Excel Podcast

Benne Tan

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How I turn from an Excel idiot to an addict

03/16/2020

What Would You Do With An Additional 354 Hours In Your Life?

Hey everyone. This is Benne. I want to tell you my backstory on how I fell in love with Excel and saving my clients 354 hours a year. I was an accountancy graduate and got my first job as an analyst. It was not a job I hate, but I didn’t love it either. The Fisherman Story resonated a lot with me and I wanted to do the things I love (spend time with family, play video games, and watch movies). In essence, the fisherman story talked about how you should do the things you love instead of chasing money. But at the same time, I wanted to provide a comfortable life for my mom who single-handedly raised my brother and me. I grew up thinking you have to work extremely hard to earn a lot, so that meant I had to choose one or the other. That made me feel conflicted. I will always prioritise family first like the Fisherman story but I felt lousy for not being able to pamper my mom. Something happened to me at work that paved my career path. The time given for us to prepare data and analyse the numbers were very tight. Because of my carelessness and sloppiness, the errors in my reports were sky high. The report was viewed by a Trade manager and she was an extremely scrutinizing person. Due to my initial mistakes, she nit-picked on me every month. My team lead was newly promoted and had me as a new joiner. She broke down over all these incidents as a result of my constant mistakes. But she never once flared up at me though. She simply told me an advice which stuck with me till today; “First impressions are very important. You have broken that with the Trade manager and need to start building up the trust again by ensuring accuracy in your work”. I felt both guilty and grateful to her. Then I decided to pull my socks up and self-learn Excel. I studied the templates and Excel Dictionary I had at work. It took a while but I went from an Excel idiot to an expert in my department. I was able to prepare data faster, stay error-free, and focus on what was most important; data analysis. 2 years later, I switched job where I had to do costing and I didn’t like it at all. That made me think hard on what I really like to do and I decided to shift my career path to Excel so I could help people who faced similar challenges. But there was still a problem… I called my ex-manager for advice and he introduced me to dashboards and financial models. I realized there was a ton of things in Excel I didn’t know about and I thought I was pretty good myself! It wasn’t easy learning the formulas. There were so many things for me to learn and I felt I needed to learn everything. I sometimes couldn’t contextualize what was on the internet to apply it in my own work. This gave birth to Excel infinity – my brainchild. We created a short course meant for those who spends a lot of time on data preparation. Our learners are able to pick up key Excel skills within 2 days instead of spending years on it or on many different courses. We also build a program called “Formula-How-Tool” that helps each individual learners understand what to input in a formula. It enables learners to understand the formula better rather than memorizing it by heart. Lastly, we provide consultancy and 1-1 mentoring services so that the learners get to learn based on their real work scenario. It is always easier to learn if the scenario is something you are familiar with. We were able to save our clients an average of 354 hours a year… for each project! I was initially helping out in Excel forums and my business idea with the intention of me doing Excel work and enjoying it. But I realized the biggest satisfaction comes from knowing I helped save someone hours of work; hours where they can spend on what they desire to do in life. No overtime, spending it to do more value-added tasks, spending it on family, etc. And I am now able to do what I desire most; spend more time with my family.

1 Episode

How I turn from an Excel idiot to an addict

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Benne Tan
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© Benne Tan
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Excel Podcast