the ones that got noticed by Google Search." Google Sheets brought in a variety of requests from clients and even pay-per-hour work.

"In 2014 and in 2015, there were enough inbound calls saying, 'Hey could I have help in creating my dashboard using spreadsheets or spreadsheets?' For instance "Can you look at my company's spreadsheets and help me determine how to improve my spreadsheets? ? '."

The project included Excel, Google Sheets, SQL as well as Tableau. "It wasn't a genuine work, but was an example of think"Maybe there's something found in this area. It's possible that I'll work as a freelancer, rather than going back to the job I had previously held . I don't intend returning to the accounting position!" Ben smiles. "I would like to stay on top of the latest developments in research and technology."

Goodbye accounting, hello education

At first, the education website General Assembly was just a business that was only beginning and planned to introduce programs for professional programmers as well as data analysts. "They created a part-time class in data analysis. Since I had taken a class with them as a participant for one of their courses for developers, I knew a lot about the group who was present in the class. When they released this course on data, they began to recruit for instructors. It consisted consisting of Excel, SQL and Tableau," Ben continues. "I was thinking"Ooh it's exactly what I did when I was just 8 years old. ! '." The candidate went through the interview process, and eventually was hired and he was an instructor for the course for a variety of times during 2015.

"That motivated me to become again a teacher," Ben recalls. "I'd been a teacher at the college level, as a mentor for youngsters before I started my last year in college." He started by incorporating corporate training to the online courses, including tutorials and classes. "As I began to increase the number of interested users in my content I figured I'd create making my own courses and test to see if I could make it work."

) A course on the Query function within Google Sheets

The instruction of the course was received positively, which was enough to inspire Ben to start another course. "I utilized an online platform called Teachable to find an opportunity to establish relationships with my students as well as continue to maintain that relationship instead of transfer it to a marketplace, such as Udemy."

I did some searching and found that the name that was constantly popping up on the web was the one who edits the tech news magazine Stratechery, Ben Thompson. He's one of those who's the OG!" Ben laughs. "I had been member on a couple of memberships to study how other members like Flowing Data and Craig Mod had done it." Ben was studying their newsletters for quite a long period of time and am interested to know how they had implemented their membership-based businesses. I was thinking to myself, "I want mine to look like theirs.'. I was awed by how it was simple and easy to complete. I was thinking"I would like this membership feel..'

It is important to keep the pace of progress

The reason for this is that Ben's subscription offer currently includes the highest quality (or "gated") content that is hosted on WordPress as well as an electronic newsletter that is of top quality which goes out via email via Kit (formerly ConvertKit). Regarding the content the focus is on Google Sheets that include features, updates, and other functions - in addition to how you can get the most value from the application.

"The next newsletter will provide a comprehensive examination of the newest tools which Google released in the past year." Ben adds. They're extremely helpful features for manipulating data. Therefore, there'll be a video demonstration of it, and also the link to an Google Sheet template that people might download to themselves. In addition, the speaker says there will be open discussion about the subject to be held. "I employ the newsletters to communicate information on the topic and to send you a Google Meet link for the live sessions."

In response to questions about the direction his company is heading, Ben thinks membership could turn into the core of his company. "I certainly would love to acquire new members as I'd like for membership to be the only option," he says. "I already have an online library, which is no cost content. Then you are able to join as a professional member to help me with my work and to receive additional details."

Z6fYkdbv3adzawtsO The simulation of chess game making use of Google Sheets

The author states that he's had the ability to provide consultative services, as well as adding ads to his no-cost newsletter. His goal is to change the latter "if I can grow my membership to be big enough and it's great to get remove all the unnecessary things. There are a few areas that you can tackle, but growing the size of his membership is vital. "

He claims he has a variety of concepts for expanding the reach of his service. "I've been thinking on the moment that I'd like to improve my broadcasting skills for these live events as well since we're looking to bring new members up this year. The service itself will change. The final product will not change much, but we'll keep doing live stuff."

He also states that he'd like to create a method that allows members to exchange details about the types of problems they're dealing with and issues they'd like to resolve --- "That may be done through "office hours' or another way to ask questions" so long as it's done in a viable and beneficial way for everyone affected.

Ben affirms that as of now his interaction with his followers is done via email newsletters. "I would suggest you to respond with a text message with the subject line 'Hi, I'd like to hear about what that you're currently working on'. prefer this method because it is straightforward to control.

He was known as a facilitator of discussions on forums and also 'cohort' sessions' in which participants worked on Google Sheets problems online as in a group. "We attended two of these courses in 2021, when they were all popular. It was a great experience however, it was extremely demanding for the initial five weeks. It felt like a "firehose of questions. It's my first time participating in such a group yet since I'm apprehensive that after turning the switch on, it will be difficult to completely turn off. I'd like to consider: how would you approach it from a longer-term view?

"I didn't had any live events in the beginning, when I was first launching, but I thought"Just do it live, and see how the reception goes. Find out if it's a pleasure performing it before I commit to everything.' But it's going well! The owner is keen on including live events "They're fun and participants get from these events. Let's see how this is taking!"

Ben runs the Zoom sessions with his clients.

"Right right now, I'm teaching the subjects I've selected and will teach live in class," he continues. But in the cohort courses there was a more open discussion "People came in to say 'Hey this is the formula I'm struggling with understanding We'd go over the problem in real-time. Other people could observe. This is something we'll think about in the coming school year. It's an excellent way for students to get active."

As a final thought Ben believes that it could be feasible to develop Discord forums for Q&A as another option. However, he states "I simply want to make sure that I'm prepared to handle the issue in a manner that isn't overwhelming me." It appears that Ben is on the path to establishing the base of a durable and strong relationship with his team. Our opinion is that keeping a connection through time is crucial to successful community membership "Little actions - we'll work on building this as time goes by!" he smiles.

More details

Ben Collins is an educator and writer, as well as a programmer. Ben Collins is the founder of The Collins School of Data. Ben develops online classes and writes about the Google Workspace tools. My primary focus is on analytics of data and automated processes using Google Sheets and Apps Script.

Ben L Collins' website

He's a fan of creating light, data-driven applications to the Google stack. This includes Google Sheets, Looker Studio, Google Apps Script, Forms, Docs, Gmail and many other applications. To learn more, visit benlcollins.com.

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