How to make $100,000+ with Excel Skills (6 strategies)

the six ways are freelancing business

Consulting Excel products teaching Excel

writing about Excel and Excel websites

and newsletters and using these six

techniques you can earn anywhere from

two thousand dollars per year to more

than hundred thousand dollars per year

hi there my name is chandu and I have

used all these six techniques over the

last 15 years to make money with my

Excel and data skills even though in

this video I'm primarily talking about

using your Excel skills to generate

Revenue we can apply the same concept

and use power bi or other data skills as

well

so what are these six ways number one is

freelancing if you are sufficiently

skilled in Excel that is you know your

way around Excel you can get things done

without frustrating or looking all over

the web for help then you can use those

Excel skills to help others who are not

just capable or maybe don't have the

time a common freelancing task that you

could do is you can go and help somebody

with the data entry it might seem very

simple but many times the data entry

jobs that people want done these days

involve comprehensive research online so

you'll have to go to websites collect

some data or information and then load

that into a spreadsheet program whether

it is Excel or Google Docs or something

else and many times these kind of jobs

pay anywhere between couple of dollars

per hour to maybe 10 20 dollars per hour

and that is really the lower end of the

spectrum because you're not even using

Excel at this point Beyond typing

information but if you take it to a

little bit more like you know maybe

doing something with Excel rather than

just typing information the next level

of work would be data cleansing many

times businesses especially small and

medium businesses what happens is they

do have data but it's not completely

clean it could be a bunch of invoices

that need cleaning up it could be some

client data that they want to scrub and

make sure that it is in the correct

format or whatever again you require

more advanced Excel skills at this point

like a good understanding of various

data cleaning options available in Excel

and how to productively and

intelligently use them but if you can

get these kind of things you can expect

to earn more than maybe 10 20 dollars

per hour sometimes complex cleaning

exercises can pay you even more but if

you go all the to the other end of the

spectrum and this is where most of the

Excel freelancing work that I have

personally done comes into picture is

building an Excel based solution for

your clients so it could be creating a

complex dashboard for them or building a

VBA application for them or creating a

spreadsheet template for managing a

business process and when you are going

to this end of the spectrum you can

expect a really good hourly rates or

project rates for example uh when I

started doing these kind of works this

is

thousand

it is about thirty dollars twenty five

dollars per hour

but fast forward to 2022 and 2023

nowadays I am charging almost 200 to 50

dollars per hour for building

either Excel or power bi or Power

Platform based solutions for my clients

so you can see that kind of like a rapid

increase in the earning potential when

you go and find these kind of things so

with this kind of a freelance thing

let's say you're able to find maybe 20

hours of work per month and you're able

to average somewhere between five and

ten dollars per hour for that sort of

work you could expect to earn in a

typical month anywhere between 100 to

200 extra Revenue by doing this and this

just means you know doing some simple

jobs like data cleansing or data

collection or some internet research and

compilation of data ways can you find

these kind of jobs the simple

freelancing jobs you can find on

websites like upwork or Fiverr or other

places but more complex freelancing jobs

I'll talk about how to acquire those

kind of claims towards the end of the

video the second one is a business

Consulting there is a famous saying that

if you give a man fish you will only

feed them for one day but if you teach

them how to fish then you know you are

feeding them for the life what many

people don't understand is some people

don't want to be learning how to fish

nor they are interested in the fish no

one wants to eat raw fish anyway what is

it that we like to eat we like to eat

properly cooked fish salad or a nice

plate of fish and chips or maybe a an

empty fish curry that's really what we

want so instead of thinking as Excel

freelancer if you repackage that and

position yourself as a business

consultant

then you have the higher chance of

making more money but also helping

people with their real business problems

so for example imagine you're an

accountant and you do have Excel skills

then instead of selling your Excel

skills you could package that with your

accounting skills and offer their

bookkeeping skills sell your accounting

financial statement preparation kind of

thing as a package that's really what we

want we want that fish curry here which

is the financial statement we are not

interested in whether you know vlookup

or index match or X lookup or power

query that is all irrelevant so if you

approach the using my Excel skins to

make money as using my Excel plus

business skills to make money and then

think about what business Consulting you

can offer then you have a chance to make

more money through those skills and I

have done this like initially I was

building just extra things but later on

I I started telling my clients that I

can create a really impressive and

beautiful dashboard for you so now this

is a different skill and it was a

helpful for me because then I could ask

for more money per hour and get that in

order to succeed with this kind of

business Consulting you need not just

Excel and business skills but good

amount of experience as well because

that is when you will really shine as a

consultant the third option for making

money with your Excel slash data skills

is to create a product and this is what

I call as a passive income opportunity

here what we are gonna do is make a

product with either Excel or power bi or

something else that can solve a business

problem going back to the fish analogy

this is like rather than a fish curry

they are ordering a ready to eat fish

curry so it's not as yummy as a custom

made Curry but it is still tasty and you

know it will satisfy them so what sort

of an Excel products can you create I'll

share a couple of examples from my

personal life one example is this is a

product that I created with someone else

as a partner is a Excel wedding planner

it is an Excel template where you will

fill up all the details about your

wedding and it will generate the

planning for you it will generate seed

plants it will give you a template for

maintaining your wedding budget guest

lists and gift register everything

related to weddings it's a very fun

project we had lots of fun building it

and we offered it for sale on my website

and basically bought this wedding

planner another kind of excel template

or Excel product that I created is a

ready to use Excel dashboard this is

where you would put in your business

data in the file will generate 16 kinds

of different business dashboards that

you can readily take and use it in a

presentation or a meeting or anything

like that in fact that is still

available for purchase so if you are

interested check the video description

to get a copy of that so think about

your business skills and data skills and

see what business problem you can solve

and then create a product again this

kind of a thing is something that it is

helpful if you have lots of experience

because then you can watch the patterns

if every client of you is having same

problem then you can see that oh this is

a common denominator here I can take

this and create a product from that and

make a minimum viable product initially

test it out with few clients and later

on you can build up and when you're

creating a product because there is no

extra time involved once you create it

will keep selling even when you are not

putting any extra work it works in a

great way to create some passive revenue

for you a typical Excel product you can

expect to sell anywhere from ten dollars

to fifty or hundred dollars depending on

how complex that product is and what

problems it is solving and let's just

say you make a ten dollar product and

you're able to find 10 people to buy it

every month really simple numbers in a

year you're really talking about

generating twelve hundred dollars just

through that and it might take you 10 20

30 hours initially to create that once

but once you create it it will keep on

generating that revenue for some time it

may not be forever but maybe few years

so that is a an awesome way to generate

some extra money through the Excel

skills or power bi the fourth way to use

Excel skills to make money is teaching

Excel you can for example go to a local

college and ask them if they need any

Excel trainers or real world

practitioners to teach their graduates

how to use Excel you can ask within your

company itself if you can do some Excel

tutoring or training or mentoring or

like what I'm doing on my channel you

can start a Channel or some other course

and teach Excel there as well and I've

done all of these things when I when I

initially started my blog and wrote

about Excel I never thought I know I

would teach excel in a more audio visual

format or in person but over time people

started asking hey chandu can you teach

us Excel and that is how some of my

courses and in-person classes became a

reality and teaching is something that

uh it is not for everybody because not

everyone enjoys the teaching or not

everyone who can use Excel very well can

also be a great teacher so if it is

something that you feel like yes I can

teach I can I enjoy this process and I

feel like I can make a difference in

someone's life through teaching then

definitely consider teaching what you

are learning teaching is also a great

way to improve your communication skills

learn the new things as well as whatever

you are learning if you are teaching

somebody else you will remember and

understand the concepts better this is

why many teachers if you watch them over

time the teacher is also improving a lot

because they are constantly teaching

they are getting a lot of feedback from

the students and that helps them improve

their craft so how do you make money

with this kind of a teacher initially if

you're just teaching for fun you may not

make much money because probably there

is not much scope but if you do find

some corporate clients or companies

willing to train their teams that is a

great starting point for example for a

one-day Excel training program you could

expect to charge anywhere from 500 to 5

000 per day of training so even if you

do like five days of that in a year at a

lower end you are making 2500 at a

higher and twenty five thousand dollars

so there is a huge earning potential

with doing in-person classes and if you

take that online and start teaching

online then you can also make it like a

passive thing where you create a course

and offer it for sale on platforms like

teachable Etc and once you your course

is there people can constantly purchase

it generating revenue for it but it is

not that easy to kind of make a mark on

all of these I'm gonna talk about how to

actually find the clients for teaching

in products or freelancing towards the

end of the video like I mentioned and of

all the things to which I made money in

Excel teaching is the biggest thing for

me

both because it made me a lot of money

as well as it made me a better

communicator and a better individual so

and it gives me a lot of satisfaction

because when I teach people I see how

awesome they are getting at their work

and how happy they are that they're

unlocking all of these potential in them

and it makes me really joyous that I'm

able to contribute to that so yeah if

you if you're not really sure which one

to pick and if you if you have something

cling in your mind that maybe teaching

is what I will enjoy then definitely

give it a try the fifth option for using

your Excel skills to make money is

writing about Excel for example let's

just say you are HR professional and you

do use Excel a lot in your day-to-day

work you could create a eBook on

essential Excel skills for HR people and

then put it out on either Amazon or some

other platform where ebooks can be sold

and maybe sell it for two dollars five

dollars ten dollars or something like

that initially it might be hard to find

people but once you enough people read

and review that book then it will kind

of become like this rolling Snowball

Effect because enough people have read

and given its five star ratings or four

star ratings more people will find it

and they will also read it and writing

books is another great way to enhance

your skills because when you are writing

uh you just start thinking about how

else can I explain this what are

analogies can I use here or how I can

illustrate this so that it is all making

sense and that will make you understand

and remember and use the technology

better and also it will enhance your

profile so it if you are applying for a

freelance job you can say Excel

Specialist or you can say Excel

specialist and author of books and the

second one instinctly adds a lot of

credibility to an alternative to books

and ebooks is you could also write on a

website so this actually kind of goes

into our sixth option which is websites

and newsletters if you are sufficiently

skilled in a particular skill

or a newsletter or a combination of both

and share the information and this is

where there is no direct monetary reward

when you have a website or a platform

where your information is published then

what you could also do is you could

start thinking of monetizing it for

example you could insert some ads onto

the page you could partner with some

other people who are offering services

and mention about those services on the

website in return for some revenue or

you could use some affiliate programs

and other stuff as well and that is a

great way to grow your brand as well so

I have a website like most of you

probably know and that is how I got

started into this journey I started my

website in 2004 and around 2006 I

completely switched it to talking about

Excel and that is pretty much how I got

launched into this career path if your

website gets sufficient amount of good

kind of traffic that is in a particular

industry or a particular Niche then you

can generate anywhere from fifteen

hundred dollars per month to five

thousand ten thousand twenty thousand

dollars per month in just ad revenues

alone so these are the six ways in which

you can generate the revenue or from

your Excel skills you get freelance you

could offer business Consulting Services

create an Excel product teach Excel

write about Excel and maintain a website

or newsletter now you might be thinking

this is all good I do know these six

ways but how do I actually I don't know

you know if I go and advertise myself as

a freelancer on Fiverr or upwork I'm not

getting any projects if I wrote a book

nobody is buying it how do I really do

that and this is also where

the key is to actually build your

yourself up and this reminds me of a

famous quotation by Abraham Lincoln he

famously said if I have eight hours to

chop a trade I'll spend the first six

sharpening my Acts so think about using

your data skills to make money as

chopping the tree then you don't want to

straight away get on it and chop the

tree what you want is you want to have a

really sharp aches how do you do that

you want to build yourself as a solid

individual that have really good skills

and Real World Experience so my top

suggestion is maybe work for some years

while you are working and while you are

building that skills think of starting a

website or a platform where you can

build up your profile don't think of

this as a personal publicity place

instead think of it like here is my

website I'm gonna talk about my work I'm

going to talk about the projects that

I'm passionate about I'm gonna talk

about the skills that I'm acquiring and

I'm gonna share that information with

the world you might think why make a

website I can go and talk about my stuff

on LinkedIn or YouTube or somewhere else

while those are all good

none of those platforms are warned by

you so a LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft

Google YouTube is owned by Google Etc so

if you are going and putting pitching

your tent in their ground by definition

they own it so you don't really have

much control over it so it's better to

have your website early on and create

that as the main place and use these

other things as anchors that kind of

point back to the website so once you

have that website keep building it over

a period of time and then start

experimenting with various things this

is where if your website is there and it

is able to kind of attract people either

through search traffic or referrals or

something else then over time there will

be enough people

finding about you and some of them will

convert to paying customers whether it

is through freelancing teaching or you

know reading your book or purchasing

your product or asking you to deliver a

seminar for their team or whatever may

be the case you know enough people will

will be attracted to your site that they

can do it and you can take this kind of

a formula

really apply for any industry it doesn't

really have to be data industry or Excel

particular if the same thing can be done

with anything as well

if you're wondering how do I create

these website or newsletter or something

I do have some links in the video

description below check them out and

sign up and create your own website

newsletter course or learn a little bit

more about this whole process and the

six skills I wish you all the very best

in your journey to use your Excel skills

and generate this Revenue all the best

to you and I'll catch you again

somewhere else bye