Terms
"I was an accountant for 8 years, and I used Microsoft Excel every day for long hours." starts Google Sheets and Apps Script an experienced teacher Ben L Collins. "Almost everything I did was performed in Excel but I didn't possess any previous experience. I'd coded however I had not completed any spreadsheet-related work.
"Pretty at the beginning of my professional career, the boss requested that I do several things with Excel"Combine these tables' and so on - yet I was doing it all by hand!" The boss gave him some formulas that could help make things easier and Ben recognized right then the primary knowledge needed for any professional in finance is knowing how to manipulate information.
"The people who can achieve this feat are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest people, who are a mess," Ben continues. I thought, "Right. I'll need to become familiar the skills I have and came across numerous websites such as mrexcel.com as well as chandoo.org They were doing what I'm doing today, with Excel fifteen years ago."
The more Ben was able to look at formulas and spreadsheets, the more intrigued he was: "It was this rabbit tunnel that seemed to be going deep and deeper." Ben realized that some of the training in coding from his college time could be combined with other programming languages that integrate with databases, such as VBA.
Over the course of his life as an accountant, he began to become more involved in the field of technology, and less so in the accounting or finance. "After nearly eight years I realized, "I've done enough to have enough!. I wasn't sure what to do next. But one of my first thoughts was to shift career paths and to become a developer." Ben tells me.
Ben L Collins speaking at an occasion
He attended a few classes before applying for positions. "It did not go over well, however, I was developing my own website and creating writing assignments. The first article I composed was on Google Sheets and were those that got noticed via Google Search." These articles led to a large number of clients requesting and paying freelance positions.
"In 2014 and 2015. There was an inbound flow people asking "Hey, could you assist me in creating the dashboard using sheets?' or "Can you have a peek at my spreadsheets for the company and help me figure out the best way to enhance these formulas? ? '."
The work comprised Excel, Google Sheets, SQL and Tableau. "It wasn't really work at all but it was enough of a sign to say"Maybe there's something in this. It might be possible to become a freelancer instead of returning to my old job . I didn't intend to go back to the accountancy job!" Ben smiles. "I am looking forward to keeping on top of advancements in technology and research."
Goodbye accounting, hello education
In the beginning, the education website General Assembly was just a company that was just starting and had plans to launch training courses specifically for researchers and developers. "They have launched the data analysis part-time course. Since I had taken a class with them as a student on some of their developers courses I had a good relationship with the group at the time. The team introduced their Data course and they were looking for instructors. The class consisted of Excel, SQL and Tableau," Ben continues. "I said, 'Hey it's precisely my responsibility over the last eight years. ! '." He was able to pass the interview to be hired and instructed the course over a number of times in 2015.
"That led me to teach again," Ben recalls. "I'd taught in college as a mentor for younger students when I was in the final year." He started incorporating some corporate training into the online offerings, such as tutorials, as well as courses. "As I started to build a following, in 2017 I thought I'd create my own online course to see how it goes."
) A course on the query function of Google Sheets
The course was a hit and the students appreciated it thoroughly - enough to inspire Ben to create a follow-up course. "I utilized Teachable, a site that I found on Teachable as I wanted to build a strong relationship to my students, and also take control of this relationship instead of handing it over to an online market place like Udemy."
I was compelled to do some research and found that one name that kept popping up was the person who runs the magazine for tech called Stratechery, Ben Thompson. Ben Thompson is the OG!" Ben is laughing. "I joined a few accounts myself, to learn how people such as Flowing Data and Craig Mod were doing the same." Ben has been receiving their free newsletter since the age of a baby and I was interested in the method they used to implement their membership-based businesses. I thought, "I want mine to exactly like theirs.'. It was simple to sign-up and simple - I thought, 'I would like that experience as a member.'
Moving forward sustainably
For context, Ben's membership service includes high-quality (or "gated") content that is located on WordPress as well as an electronic newsletter that is sent through emails through Kit (formerly ConvertKit). To give you more information, the service is based in Google Sheets and includes information about product features and updates - and ways to make the most out of the software.
"The coming newsletter will be an in-depth review of certain of the features which Google introduced last year." Ben adds. These are really useful functions in manipulating data. There will be a demonstration on this topic, with a hyperlink to a Google Sheet template that people could download for themselves. The writer also mentions the live discussions about this. "I make use of the newsletters to share information regarding the date and time in addition to share the Google Meet link for the live event."
If asked about the future of his company, Ben thinks membership could become the primary source of income for his business. "I certainly would like to have new members because I want that membership to be the main product of the company," he says. "I am able to offer archives of material for free which you then can join a premium member to help me out and receive more information."
A simulation of the game Chess with the help of Google Sheets
He explained that he was able to provide consultancy services as well as put advertisements on his newsletter but he aims to eliminate that: "if I can build an audience that is large enough, it would be great to rid of everything else. There's some small things to work on but growing the number of people who subscribe to the newsletter is essential. "
He mentions that he has many ideas to expand the reach of his offerings. "I've developed some ideas that I could do more efficiently delivering these live events to members as well as we've plans to bring members in coming in the next calendar year. The software itself will change. It's not going drastically different, however, we'll continue to do live-streamed stuff."
He adds that he wants to come up with a way to allow members to discuss information about the kinds of challenges they're working on and challenges they'd like to address in the coming years "That could be via 'office hours' or a better method to ask queries" insofar as it's done in a sustainable and beneficial way for all parties involved.
Ben says that, for the time being all interactions with his audience is done via email newsletters. "I would actually like people to contact me with a message saying 'Hey let me know what you're currently working on' - I like it because it's manageable.
He would offer forums chats as well as "cohort course" in which participants worked through Google Sheets issues online together in a group. "We took two of these in 2021," he said. Google Sheets were the talk of the town. This course was extremely successful but it was extremely intense in the initial 5 weeks the course was within - it was like a "firehose" of questions. I haven't done this community for myself, as a result of I'm apprehensive that after I've turned on the system, it will be impossible to completely switch off. It's something I'd like to think through, how can be able to accomplish this from looking over the long term?
"I did not have any promises to live streaming when I first thought, 'Just launch and observe what the response is. Make sure I'm happy making it work before I make promises about all the time.' But it's going great! He's keen to include live events "They're entertaining and attendees gain a lot from these sessions. Let's see how it goes!"
Ben hosts the Zoom sessions for his clients.
"Right at the moment, I'm delivering things like choosing a topic which we'll discuss in the live class," he continues. However, in the group courses it was more of an open-forum "People would come in and ask, 'Hey, here's my problem.' Then we'd discuss it live and others were able to view. We'll be looking into it during the next year. This is a fantastic way to get individuals to get involved."
The author concludes that a Discord Q&A-style forum is certainly an option, however Ben clarifies that "I simply want to be sure that I am able to do this in a manner which doesn't overwhelm me." This sounds like Ben has begun working towards establishing the longest-lasting and longest-lasting relationship within his community. It is our opinion that keeping a friendship for a long time is vital for a positive experience "Little steps - we'll just continue to add on as time goes by!" he smiles.
More information
Ben Collins is an educator and author, programmer, and creator of The Collins School of Data. Ben creates online training courses and writes on Google Workspace tools. My main focus is data analysis and automation with Google Sheets as well as Apps Script.
Ben L Collins' website
He enjoys creating light-weight apps which are data-driven to work with Google's Google stack. These include: Google Sheets, Looker Studio, Google Apps Script, Forms, Docs, Gmail, etc. For more information, go to benlcollins.com.
Article was posted on here