Terms
"I was an accountant for eight years and utilized Microsoft Excel every day for hours," starts Google Sheets and Apps Script professional educator Ben L Collins. "Almost everything I did was done using Excel however I didn't have a background. I'd coded, but I'd not done anything with spreadsheets.
"Pretty early in the job, my boss was asking me to perform a lot of tasks using Excel - 'Combine these tables' - and I was doing everything on my own!" His boss showed him a few formulas to reduce time, and Ben recognized right then that the most important skill to have for any finance-related profession is being able to manipulate data.
"The people who can achieve this feat can be miles ahead of those who just stumble through," Ben continues. I was thinking, "Right, I'll need to build up my skills So I looked up a bunch of websites online including mrexcel.com and chandoo.org They did exactly what I do currently, however using Excel, 15 years ago."
The more Ben studied formulas and spreadsheets, more fascinated he became: "It was this rabbit tunnel that seemed to go further into the depths of darkness." He realized that some of the programming education he received at college could be combined with other programming languages for databases like VBA.
Through over the span of his professional career as an accountant, he actually became much more interested in technology and less interested in finance and accounting. "After 8 years of working I decided, 'I've had enough to have enough!'. I wasn't sure of what my next step was, but one of my original ideas was to change careers and become an engineer," Ben tells me.
Ben L Collins speaking at an evening event
He took some courses, and started applying for positions. "It wasn't a huge success, but through that time I was creating my own website and writing posts. The first article I wrote about Google Sheets and they're those that were picked up in [Google] Search." These brought about a lot of client requests and paid freelance job.
"In the years 2014 and 2015, there was enough of an inbound flow of traffic saying, 'Hey, can you assist me in creating the dashboard using sheets?' or 'Can you have a look at my company spreadsheets and assist me in figuring out ways to improve these formulas? ?'."
The work encompassed Excel, Google Sheets, SQL and Tableau. "It wasn't a lot of work, however it was an indication to think"Maybe there's something in this. Maybe I can be a freelancer rather than returning to my previous job' . I didn't intend to go back to accounting!" Ben smiles. "I was determined to continue to develop my skills and technology."
Goodbye accounting, hello education
At this time, the education website General Assembly was just a start-up and it was offering training courses specifically for developers and data analysts. "They introduced the possibility of a data analysis part-time course. As I'd taken a course in their class as a participant in one of their courses for developers, I knew the team there. The first time they launched this course on data and were looking for instructors. The course was Excel, SQL and Tableau," Ben continues. "I thought, 'Hey this is exactly the job I've done for the last eight years !'." Ben went through the application process, and was offered the position and taught that course for a few iterations in 2015.
"That made me want to start teaching," Ben recalls. "I'd taught at the college level as a tutor for young students while I was in my final year." He began including corporate training into his online offering, including offering tutorials and courses. "As I started to grow an audience, in 2017 I decided to try my own course and check out what the results were."
) A course on the Query function in Google Sheets
The class was appreciated quite well - well enough to inspire Ben to create a follow-up course. "I used a site known as Teachable because I wanted to establish a direct connection with my students and be the one to own that relationship instead of handing it over to a marketplace, such as Udemy."
I would do some research and one name that kept coming to mind was the person who manages the tech magazine Stratechery, Ben Thompson. Ben Thompson is one of the OG!" Ben laughs. "I joined a few accounts myself, to find out the way other companies like Flowing Data and Craig Mod had done this." Ben had been getting their free newsletter for a long time and wanted to know how they had created their membership business. I thought, "I want mine to have the same experience.'. I was awed by it was easy to sign up and effortless - I thought, 'I want that member experience.'
Moving forward sustainably
To give context, Ben's membership offer currently includes premium (or 'gated') content that is located on WordPress and an email newsletter that is sent via email through Kit (formerly ConvertKit). For content, it centers on Google Sheets and includes information about product features and updates - as well as tips for getting maximum value from it.
"The following newsletter takes deep dive into the latest features that Google introduced last the year." Ben adds. These are extremely useful features that allow you to alter data. There'll be a tutorial about that and a link to the Google Sheet template that people are able to download. In addition, there will be a online session on the topic. "I utilize the newsletters to communicate details about times and also the Google Meet link for the live events."
If asked about the future of his business, Ben imagines that membership will become the core of his company. "I obviously would like to draw more people in as I want that membership to be my only product available," he says. "I already have an online library with free content which you then can become a pro member and support me and get the additional content."
Playing a game like Chess using Google Sheets
He says that he was able to provide consulting services and also put ads on his newsletter. However, he is now trying to stop doing this: "if I can build the number of subscribers to become large enough, it'd be nice to get rid of all that other stuff. There are a few small areas to be worked on, but increasing the number of members is crucial. "
He says he's got various ideas for expanding his offering. "I've had some thoughts at the moment and I'm thinking of doing better at giving these live events to members and we've also got plans to bring members in coming to next year. The software itself will change. I don't think it'll change much, but we'll do more live stuff."
He also says he'd like to come up with a more effective method for members to communicate the sorts of data problems they're working with and the issues they'd like to do about it -- "That could be via 'office hours' or an easier means for them to send queries" - as long that it's done in a viable and beneficial way to everyone involved.
Ben says that for the time being, all the interactions with his community are conducted via electronic newsletters. "I actually encourage people to respond with a message saying 'Hey, please let me know what you're working on' - I like this because it's easy to manage.
He was known to facilitate forum discussions and "cohort classes" in which participants worked through Google Sheets issues online together as a team. "We took two of these in 2021 while they were all the rage. The course was very successful However, it felt extremely intense for the 5 weeks It was like a "firehose of questions. This is the first time I've participated in a group as such yet, because I'm wary of after I've turned the switch on, I'll be unable to completely shut it off. I'd like to think it through and figure out how to accomplish this sustainably?
"I was not even pledging live sessions when I first began, thinking"Just go live and see how the reaction is. See if I enjoy making it work before I make promises about all the time.' But it's going very well! He seems keen to add live sessions "They're enjoyable and the participants enjoy a lot from these sessions. Let's see how it goes!"
Ben hosting a Zoom session for his clients
"Right this moment I'm teaching topics such as: I'll choose a subject and we'll cover that for the live class," he continues. However, in the group courses the structure was more like an open-forum: "People would come in and ask, 'Hey, there's a formula that I'm having trouble understanding We'd go through the problem live. Other people could observe. That's something we'll look at doing next year; it's a great way for people to be involved."
As a final thought, he believes the possibility of a Discord Q&A forum is definitely an option, however he states: "I just want to make sure I can do the task in a way which doesn't overwhelm me." This sounds like Ben has already started on the road to building an ongoing and solid friendship with his group. We agree that sustainably is essential to the success of a membership "Little steps - we'll just gradually build up!" he smiles.
Additional information
Ben Collins is an educator author, designer, and founder of The Collins School of Data. He creates online courses and write on the Google Workspace tools. I concentrate on analysis of data and automation, using Google Sheets and Apps Script.
Ben L Collins' website
He enjoys creating lightweight, data-driven applications that work with the Google stack. These include: Google Sheets, Looker Studio, Google Apps Script, Forms, Docs, Gmail and more. To learn more, go to benlcollins.com.