Category Archives: My DN Travel News
[RECOMMENDED] How to Get Audience Attention at the Start of Your Presentation – By Efe Ohwofasa
When I started out in speaking, I did it all wrong!
I did not know what to say or how to connect myself with the audience right from the beginning.
It got to a point during a talk that some members of the audience walked out of the room while some got busy with their phones.
Others began chatting with themselves, and I really felt embarrassed, saying to myself “Oh, it seems these people really do not like me.”
However, I eventually came to the realization that it was not their fault, but mine!
Continue reading:
<a href=”http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Get-Audience-Attention-at-the-Start-of-Your-Presentation&id=9487121″ target=”blank”>http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Get-Audience-Attention-at-the-Start-of-Your-Presentation&id=948712</a>.
[RECOMMENDED] Blocking Brute Force Attacks
A common threat web developers face is a password-guessing attack known as a brute force attack.
A brute-force attack is an attempt to discover a password by systematically trying every possible combination of letters, numbers, and symbols until you discover the one correct combination that works.
If your web site requires user authentication, you are a good target for a brute-force attack.
<a href=”https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Blocking_Brute_Force_Attacks” target=”blank”>https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Blocking_Brute_Force_Attacks</a>
[MP3 Audio] How to Deal With Prospective Buyers Demanding Lower Prices You Find Unprofitable
This audio is a sequel to last week’s issue titled: The Secret to Succeeding Financially As a Service Provider
Preview: Why you should never let your target audience interpret your service as a “commodity” they can get for any fee they want, via aggressive pricing, or “haggling”.
I explan (using true stories) that sometimes you’ll be better off walking away from a sale, and spending your time creating more quality sales leads, instead of accepting to serve a buyer who insists on focusing ONLY on price, ignoring unique benefits s/he will reap, from choosing YOU over others.
To do otherwise would mean “profit-making-suicide” for you!
Format: MP3 Audio
Duration: 18 minutes
Filesize: 17 MB
Author: Tayo K. Solagbade
Web: www.tayosolagbade.com
E-Mail: Tayo@tksola.com
Target Audience: Tayo Solagbade’s Inner Circle Members
Tip: The ideas discussed here can be successfully adapted for selling products as well.
<h3>Related Articles</h3>
<a href=”http://tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets/should-you-worry-if-a-client-says-youre-too-expensive/” target=”blank”>Should You Worry If A client Says You’re Too Expensive? | SD Nuggets™</a>.
Attend Tayo Solagbade’s FREE 1 Hour Talk on Potential Applications of Excel-VB Spreadsheet Automation: “Proven Strategies for Using MS Excel to Boost Employee and Company Productivity” [Sat 6th August 2016 & Sat 13th August 2016 in Ikeja-Lagos, Nigeria]
Invitation to CEOs/Independent Consultants, and other business users, as well as Trainers:
Attend Tayo Solagbade’s FREE 1 hour flagship talk linked below, on the tentative dates shown below, in Ikeja, Lagos…
Title: Proven Strategies for Using MS Excel to Boost Employee and Company Productivity
See details in talk’s flyer at:
<a href=”http://tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets/1-hour-talkno-5-proven-strategies-for-using-ms-excel-to-boost-employee-and-company-productivity/” target=”blank”>http://tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets/1-hour-talkno-5-proven-strategies-for-using-ms-excel-to-boost-employee-and-company-productivity/</a>.
Tentative Date 1:
Sat 6th August 2016
Tentative Date 2:
Sat 13th August 2016
Venue: To be in Ikeja, Lagos.
Actual date and specific venue address will be communicated to confirmed attendees.
Requirements: A minimum of 10 attendees is required for the event to hold.
Each prospective attendee must book a seat by submItting the form at the bottom of the page at <a href=”http://tayosolagbade.com/xlvbfirms.html” target=”blank”>http://tayosolagbade.com/xlvbfirms.html</a>.
Share this page with others you believe will be interested.
PII 025: What Every Business User of Spreadsheets Needs to Boost Productivity
Quick Take-Away: This article will benefit ANY business user who wishes to understand how to get more productive work done by him/herself and/or others who work with/for him/her – using spreadsheets.
My discussion is based on MS Excel, but the ideas I advocate apply to ANY spreadsheet application that offers code driven automation functionality.
Over 2 decades of industry level automated spreadsheet solutions development experience and exposure, across a wide range of industries, gives me unique insights into how spreadsheets can be maximally utilized to achieve business goals.
SCROLL DOWN TO READ FULL ISSUE
Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) Newsletter
Monday 1st August 2016
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.
**********
PII 025: What Every Business User of Spreadsheets Needs to Boost Productivity
Quick Take-Away: This article will benefit ANY business user who wishes to understand how to get more productive work done by him/herself and/or others who work with/for him/her – using spreadsheets.
My discussion is based on MS Excel, but the ideas I advocate apply to ANY spreadsheet application that offers code driven automation functionality.
Over 2 decades of industry level automated spreadsheet solutions development experience and exposure, across a wide range of industries, gives me unique insights into how spreadsheets can be maximally utilized to achieve business goals.
Indeed, as a multipreneur, I enjoy what can be called an unfair advantage over most business users of spreadsheets.
This is because I get to see DEEP into the various ways that different business users with widely differing needs in different areas of specialization, have to make use of MS Excel.
From accountants, to construction engineers, HR professionals, sales/marketing executives, research organizations, hotels, hospitals, fitness clubs, farm businesses, professional speakers/coaches, churches, consulting firms and others, the usage range is virtually limitless.
Everybody – even the housewife running a home business – has some use for MS Excel
My romance with business spreadsheets automation began while I was employed in Guinness Nigeria as a Graduate Trainee.
I’ve told various aspects of the story of my 7 year stay in that company, especially as it relates to how my spreadsheet automation skills earned me rapid career advancement, in past articles.
Here are 2 of them:
Achieve Recognition and Attract Career Advancement Opportunities By Being A Change Agent
How To Turn A Major Blunder At Work Into A Career Advancement Opportunity
For specific details of what I did, in terms of solutions that added measurable benefits to the organization, thereby earning me rewards, click here to view full details in my PDF resume.
Over the past decade since I left Guinness to develop custom Excel-VB software for a living, I have developed high profile bullet proof custom apps for clients in many of the industries mentioned earlier in this article.
One thing that has become clear to me from working closely with all these MS Excel business users during this time, both in and out of paid employment, is that 95% of them have NO CLUE that they can cut down over 60% of time and effort they spend getting their work done in that application.
In many ways the fact that this is so, is a testimony to just how powerful MS Excel is a business reporting application. That it enables people get work done, even when they are not using it half as efficiently as they can – and should….WOW!
The above is what drives me to do what I do as a Best Practice Spreadsheet Solutions Developer. I see what that 95% of users do not see. And I understand why they find it hard to see, talk less visualize it.
You see, these are business people who often have a LOT of work on their plates, constantly demanding their attention. As a result, most of them simply cannot afford the luxury of setting aside the time to explore the potential goldmine of time saving features hidden in the automation of MS Excel.
Let me be specific:
I estimate that 95% of MS Excel business users currently waste quality time, effort and resources doing routine and repetitive tasks MANUALLY in the process of using MS Excel.
For instance, most of them who have standard report generation/analysis workbooks they painstakingly build preoccupy themselves with duplicating them for daily, weekly, monthly or annual use MANUALLY – when Excel-VB code can enable them do it within seconds, instead of the hours it takes them.
But that’s even going too far. On a much simpler level of “data entry” alone, many of them are shooting themselves in the foot, daily, without even knowing it.
Many of them lose hundreds of hours crawling all over huge spreadsheets that they have to update DAILY, to generate critical decision making reports.
Yet, Excel-VB automation makes it possible to use modeless forms to retrieve data from ANY cell in ANY size of spreadsheet table, into a small single screen form interface, where changes to be made can be done without ANY need to interact directly with the cells!
Example: Below are screenshots of 2 interfaces in an Excel-VB data entry form driven version of a Bookkeeping Spreadsheet I downloaded from Accountinator.com, which I created and emailed as a demo to members of my Excel-VB club. Click here to read more about it.
Imagine how much more pleasurable it would be to do your work, when you know that the mundane task of posting updates can now be done without the stress and strain of spending time searching for, and verifying the correct cell to post your value, so as to generate a report update?
As a business decision maker, you stand to benefit more if you spend less time and energy doing such routine tasks – freeing yourself up to make more sense of the reports you end up with from posting your updates.
In other words, I am saying that many business users are working too hard to get their jobs done. And 80% of what they are doing is often NOT something that needs to be done by them – at least not manually.
Instead, they are tasks that can be turned over to Excel-VB code that will be designed to be run on demand (via mouse click) or even at time intervals or indeed based on an event occurrence.
Click here to view videos of the Poultry Farm Manager app that I sell to Farm CEOs in/out of Africa, which auto charts Hen Day Percentages and generates summaries via Excel-VB code.
These are results that would take a competent user MANY long hours to produce, with the risk of human errors added!
Simply put, business users can be more productive if they intelligently incorporate smart Excel-VB code driven automation to eliminate the routine and repetitive tasks they have to do to get their work done.
They need to find ways to eliminate mundane activities from the spreadsheet based work they do, so that more quality time and effort can be devoted to doing the things that require their conscious attention and involvement. For instance, reviewing charted data trends, against expectations through the use of dynamic menu driven controls.
If you’re not working in MS Excel as described above, that’s proof that you have room for productivity boosting improvement in the way you use MS Excel.
Or to put it differently: You need to make MS Excel do what you want, how you want it, when you want it, so YOU can get the results you want with less effort, in less time, and using less resources.
If that interests you, consider joining my Excel-VB club(you get a FREE app of your choice), or better still take up this promo offer of bundle Excel-VB software development, and coaching.
SDN Blog™
New posts from last week*
Monday:
[Tuesday]:
[Wednesday]:
[Thursday]:
[Friday]:
[MP3 Audio] The Secret to Succeeding Financially As a Service Provider
[Saturday]:
N/A
[Sunday]:
Test-Drive Tayo Solagbade’s ExcelVB Automated Floating Data Entry Form Driven Version of the Accountinator.com “Simple Bookkeeping Spreadsheet”
|
Tayo K. Solagbade* Self-Development/Performance Improvement Specialist *Best Practice Farm Business Support Specialist & Founder of the MS Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club and Competition Mobile: +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic) Tayo K. Solagbade is a Location Independent Performance Improvement Specialist and Multipreneur (i.e. a highly versatile/multi-skilled entrepreneur), with a bias for delivering Best Practice solutions to Farm Businesses and others. Since 2002, he has earned multiple streams of income providing individuals and organizations with personal development training and coaching, custom MS Excel-VB solutions, web marketing systems/web hosting, freelance writing services, and best practice extension support services (for farm business owners). Tayo is the author of the Self-Development (SD) Bible™ and the popular Livestock Feed Formulation Handbook. He is also the developer of its accompanying Excel-VB driven Ration Formulator™ and the Poultry Farm Manager™ software. He has delivered talks/papers to audiences in various groups and organizations, including the Centre for Management Development, University of Lagos, Christ Baptist Church, Volunteer Corps, Tantalisers Fast Foods and others. In May 2012 he was the Guest Speaker at the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development’s Annual Semester Entrepreneurial Lecture at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos. On 1st April 2013, Tayo (who reads, write and speaks the French language) relocated to Cotonou, Benin Republic to begin slowly traveling across the West African region. His key purpose is to deliver talks, seminars and workshops on his key areas of focus and interest to interested audiences (Email tayo at tksola dot com for details). In a previous life, before leaving to become self-employed, Tayo served for seven years (October 1994 to December 2001) as a high performing manager in Guinness Nigeria. He rose from Shift Brewer to Training & Technical Development Manager, and later acted in senior roles as Production Manager and Technical Manager. In addition to constantly challenging the status quo and influencing positive work changes, he built a reputation for using self-taught spreadsheet programming skills (starting with Lotus 1-2-3, and later moving to Excel Visual Basic) – in his spare time – to develop Automated Spreadsheet Applications to computerize manual report generation processes in the departments he worked. Over four(4) of his applications were adopted for brewery level reporting. Tayo holds a B.Sc degree in Agricultural Extension Services from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, having graduated top of his class – with Second Class Upper Division honors – in 1992. He is an Associate Member of the UK Institute & Guild of Brewing, a 1997 National Finalist of the Nigerian Institute of Management’s(NIM) Young Managers’ competition, a Certified Psychometric Test Administrator for Psytech UK, innovator of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development™ (SCfS-D™), and Founder of the Self-Development Academy (SDAc). When he’s not amazing clients with his superhuman skills (wink), Tayo works as the creative force behind his Daily Self-Development Nuggets blog – on which he also publishes The Farm CEO Weekly Newspaper (sent via email to paid subscribers) and his Weekly Performance Improvement IDEAS newsletter. You can connect with him on Twitter @tksola.com and Facebook. Visit Tayo Solagbade Dot Com, to download over over 10 performance improvement resources to boost your personal and work related productivity. ====
|
Test-Drive Tayo Solagbade’s ExcelVB Automated Floating Data Entry Form Driven Version of the Accountinator.com “Simple Bookkeeping Spreadsheet”
[This post is based on an email sent to members of the Tayo Solagbade Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation club]
<a href=”http://tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets/join-my-excel-vb-club-get-my-farm-business-software-free-3-great-bonuses-expires-midnight-monday-1st-august-2016/” target=”blank”>Few days ago, I hinted in a blog post that I was building an ExcelVB driven modeless Floating Automated Data Entry Form</a} into the “simple accounting spreadsheet” (featured at <a href=”http://accountinator.com/2012/11/simple-accounting-spreadsheet-excel/” target=”blank”>http://accountinator.com/2012/11/simple-accounting-spreadsheet-excel/</a>
I also wrote an email to that effect, to “Mark” the US based owner of the Accountinator.com accounting spreadsheet, adding that I could help him convert it to a full Excel-VB driven software, like mine, complete with smart data entry forms and dynamic report generation menus etc.
Attached to this email are the following:
1. a copy of the demo version of the spreadsheet with the fully functional auto form.
As you’ve done for other VBA coded workbooks, you’ll need to enable macros when you open this workbook – otherwise the macro buttons in it will not work.
2. Two screenshot images showing:
A. The Raw Data Entry Table with over 30 fields into which entries are to be made.
This version of the Accountinator.com spreadsheet allows for up to 15,000 rows of entries to be made. It can however be extended to take thousands more.
But the main benefit of automation added here is the modeless Floating Automated Data Entry Form which all entries can be made.
Click the Make Entries button at the top left of the spreadsheet table, to load the auto entry form.
Try posting entries using the drop menus and text fields on the form. The interface is intuitive, so I’m leaving you to play around with it for a few days, to see how it works.
NB: A short video showing me posting entries using the form will be emailed to you later in the week.
B. The Data Entry Table Title Settings Iinterface
To change any of the field/column titles in the data entry table, this is where you type your changes.
Once you’re done, click the sheet tab to go to the data entry table. There you’ll see the new title appear in the corresponding field heading.
The change you made will also show up in the drop menu on the floating form’s drop menu.
The above shows how one-size-fits-all automation can be used to save time and effort.
[MP3 Audio] The Secret to Succeeding Financially As a Service Provider
Preview: Why it never pays to price yourself cheap, and how to confidently offer fees that make you profitable, to clients you carefully recruit based on their need (ability to pay) for the solution you offer.
Format: MP3 Audio
Duration: 15 minutes
Filesize: 6.9 MB
Author: Tayo K. Solagbade
Web: www.tayosolagbade.com
E-Mail: Tayo at tksola dot com
Target Audience: Tayo Solagbade’s Inner Circle Members
Tip: The ideas discussed here can be successfully adapted for selling products as well.
Click here to request the audio
Join my Excel-VB Club & Get My Farm Business Software FREE + 3 Great Bonuses [Expires Midnight Monday, 1st August 2016]
Several variants of this time limited offer were sent out this morning, to different mailing lists of my clients, subscribers etc.
<blockquote>
I’m on a drive to recruit more members for my Excel-VB Automation club. To this end, I’m making promo offers to learning institutions (or departments within them), businesses as well as non-profits, to sign-up as “branches” of the club so they can get FREE access to weekly email. PDF, and video tips for their students/employees/staff.
Membership is $65 USD* per annum
*[Note that the equivalent fee to pay in Naira is N13,000.0 because I’ve resolved to continue – for THIS recruitment drive -using the same N200 to $1 USD rate I launched my club offer with in June 2015. Currently it’s N370 to $1 USD]
So simply pay N13,000.0 (Thirteen Thousand Naira) on or before midnight Monday, 1st August 2016, and get full membership, plus the 4 bonuses outlined below.
*****************************
Bonus membership benefit 1:
******************************
FREE copy of any of my software of your choice. See examples like my popular Ration Formulator, Poultry Farm Manager at <a href=”http://tayosolagbade.com/sdn-sell.htm” target=”blank”>http://tayosolagbade.com/sdn-sell.htm</a>.
Get 50% off for others like General Accounts Manager, Automated Cash Bank With Bank Reconciliation, Automated Payslip Generator etc at <a href=”http://excelheaven.tayosolagbade.com/” target=”blank”>www.excelheaven.biz</a>.
******************************
Bonus membership benefit 2:
******************************
FREE time/effort saving Custom Automated Floating Data Entry Form incorporation into workbooks used by members for their work.
In other words, each member will be able to send in one workbook s/he uses for work, to have me incorporate intelligent data entry form based automation into it, to eliminate the need to manually interact with the spreadsheet, scrolling over large, potentially confusing areas.
Instead, s/he would simply be able to stay on the loaded form and post all needed entries into the spreadsheet without needing to go to each individual cell.
This feature can make doing your work many times more enjoyable than it currently is – and your productivity would skyrocket. You’ll be able to complete your routine spreadsheet data entry tasks in less than half the time you currently spend doing it.
To get an idea of how powerful this feature can be…
==================
Here’s a user guide video screenshot demonstration, for an app I built to take 1 year’s worth of income/expense cash book data:
==================
Name: Excel-VB driven “General Accounts Manager” with modeless floating automated data entry form
First built in 2007 for a medium sized hospital in Lagos, based on their paper based accounts & manual Excel reports.
See the video demo at
<a href=”http://
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUl4_RAja-g” target=”blank”>http://
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUl4_RAja-g</a>
*****************************
Bonus membership benefit 3:
******************************
Each member will also get copies of demo applications I build based on real life manual workbooks I find online.
An example is the “simple accounting spreadsheet” (featured at <a href=”http://accountinator.com/2012/11/simple-accounting-spreadsheet-excel/” target=”blank”>http://accountinator.com/2012/11/simple-accounting-spreadsheet-excel/</a>) to which I recently added such a custom data entry form into.
<a href=”http://tayosolagbade.com/contact.htm” target=”blank”>Click here to request screenshot of the form during testing about 48 hours ago.</a>
It is now fully functional.
I have written to “Mark” the US based owner of the Accountinator.com accounting spreadsheet, about the “potential benefits of converting it to a full Excel-VB driven software, like mine, complete with smart data entry forms and dynamic report generation menus.
*****************************
Bonus membership benefit 4:
******************************
Note that members will be given the Visual Basic Editor password to be able to open and view the forms, the activeX controls as well as the Excel-VB code that makes them work the way they do.
They will also get step-by-step tutorials on how I built in the form based automation.
In other words, they will get real world relevant coding knowledge they can readily put to use in their work.
Final Words
The above bonuses cannot be combined with any other offers or benefits.</blockquote>
<h3><a href=”http://tayosolagbade.com/contact.htm” target=”blank”>Click here if you’d like to take up this offer</a></h3>.
Have a great weekend.
Tayo
3 Secret Keys to Make Your Website Sell Successfully
In this article I highlight 3 easily overlooked – yet crucially important – features that, if missing, can drastically limit the effectiveness of a website in generating the desired volume and quality of sales leads to the owner.
First, let me define what I mean by “Volume” and “Quality” of leads:
Volume of Leads:
The rule in online marketing is similar to that observed offline. Basically for every 100 persons exposed to your marketing message, only 1 to 3 can reasonably be expected to respond with an enquiry – which will not necessarily result in a sale.
That means only 1 to 3% of visitors to your site are likely to contact you. Given such low prospects it becomes crucial that you set your website up to harvest that small number of potential clients/buyers, for every 100 site visitors as often as possible.
Quality of Leads
Getting the desired number of prospects in is one thing, but even more important is getting the RIGHT quality of prospects!
This second aspect is also dependent on the “message” you communicate to those visitors that eventually become enquirers. What you tell them on your website, and how you say it will influence the impressions they get about what you can do for them, and ultimately move them to connect with you.
If you fail to do it right, you could end up attracting people with the wrong mindset and expectations from you.
That would mean your chances of converting them to clients after they make contact, will be reduced. And if you succeed in winning them over as clients, it’s likely you may be unable to satisfy them.
You don’t want do that to yourself. Which is why It is in your best interest to address the 3 important features I discuss below:
1. Article Marketing Highlights:
To succeed with markeing online, Article Marketing can boost your ability to generate leads.
To make the most of your writing, you need to publish your articles on a blog, linked to your site, with latest ones preferably auto-displayed on the website.
But how you do that also matters. Specifically, you must not make the mistake of serving article titles alone.
The display of new article titles on the site, without corresponding
display of brief previews under each, denies readers additional incentive to
click and read.
If they don’t have something that draws them in to read, they’re likely to spend less time and eventually click-away without connecting with you.
2. Opt-in form offerings:
You need to make opt-in form offerings that appeal to the range of potential clients you have.
For some of us, our target audiences are multiple in nature. We therefore need to make offers to appeal to their respective interests.
One possible way is to send confirmed subscribers an autoresponse email with
a link to access a downloads page where all the promised “gifts” can be
accessed by each subscriber.
The opt-in form’s “visual display”
will need to be designed to inform visitors of the multiple offers – each
targeted at the different audiences you serve.
If the functionality to put the above in place does not already exist on your site, you may need to have your developer incorporate it.
3. Clickable Slideshow Images:
To make optimal use of the space capital on your website, especially the home page, you can make use of a slideshow.
However, not just any – it’s best you make the individual images clickable in the slideshow.
And you need to know how to access the slideshow from the administrator back end of the site, to add the images you want along with their corresponding URLs.
If that’s not possible, or you can’t spare the time, be sure to retain the services of your developer to do that, because you will need to peridically make those changes, for marketing purposes over time.
Final Words
The 3 features discussed above, if missing from your site, will prevent you from making the most of visitor traffic we’re getting.
This is because you will not be serving them enough “response-generating” information, visually, to draw them in to the extent that they do more than just look around and leave.
You need visitors to feel a need to go a step further and make contact with a
view to learning more from you via other stuff you announce that you offer – apart from articles and other standard information.
A key measure of your success will the volume and quality of LEADS you generate.
1, 2 and 3 if correctly put in place, and used, can boost the results you get, with that regard, over time.