Now I know why my French isn't good despite my deliberate efforts and focus on learning it since 2009. It is because, just like everything else, it is difficult to master. Whoever learned it easily did so under conditions that made the hard work look easy. Maybe he was born in a French speaking country or had a lot of relatives who took turns in teaching and practicing with him. So when he hears someone else complain about how difficult it is to learn French he is surprised and lets them know that it is extremely easy.

image: hollybee42.wordpress.com

It's just like Microsoft Excel. I keep telling people that is extremely easy to use and master. I tell them that I never really learnt anything from the only one book I read about Excel. All my excellent knowledge of it came almost without my noticing it until people started commending me and reaching out to me for help. But I have been lying, though not deliberately. When I was on the job that forced me to use Excel everyday and make operations report of the company's business in 10 African countries and endless ad hoc reports, it was like hell at the beginning. For weeks, I would get to work early and close late, working 8 to 11 hours on Excel, and when I closed my eyes at night I saw Excel sheets filled with lots of data and scrolling endlessly. Even when I fell ill, and was at the hospital on drugs and drips, I was still making Excel reports for work. I had unknowingly paid the high price of hard work for mastering Excel.

And it is why I am not yet fluent in French. I have paid some price but it is not enough. Your hard work is only enough after it has taken you across the proficiency river. You can't put a time limit and also limit the resources to dedicate to it. When you are serious about learning a thing, then you just have to set only one limitation: that you won't quit till you've learned it no matter how long it takes you or what it costs you.

I have tried to peek into the future, in technology and regarding my business, and it looks obvious to me that I would greatly need and benefit from the ability to make the web and phone applications versions of my Excel work. Making my dashboards available online and accessible by smartphones, tablet and PCs. Also by being able to build web powered enterprise apps. I have taken the decision to learn that skill. It is going to be tough and slow but I am now more mentally prepared to give it all it would take.

Finally, I have renewed my commitment to learn French and gotten rid of my frustration about my progress. I won't stop until I become fluent in French even if it will take 10 years.

Learning is hard. It is different from trying this and that out. It requires a commitment to keep at it till you achieve competency at what you are learning, and how long or expensive it will take you should be of little concern. Just be prepared to give it all it requires.

Yesterday I finally put in place the new webinar platform we would be using to host all our webinars and special e-Events. And it's easy to subscribe to our webinar directory so you will always be the first to know of the highly educative, productivity boosting and career improving webinars we plan to host monthly.

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Also you can save our webinar link, join.me/urbizedge 

With that link, all you need to remember is the time of the webinar. For example, the Power BI webinar is next Thursday (June 25, 2015) and the time is 3:00pm. So once it's 3pm next week Thursday, you simply type join.me/urbizedge into your computer or phone browser and you will be automatically connected to the webinar. It's a seamless process and doesn't require you downloading or setting up anything. But if you join our Webinar VIP Directory you will be sent an email invitation to every webinar we host and you can accept or decline any invitation you get.

Also if you have suggestions of what you'll like us to cover in one of the webinars, feel free to let us know. Maybe it's something you've been wanting to know more about and you believe others will benefit from that knowledge too.

I am nobody. So when people admire me, they have to dig deep to find something to like about me. Some have been very kind enough to tell me that something. "You're hardworking." "I like the way you think." "I like your simplicity." "You look intelligent." "You've got a kind sharing heart." "You're a role model for other [struggling] youths." 

Also I have people who dislike me for very specific reasons. I remember back in my second year at the university. A colleague told me that he doesn't like me and he really can't say why. That was his specific reason. Luckily, by the time we were graduating we were very good friends. He later liked my simple lifestyle; another specific reason. I wish all the other people who dislike me end up liking me. But the unfortunate truth is that even some of the people who once liked me now dislike me. And they've got very specific reasons.

I think if we are all true to ourselves and try to get rid of all form of pretense, everyone of us will be loved passionately and hated passionately for consistent reasons. God has crafted each of us for a purpose. He fitted us differently, giving each of us habits and personalities that will attract some people and annoy others. And if we live in the light of that purpose and stay true to whom God has crafted us to be, we will be loved and hated for very consistent reasons.

By my natural purpose-driven crafting, I am shy, kind, caring, solitude-loving, money-indifferent, thoughtful, almost impossible to annoy, unsocial and workaholic. I am fashioned to be constantly creating something, especially something that doesn't yet exist. That is what most motivates me. I like to see myself as no less competent than the people who have created the amazing things we use and can't live without, and that it is my duty too to create things other people won't be able to live without. 

In theory, it's a great faultless way to explain my life, habits and inactions. But in practice, people can't understand why I have to be unsocial to achieve it. How picking my phone calls, responding to emails, replying chats, attending networking events or taking time off by bee-like work life is going to prevent me from being me. Neither can I. I just know and feel it that whenever I do those things, I am less me. I struggle to do them.

It's the main reason I am sticking to being my own boss. I want to do only the things I am happy doing. To live a very selfish life, where I put my own inner balance and peace of mind above other people's expectations. And the result? People love and hate me for very specific and consistent reasons. And I take it as a good sign. A sign that I am living the life I was crafted for.

Excel is different from every other Microsoft Office program you use. Most of the reports and analysis you do with Excel will be used some day in the future for another report or analysis.

To become an expert in Excel, you have to always work with the end in mind. You have to create your Excel documents in such a way that you can easily use them for some bigger reports in the future. And there are some general rules I'll recommend you work with to achieve this.

1. Always use a compact table structure for entering you core data in Excel. 
This means using the minimum number of rows and minimum number of columns. Example of a compact table and non-compact table is shown below:



Same table but not compact, shown below.



In the non-compact table example, you can delete rows 37 and 38 without deleting any data in the table. The are meaningless spaces.


2. Use descriptive names for your column headers and row headers.
Be as descriptive as possible in naming the fields in your table, make it easy for anyone who will view your table to understand the information it convenes.

Below is a table with field names that are descriptive enough for anyone to understand the information the table convenes.


Below is a table that has headers that are not descriptive enough. It’s hard to figure out the specific information in the table. Is it a table of revenue or expense? Are the companies clients or suppliers? What year do the months represent — January 2014 or January 2015? Whomever you send this report to will call you back for a detailed explanation of what you intended to report.



3. Name your Excel sheets
Don’t just go ahead with the default names — Sheet1, Sheet2, … — rename the sheets to reflect the contents of the sheet. This makes your work better organized and future use more convenient.



To rename a sheet, right click on the sheet name (the default names are Sheet1, Sheet2, …) and select rename. And as you see below, you can change the color from the default too. 





4. Also use descriptive names when renaming the Excel sheets.



5. Avoid putting too many tables in one Excel sheet. 
Best to keep just related tables in the same sheet if you must put more than one table in the sheet. It makes naming the sheet easy and straightforward.

6. Use same naming convention and table structure across all similar Excel files, especially weekly, monthly and yearly reports of the same data. Don't name January Budget file as Budget_Jan_2015 and name February's as FebruaryBudget2015. It should be Budget_Feb_2015.

7.  Don’t use CAPS excessively. It makes your reports very unprofessional.

I once read a book that tried proving that every good happening is connected to a catastrophe happening somewhere else. That whenever you have things going smooth it's because someone else is having things going tough for him. That your wealth is the result of someone else's poverty. That your health is the cause of some environmental harm. That every good can be traced to a bad and every bad can be traced to a good.

I don't know how true that is universally, but I think it is true for my reclusive lifestyle. It is the cause of my extroversion online. There is almost no limit to what I would attempt online. I don't even need to write a memoir or have my biography written, it is already spread openly online. You can know me than my offline friends do by following my online activities.

image: imgstocks.com

So, today I will be sharing with you a list of what I have attempted online. It's not going to be a comprehensive list but a crazy one.

1. I bought my iPhone 5 from someone online whom I don't know or can even verify the claim of the conditions of the phone. The crazy part is that I can't return it because there is no return address. It is the equivalent of going to Alaba market to buy "no-testing" TV. You accept whatever you get.
2. I bought a keyboard for less than N6,000 and shipped it here with N12,000. 
3. I currently have a US bank account, address and phone number. All gotten online. And legally too. 
4. I also have a Euro bank account and will soon get a Euro mastercard linked to it. Again, legally gotten online. I will soon open an Ebay store to sell iTunes gift cards.
5. Talking about iTunes gift cards. I currently make money selling iTunes gift card online. If you have a US iTunes account and need to fund your iTunes account, don't forget to contact me.
6. I have a Netflix account, Spotify account and they are active. Yet, there is no Netflix access and Spotify service in Nigeria. The online world is an interesting one. As long as what you want is legal, you can always get it.
7. I had my company brochure designed by a genius in Luxembourg. My Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profile banner image was designed by a not-so great guy in Pakistan.
8. I got a job with a US multinational company as a Valuation Analyst, on probation at first, without meeting anyone offline or even speaking to anyone offline. All via email correspondence and online job test. I would be joining the Merger and Acquisition team with HQ in Dubai and working remotely from Lagos. I was given all I needed to get the job done, timelines and deliverables. Again, no offline interaction. I quit during the probation due to my demanding full-time work then.
9. I paid someone to make payment for me on a site that doesn't accept payment from Nigerian cards. He charged me extra but I was thrilled to know that there is always a way round the strictest restrictions.
10. I have an international calling plan. I can call US, Canada, Japan and over 40 other countries for free upon paying the $14/monthly fee. It is even linked to both my US and Nigerian phone number.
11. I spend more online than offline. I have even ordered clothes, belt and cuff-links from as far away as UK.

And those are the crazy ones I can type for now. There are others I'm not yet willing to share and others I can remember as I am typing all this in 30 mins.

If you run a business, even if it is a retail business, you'll benefit from using a few software and online tools to boost your business productivity and operate optimal.

Today, I'll be sharing the tools small and medium businesses in Nigeria will find valuable.

1. Quickbooks
This is perhaps the best and easy to use accounting tool for small businesses in Nigeria. It has the Naira sign, which you'll be surprised to see that some of the other accounting software do not have. But that's not the main reason I consider it the best. I think it's the best because of the ease of use and features it is packed with.

It will help you generate invoices and email them in a very payment-inducing way. This alone has helped me get paid more than when I was not using this feature. It also helps me figure out how much money I made month by month and the VAT that is due for each month. It generates a Profit and Loss Statement, Cash Flow Statement and Balance Sheet Statement. This alone will save you extra payment to an auditing firm for your yearly financial report filling as you'll be able to negotiate a smaller fee.

Quickbooks is number one on my list of tools small businesses should have.

2. Google Apps
One of the most frustrating things you'll experience as a business man is to have your business emails going to people's spam/junk box. And I once experienced it at the start of by business. I was using the email service of the hosting provider for my website.

I would send emails and the people I send them to would complain of not receiving my emails. And those are the small proportion that bothered to call me back regarding not seeing my email. 

After three agonizing months and not having enough space for my emails (so having to delete old mails) I decided to join Google Apps. Though it is expensive, $60 per year per email user, I get the assurance that my mails will land in the inbox of my recipients and I have almost unlimited mail space. It also comes with other Google products/apps: Google Drive, Google Doc, Hangouts and others.

3. Google Alerts
If you want to stay abreast of news in your field of business, about your major partners and biggest clients, then you need Google Alerts.

I use it to follow happenings in the Business Intelligence world, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft and a few companies. I can always tell you the latest about them because I have Google Alerts.

4. Base CRM
This is the best tool for managing your sales pipeline. Keeping record of your leads, prospective clients, conversion ratio, minutes/reports of meetings and interactions, clients classification and everything about your sales process. 

I used it and loved the practical functionality. If I call a client or prospect, after the call it asks me for the summary of our discussion and if there is a follow-up meeting/call scheduled and regarding what project did we discuss. It also aggregates all my mails and calls and meetings by clients. It syncs with my mail, phone and many other tools I use.

5. Asana and Basecamp.
I lumped them together because I haven't used any of them for my business but I have seen other people use them and give great recommendations about them.

Asana helps you manage your team while Basecamp help you manage projects.

This training is aimed at making you extremely good in Microsoft Excel, dashboard making and business data analysis, teaching you with live business scenarios. It's intended for Sales Managers, Financial Analysts, Business Analysts, Data Analysts, MIS Analysts, HR Executives and power Excel users. 

The next training is coming up on Friday 19th June 2015 to Saturday 20th June 2015. There are just 10 slots open. You will get lunch, a branded DVD with over 20 training videos and practice files, training notepad with pen and a training certificate from us (a registered Microsoft Partner). The training will be facilitated by a Microsoft recognized Excel Expert and the only Microsoft Excel MVP in Africa (there are just about 125 in the world). We have participants of our trainings from Citi Bank, Dalberg, SaveTheChildren, Mobil, Total, Vodacom, Nestle, Nigerian Breweries, Delta Afrik, LATC Marine, Broll, Habanera (JTI), SABMiller, Airtel and DDB. 

Reach Michael on 08089382423, 08063125227 and mike@urbizedge.com or Hannah on 08021180874 and hannah@urbizedge.com to register. 

Venue: Kristina Jade Learning Center, 70b Olorunlogbon street, Off Alade Lawal street, Idiroko b/stop, Anthony Village, Lagos. 

The training outline is: 

1) Data Manipulation in Excel 
a. How Excel handles different data types 
b. Data consistency, starting with the end in view 
c. Building Datasheets that can easily scale 
d. Sorting 
i. Cascaded sorting 
ii. Sorting across rows (left to right sorting, not the usual up to down sorting) 
iii. Sorting and Conditional Formatting to identify trends 
e. Filtering 
f. Data cleaning 
i. Removing duplicates 
ii. Text-to-column 
iii. Grouping 
iv. Data Validation 
v. Conditional Formatting 
g. Data formatting 
i. Using Tables (and when to convert to tables) 
ii. Formatting for printing 
iii. Formatting for email 
iv. Data Review and formatting for 3rd party use 
h. Named Ranges 

2) Charts 
a. Chart types 
i. Line chart and when to use it 
ii. Column chart and when to use it 
iii. Bar chart and when to use it 
iv. Pie chart and it’s dangers 
b. Combining charts; when and how. 
c. Dynamic Charts, using filter. 
d. Best practices when making charts 
e. Sparklines 
f. Power Map and Power View (Excel 2013) 

3) Pivot Table, Pivot Chart and PowerPivot 
a. Pivot Table 
i. Default Pivot Table 
ii. Tabular Pivot Table 
iii. Pivot Table Filtering 
iv. Making a very dynamic regular table from Pivot Table 
v. Calculations and Formula use with Pivot Table 
vi. Advanced Pivot Table tricks 
b. Pivot Chart 
i. Pivot Chart and its limitations 
ii. Dynamic Pivot Charts 
c. PowerPivot (for Excel 2010 and 2013) only 

4) Business Data Analysis 
a. Linking sheets 
b. Duplicating sheets (better than copy and paste) 
c. Inserting sheets, labeling and coloring the professional way 
d. Freezing Panes and splitting windows 
e. Conditional formatting 
i. To identify patterns 
ii. Using formulae 
iii. To make extremely intelligent reports 
f. Lookup functions 
i. Vlookup 
ii. Hlookup 
iii. Looking up the last data or pattern in a particular row or column 
iv. Overcoming the limitations of Vlookup and Hlookup using index and match functions 
g. Power Functions 
i. IF, IFERROR, AND, OR, ISBLANK, and others in the same family 
ii. TEXT manipulative functions to make a completely automated Dashboard 
iii. COUNTIFS, SUMIFS, AVERAGEIFS and others, to make dynamic summary tables 
iv. MATCH and INDEX to do the impossible 
h. Other Functions 
i. Math Functions 
ii. Text Functions 
iii. Logical 
iv. Others 
i. Formula Auditing 
j. Goal Seek, Scenario Manager and Solver 
k. Excel Web Query 
l. Most useful Excel keyboard shortcuts 

5) Executive Dashboards and Reporting 
a. Best Practices
b. Executive Dashboards
i. Executive Dasboards 
ii. Dynamic Reports 
iii. Determining the KPIs and tracking them 
iv. Strategic Insights & Analysis 
c. Data Visualization
d. Having the audience/recipient in mind
e. E-mails and Excel reports

6) Excel to PowerPoint and Word 
a. Linking PowerPoint/Word Charts to Excel
b. Embedding Excel sheets in PowerPoint/Word
c. Making a Powerful PowerPoint Presentation

Don't forget to register for it of forward to someone who is interested!

Udemy is offering as much as 97% discount on a lot of their courses. If you access them from the web you'll pay $15 for even courses that cost $669 and if you want to play smart like me, you'll get them for $9.99 if you install their phone app and buy the courses from there.

In fact, I am also putting up my Excel training course on Udemy so I can make some money there too. But today's post is not about that. Today's post is about how you can sign up for great courses and learn that skill you've been wanting to learn, that will increase your career options and may your CV more attractive, for less than the price of a textbook!

Here is the web access, Udemy but I'll suggest you go via the app Acesss: Udemy iOS app and Udemy Android app.

Web Screenshots

And the App Screenshots

I hope you found one or two courses you would be glad to part with $9.99 per course for.