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 005: You Need Excel-VB Coding Skills to MAKE and SAVE Money [Attend Tayo Solagbade’s FREE 4 Hour “Practical Introduction to MS Excel-VB Automation” Workshop]

I have been paid as much as N200, 000 (Two Hundred Thousand Naira) – proof available – to build a single Excel-VB driven spreadsheet application. That same company – a large hospital with over 120 staff – went on to hire me in the course of the year that followed, to build two other apps (a Payslip Generator, and a Cash Office Payments Manager – designed for checking a patient’s payment status).

Late last year I stopped over at the hospital (for the first time in 3 years) when I came in from Cotonou, and they were still using 2 of the 3 apps: Since 2008 i.e. 8 years ago! That, more than anything else, is proof that those 2 apps continue to meet the company’s needs!

And all of that happened in Nigeria, NOT in the USA.

Now, I should point out that only a few of my apps have been for financial reporting or accounts. In my part of the world, too many people readily assume Excel is for accounts. WRONG!

Hotels/Restaurants and bars, Construction Engineers/Quantity Surveyors, Database consultants, Health and Fitness Clubs, Medical Hospitals/Clinics, Manufacturing companies, Farm Businesses are just a few that have hired me.

Most wanted their apps to capture routine OPERATIONS data handling and report summaries auto-generation. The decision makers in the organizations signed cheques to pay me, AFTER I showed them what was possible with my demos. I rarely had anything ready to use.

Instead they had often been using MS Excel manually, for routine reporting in formats unique to their businesses. They had tried using conventional off-the-shelf apps, but the peculiarities of their unique needs made it too difficult to customize them enough.

What’s more, the steep learning curve and the need to retrain as staff left made using such conventional off-the-shelf software unattractive for some individuals/businesses.

In one client’s accounts department, I was shown over 100 Excel workbook reports they had generated weekly, for well over a year. But it had become cumbersome generating monthly, quarterly and annual summaries, using the weekly reports.

So, when the accounts manager learnt I could create an app that would have a SINGLE report interface that would use drop menus to enable dynamic generation of the reports weekly, monthly and annually, he instantly bought the idea

For him the savings in time and effort were worth the required investment of money.

If you have routine and repetitive data recording, analysis and report preparation tasks you do manually or using Excel, adopting Excel-VBA Automation can help you GREATLY.

2 options exist: Either identify a competent Excel-VBA resource INSIDE your organization or hire one from outside to do it for you.

Unless your in-house expert is really good, and has enough exposure and experience, it’s always wise to hire an external resource, so your in-house personnel can learn from him/her.

That way, they will be equipped to subsequently maintain or modify/improve whatever application is developed for your company – saving you money that would otherwise be expended in calling in the external resource in future.

According to Pierre Le Clerc, an Excel-VB Solutions Developer whose work has influenced me greatly, Excel is the best reporting application on the market.

I agree. And I have found evidence of it in many forms – including the earlier mentioned fact that many business users, professionals in various fields, make serious use of it for their routine data recording, analysis and report generation.

Data handling – in virtually any form, for virtually any purpose, can be productively subjected to analysis for decision making, using MS Excel – IF the user possesses the required know-how or competence.

But there is a only so much you will be able to do with MS Excel, if you do NOT know how to automate the routine and repetitive aspects of whatever it is you do with it.

It does not matter how many functions you know or how good you are at designing and formatting data entry tables, reporting interfaces etc.

You will eventually get a to a point where integrating intelligent Excel-VB driven automation into your usage of your MS Excel workbooks will dramatically boost your productivity in terms of time, effort and even money you expend.

I say this as one who virtually single-handedly transformed the manual reporting systems in different departments I worked in a corporate multinational manufacturer, over a 7 year period, in my spare time as a brewer/manager, using my self-taught spreadsheet programming skills.

I began with Lotus 1-2-3 macro programming before moving to MS Excel-Visual basic coding (when the company migrated to MS Office from Lotus Smart Suite).

But what I knew while in paid employment pales in comparison to what I’ve since moved on to doing for clients within and outside Africa, as an entrepreneur. I have developed a wide range of customizable applications for individuals and businesses in various industries.

Examples include hospitals, hotels, restaurants/bars, medical clinics, pure (sachet water) factories, business centres, health and fitness clubs, churches, farm businesses (e.g. Ration Formulator, Poultry Farm Manager) and others.

The fact that I continue to make sales to buyers locally and internationally – over a decade after I started this journey confirms that this solution is relevant to the FELT needs of the target market I serve.

In addition, the increasing interest being shown by independent consultants, and career persons in joining my Excel VB club, to access my home study tutorial videos and other resource, is proof that MORE people are waking up to the realization that they NEED Excel-VB programming skills to take their productivity to the next level.

This is why I’ve invited current members of my Excel-VB club to attend the first run of what is to be a monthly FREE 4 Hour Workshop to be conducted by me. It will be holding on 19th March 2016 here in Lagos – Nigeria. The venue will be agreed with my club members, if they choose to invite me over to their preferred location or they will meet with me at the usual venue I use in Lagos.

In case this event interests you, or you’d like to get a copy of my branded auto run DVD (containing home study video tutorials I will be giving to them), read the details on the post below:

Attend Tayo Solagbade’s FREE 4 Hour Practical Introduction to MS Excel-VB Automation Workshop [Get Home Study DVD Video: How to build an automated Cash Book with Bank Reconciliation table, Debtors/Creditors Schedule etc]

SDN Blog™

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