Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) Newsletter

NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.

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PII 006: Succeed by Becoming an Expert at Solving Real World Problems [Hint: Highlights from Maiden Edition of Tayo Solagbade’s FREE Monthly Workshop for his MS Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club Members Held on Sat 19th March 2016 in Lagos-Nigeria]

The topic was Introduction to Excel-VB Automation.

It was VERY practical and I told lots of true stories to add useful perspective for the learners in the small group of 5. But we had NO power supply and NO petrol for generator. Thankfully, the laptops allowed us make useful progress, for about 2 hours before their batteries ran out of juice!

In the coming weeks, I’ll build on this foundation given them with MORE online tutorials and tips, until next month’s edition.

By way of interest, before the workshop went into full swing, I received 2 phone calls from potential buyers in the presence of my attendees….

One was from a Startup Farm CEO in Enugu who had contacted hours before, in the morning, via my website auto response message about my Excel-VB Poultry Farm Manager.

The other was an individual who called – for this first time – using a UK mobile phone number.

24 hours later (i.e. on Sunday p.m.), the former had made a deposit into my account to take up an offer I’d made to him. I delivered his personalized version of the products to him this morning before leaving to resolve some issues with my bank.

I mention the above incident, because that development served to further convince my learners that acquiring Excel-VB development skills like I had, would translate to significant income earning benefits for them!

This journey of building a club based follower ship began in May 2015. But to get this far, I’ve had to work hard on myself for YEARS!

I’m a self-taught developer of Custom Excel-VB driven Spreadsheet Software – and I’ve been developing custom spreadsheet solutions for business users in a very wide range of industries using my self-taught skills for 2 decades (starting with Lotus 1-2-3 before switching to Excel-VB in paid employment).

Initially, I did it while in paid employment, in my spare time – but it transformed my career and opened many doors of rapid career advancement opportunities that would NEVER have materialized otherwise.

Since I quit paid employment to do it for a living, in 2001, my work has evolved to a whole new level – with my products getting purchased by clients within and outside Africa.

All this has happened with only my self-taught skills. However, my self-development efforts in this regard have NOT been haphazard.

In order to improve myself, I studied – and continue to study – the works of experts recognized as established thought leaders and practitioners in Excel-VB Solutions development in the real world.

Examples of those whose works have influenced me are Pierre LeClerc, the fatherly gentleman based in Canada, whose approach to Excel-VB programming makes it so easy to rapidly improves one’s self via self-study, using resources he provides.

My encounter with his work, in 2005 changed the way I worked with Excel. He it was who really made me understand how to OPTIMIZE the Excel calculation engine, using it’s powerful spreadsheet functions and features, while enhancing my productivity by incorporating Excel-VB automation – where relevant.

You see, Pierre explains that a competent Excel-VB Solutions Developer will have a real world relevant problem solving mind set  – as different from the world view adopted quite often by people called “Programmers”.

Indeed, most times an Excel-VB developer will have a background in management, which will guide his/her intelligent use of MS Excel and its VBA back end for real world relevant problem solving.

This philosophy has helped me escape the trap that many others fall into, of wanting to CODE the life out  of every problem in an unconscious effort to show how skilled one is in programming.

The authors of Professional Excel Programming – which I call the Excel Bible – agree with this line of thinking. Indeed, in the first part of their book, the actually described 5 categories of Excel Developers – and they named those with the above tendency: “VBA Developer”

At the bottom of this piece is a diagrammatic representation, with notes, of those 5 categories – which reflects LEVELS of Excel-VB proficiency of a user.

I have chosen to base the coaching support I offer my target market on use of this model.

For the market I serve, I’ve found out that most users will most likely fall into Levels 1 and 2. My vision is to help those interested to move up to Level 4 – through the one-on-one experiential coaching I offer as well as the generic coaching I provide via my Excel-VB club.

But one problem I anticipate is that of the VBA developer types of business users and/or those with such a mind set

Excel-VB Solutions Development is NOT about ego tripping. We are not people obsessed with displaying our programming or coding prowess. Instead, we make intelligent use of our coding skills to ENHANCE our work productivity as it relates to our data recording, analysis and report generation for timely decision making.

That’s why I have examples of automated workbook reports (like this one build for the National Distribution Manager of a Large Multinational Telecom Company) that do NOT use a single line of VBA code, and yet cuts down report generation time by over 80% – compared to status quo!

Those who want to learn from me or engage my services must be willing to adopt this perspective, otherwise it would be impractical for us to work together.

A recent enquirer sent me some code he was having problems getting to run normally and asked that I help out. I was due to run my first workshop for my Excel-VB club members at the time, so I told him I’d create a video tutorial based on it later.

As I type this, it’s 3.24 a.m. Monday 22nd March 2016 and I just took my first real look at the code after pasting it into the code window of a new workbook.

What I saw INSTANTLY screamed “VBA Developer” to me.

Why?

Because some of the code sentences showed he was using code in VBA to do things that would have been better handled using Excel’s spreadsheet functions.

Whoever wrote that macro procedure/subroutine did a lot of coding overkill.

It pays to LET EXCEL BE EXCEL, if you want to get a solution that gives the user best results.

With what I’ve seen, I’ve decided I’m going to ask the gentleman to show me the data he wishes to handle, so I can gain better insights into what he wants to do with the code.

Then based on that perspective, I’ll point out the inadequacy of the coding approach adopted and propose an alternative more consistent with best practice.

In order to sell custom Excel-VB software as a profitable business in a socioeconomic environment where it did NOT previously exist (Nigeria), I’ve had to adapt ideas from developers in Europe and America to suit my needs.

The priority I’ve had to pay attention to has been the mental attitude of business users out here who balked repeatedly at any efforts to deliver solutions with a DIY provision.

In other words, they did not want to learn how to do what I’d done for them or how to maintain or improve on it.

Instead, what they wanted was for me to deliver what amounted to a “dummy-proof” range of solutions – that did not even require them to know ANYTHING about using MS Excel!

This is why today, in my promotional messages, for my Excel Heaven brand, I say “If you can use a mobile phone, you can use my custom Excel-VB apps”.

The above experiences have made me realize that users in these parts especially, or those with similar backgrounds to them will best be helped to develop interest in learning Excel-VB automation by using what is called a Case-Study based Experiential Coaching Approach.

Basically, this means that I offer to teach them Excel-VB programming by focusing on using the work they consider important as a basis on which to provide my tutorials, in such a way that at the end of each session they will leave with something they can immediately begin to apply to improve their work related productivity.

This strategy of Experiential Coaching necessarily makes it difficult, if not impossible to provide a one-size-fits-all range of tutorials for learners.

Instead, I have step-by-step video and PDF tutorials meant to introduce every learner to foundational concepts of Excel-VB programming.

These will give him/her the needed sound footing to build up his/her skills in BEST PRACTICE Excel-VB coding.

But to ensure s/he is able to make good progress without losing enthusiasm, I will use information I obtain using my Needs Analysis Questionnaire to identify – in liaison with him/her – key work based tasks that we can use as Case Studies for his/her learning.

Based on what I learn from his/her questionnaire responses, and our interactions as the coaching progresses, I can go on to create a special range of tutorials for him/her to use for home study.

This is my approach, based on the needs of my target market/audience, identified over the past decade.

Click here to learn more about my Home/Self-Study Tutorials used in my One-on-One Experiential Coaching

It is basically a custom solution in which I create learning “content” for YOU based on needs I identify you have. Access to this option requires joining my Inner Circle.

This is different from the arrangement in which I offer general coaching via short weekly tips and tutorials to members of my Excel-VB club (click here to see my members-only private/closed Facebook page for club members).

The required investment for the former (which is $500 USD via my Inner Circle) is different from that for the latter (which is $65 USD per annum – for membership of my Excel-VB club – click here for details).

It goes without saying that the one-on-one coaching option is more intensive than the Excel-VB club alternative. You will need to decide which one you will be best able to cope with – because I WILL CHALLENGE you to stick with agreed milestone targets/dates!

Click here to see the course content for my 4 day Excel-VB Programming Coaching LIVE Workshop

By way of interest, I offer to produce a home study video tutorial version of what I would normally teach during the above mentioned LIVE event – for interested persons – be you a one-on-one learner or member of my Excel-VB club.

But again, since not everyone will have similar needs, the specific examples I will use will vary depending on the individual’s identified needs.

Below: A mind-map showing 5 levels of Excel-VB Solutions Development Competence I offer support to achieve

I came up with this diagram based on categorizations made in Professional Excel Development – the massive Excel-VB programming bible written by 3 of the world’s foremost developers i.e. Stephen Bullen, Rob Bovey and John Green.

Each has delivered high profile commercial Excel-VB software solutions to the world’s largest corporations.

Note that my experiences over the years indicate that majority of business users want something around the Power User level – especially career persons in paid employment in this part of the world – as against what obtains in developed societies.

Having said that, my goal is to use my Excel-VB club platform to gradually encourage more users in and out of paid employment, to over time build their competence to the level of Excel Developer – and possibly beyond i.e. to Professional Excel Developer.

True Story: Responding to last week’s request for Excel-VB coding help from a business user in India

Last week, I published a blog in which I shared details of the above mentioned request I got from an Indian gentleman at about 12:53 p.m. on Tuesday 15th March 2016 (Read it here).

Early this morning, at about 4.30a.m or so, I got up and checked out his code, then wrote in modifications my first instincts led me to use – and they worked.

Then, just as I’d promised the gentleman, I proceeded to record a screen shot demonstration tutorial in which I explained what I’d done, and why. In the video, I gave him my opinion about the intended purpose of the code snippet he’d sent to me, noting the fact that better use of the Excel object model could minimize the need for VBA use for the task in question.

Below are screen shots of the original code he sent, and the modified one I sent back, PLUS email/facebook exchanges we’ve since this morning…

Above: Email in which he replied (after seeing my code) expressing satisfaction with what I’d sent him.

Notice in his last email response, above, that he said he looked forward to requesting more of my “help” in the same manner…

And interestingly, he stated that he was sure I would give it…being the “nice sir” that I am of course…hee hee!

Unfortunately, I do NOT do flattery. I do NOT need it.

I also do NOT feel ANY need to prove myself in terms of my Excel-VB coding (or any other) competence.

So, one thing I KNOW will NOT be happening again is ME doing any such thing for him again.

Either he joins one of the countless free forums, or he enrolls for a course online. Or he could join my Excel-VB club.

But even when if he joins my club, I will NOT be doing coding for him. I do NOT code for any of my members. Instead I teach them concepts, tips, techniques they need to know and then guide them to THINK up ways to use what they learn to solve ANY problem they raise for use as a case study.

That’s why I call my approach Experiential Coaching.

Some people believe that if you really know something, the best way to prove it is to TELL the learner. They argue that “using questions” and prompts, like I do suggests I’m not confident or competent or both – and that THAT is why I hide behind that approach.

My response is that I have a library of commercial Excel-VB apps that I’ve been selling to an increasingly global paying audience for over 10 years now. Not only did I build them – and find buyers – ALL by myself, I also provide LIFETIME after sales support 24/7 to ALL my buyers.

And that is ALL the proof I need!

If you’re a business user of Excel in Nigeria/Africa and you represent a group, organization or association of business users, and would like to gain access to the learning solutions I offer with regard to the above, click here to contact me.

SDN Blog™

[Tuesday]:

You Have to Believe In Yourself First, Before Others Can Really Believe in YOU [Maiden Edition of FREE Monthly Workshop for Tayo Solagbade’s MS Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club Members Holds Today – Sat 19th March 2016]

Protected: THE FARM CEO (Issue 41): 3 Ways to Profits in Cassava Business, SECRETS TO MAKING MILLIONS IN PLANTAIN FARMING BUSINESS IN NIGERIA, GET LISTED FOR CASSAVA AND YOUR OTHER PRODUCTS TO SELL TO A GLOBAL AUDIENCE