Making Money from Excel : 6 Ways You Can Make $9999/Month

Are you ready to make your spreadsheet skills your superpower? Stick around because, in today’s article, I’m going to be covering six proven techniques to turn your Excel know-how into the lifestyle that you want while making the money that you deserve.

For each of these, I’m going to cover the difficulty level as well as how much you can expect to earn. Now, I’ve personally done most of these, so I know they work. Plus, I have a surprise guest who’s made these techniques work for him.

He currently lives a digital Nomad life as an entrepreneur. Trust me, you don’t want to skip this one because he has some unique perspectives and expertise that will help you. So, are you in? Let’s dive in!

No 1 : Corporate Jobs

So, the first way is a no-brainer: corporate jobs. Now, I’m not going to spend too much time on this, but trust me, if you can be the Excel wizard in your team, you’re golden, right? Excel is used everywhere from Finance to Logistics.

Let me share my story on how Excel helped me in my corporate job. So, I first used Excel as an economist in Canada, but I wasn’t doing much with it. I then decided that I didn’t want to be an economist anymore, so I got on a plane and moved to Austria, where I used to live before. Now, I had no job lined up, so it was quite a scary move for me.

I eventually got an in-house productivity consultant job, but I completely felt out of place. Excel was the main tool there, and my Excel was a kindergarten level compared to my colleagues. But I didn’t let that stop me. I learned VBA on my own. I made some really cool tools that helped my team. And you know what?

That made me stand out. In fact, I ended up getting a job to work on an Oracle project that doubled my salary. Did I have any idea about Oracle? No. It was for a finance consolidation system. Did I know IFRS and understand consolidation at the time?

No. What got me my job was my Excel skills, right? In fact, they wanted my VBA skills because the tool at the time was based on VBA. Now, at that time, that specialized skill was VBA. Nowadays, you have other Excel skills that are just as valuable, if not more, right?

We have Power Query, we have Power Pivot, DAX, and so on. So here’s the takeaway: you might have the best degree in the world, but it’s your skills that really count. Being good with Excel isn’t just a nice to have; it’s your secret weapon that can make you invaluable, no matter if you’re just starting out or you want to climb that corporate ladder.

So, in terms of the difficulty level of building up your Excel skills while you’re at your corporate job, I rate it as easy because you just learn as you get new challenges. Now, in terms of your earning potential, I give it a two out of five because there’s only so much you can reach in the corporate world.

No 2 : Consulting Or Freelancing

Moving on to the second way: consulting or freelancing. Now, here’s a golden nugget for you: if you’re currently in a corporate job, don’t keep your Excel skills a secret. Show them off a little, help your colleagues out because when you leave or if they move to another company, guess who they’re going to think of when they need Excel help?

Yeah, they’re going to think of you. That’s exactly how I landed my consulting gigs after leaving corporate. But yeah, don’t just take my word for it. I have a super special guest on the show today, Jordan Goldmeier.

He’s a Microsoft MVP, author, consultant, and a digital Nomad. He has a ton of experience in this area, and he has some great insights to share, including the concept of the Consulting Freedom Ladder, which we briefly spoke about before recording.

Tell us a bit more about that. So, (Jordan Goldmeier says) the concept works like this: when you first start out, you’ll often have to take lower-paying gigs. But fear not! I do very well with my consulting gigs, and here’s how. First, you take on those small-paying gigs. Next, when you’ve built trust with those clients, you begin taking on firm-fixed-price contracts.

So in this case, you’re not getting paid per hour, but per project. Now, from a small slice of those clients, you move those over to a retainer agreement, and this is where it gets fun because I have clients who pay me for the full year upfront, and we meet once a week. We go over their needs.

We work on their projects. Some weeks are busier than others, so there are some busy weeks, but this really works for my lifestyle. More importantly, we build trust together. The projects that they have me do are fun, and creative, and the whole thing is very lucrative.

So it really works out because I continue to expand my skills, I make money, and I get to travel. In fact, this concept that I’m working on right now that I’m telling you, I’m actually going to be putting it into my next book.

So how do you rate the difficulty? So I give this a three for difficulty. It’s all about focusing on the clients you love and not the ones you don’t. So the thing you have to remember is that this isn’t for everyone.

It’s not exactly something that scales, right? It’s something that you find the people you love and you continue working with them, giving them attention, showing them the kind of work that you do.

And in return, you actually have a really good deal, but it’s not easy to start out. Now the earnings potential on this is four out of five because I think you can actually make a lot of money and a lot of money upfront.

No 3 : Online Courses

Alright, on to the third way: online courses. It’s not easy to set up. It’s a long process. It’s like writing a book and then filming it. And the selling aspect shouldn’t be underestimated because there’s a lot of work there too.

But it’s a very rewarding experience because you get to help a lot more people than consulting. Plus, it can be very easily scaled. So the potential of making money is higher. For me, personally, it was difficult to get started because I had no idea how to operate these recording devices.

It was difficult to sell and market my courses because I had no experience. And it was difficult to learn this stuff for me. But after a lot of work and very little reward, then the momentum came and it took off.

And now we have over 400,000 students across platforms, including XelPlus.com. So, Jordan, what’s your take on this? (Jordan Goldmeier says) I was recently talking to someone on LinkedIn about this. Most people think that building the course is the hardest part.

But the thing is, you already know Excel, so it’s actually the most fun part. In fact, the hardest part is what happens after the course. It’s the marketing. So here’s the thing: marketing has a lot of data in it, so it’s really all about getting your message out there.

And if you can do that and the course starts selling, it’s very much “set it and forget it.” (Me) So how do you rate this? (Jordan Goldmeier says) Well, for difficulty overall, I’d give it a four out of five. Now, for me, recording is not that hard.

I like to just sit down and record, so I give that like a two out of five. But the marketing, writing instructions for the users, all that stuff makes it a four out of five. Now, for the money-making potential, I think it’s a five out of five.

(Me) Yeah, I agree with the money-making potential. For the difficulty bit, for me personally, it was a five out of five because I just couldn’t figure out that recording bit. The whole technical aspect of it was difficult for me. 

No 4 : Books

(Me) Way number four: becoming an author. Whenever I learn a new technical topic, I like to read books on it alongside taking courses. I find that the combination helps me really understand the concepts better. Jordan, you’ve written four books. What advice can you share with us?

(Jordan Goldmeier says) Well, I love writing, and if you’ve ever considered writing a book, this is a great way to establish your authority, and build your brand presence, whether that’s online or in the corporate environment, and it’s also a great way to improve your communication skills.

Now, I made a lot of mistakes with my first book. I wanted to write something 700 pages long. The publisher and I thought it would take nine months, but it took three and a half years. Don’t make the same mistakes as me.

The essence of good writing is to keep it focused on what the reader needs to know. This is what I did in my last two books, “Becoming a Data Head” and “Data Smart,” which comes out November 7th, and also you can get it now on Amazon Kindle.

Now, you might think you have to be an excellent writer but remember that books are edited by a team. You just have to know what to say and give the reader step-by-step instructions. So your focus needs to be on writing and getting your chapters done.

A team of editors is going to help you make it sound fantastic, and it’s through that process that you will become an exceptional writer. Now, to really make money on books, you do have to write a few of them.

One book won’t make a ton, but several books will create a network effect. So I would rate the difficulty of writing as a five out of five, especially if it’s your first book, and the money-making potential a two out of five. But here’s the thing, okay? I love writing, so for my lifestyle, it’s a five out of five choice.

No 5 : Speaking & Workshops

Next one: Speaking and Workshops. So, once you’ve built up some expertise and credibility, people will actually pay to listen to you. Isn’t that cool? You can run workshops, and webinars, or even get invited to speak at big events.

Talking about events, there’s a great one coming up in February 2024, the Global Excel Summit. We’re going to be there. – (Jordan Goldmeier says) We are going to be there. All the great Excel personalities are going to be there. Oz is going to be there.

Hopefully, you’re going to be there too. (Me) Yeah, we’d love to see you. There’s going to be more information below in the comment box. Now, talking about workshops, what business advice do you have for someone who wants to lead an Excel Workshop?

(Jordan Goldmeier says) Now, workshops have the ability to make a lot of money with only one to two days of work. I don’t recommend doing workshops with two to three people because that’s closer to private tutoring, which doesn’t make a lot of money and it requires a lot of energy because everyone demands so much attention.

I recommend that if you want to make a good deal of money, you charge a fixed amount for a class of around 20 people. Now, you may ask, “What if they have 40 people to train?” Well, instead of giving a discount to more people, just offer another training session. 

You can expect, for a given workshop, about one thousand to five thousand dollars per day. I give this a difficulty score of about three out of five because you do have to prepare the material in advance, but the potential is significant, so I give it a four out of five because you can make a good deal of money with only a few days of work.

No 6 : Social Media

And finally, we have social media content. So platforms like YouTube and blogs can make you some decent money if you regularly produce quality content. Right? You can make money from ads or even land some sponsorships.

So if you have a newsletter with an audience, you can add sponsored segments to it. It’s basically like advertising space. Now, in terms of difficulty level, I consider this a one out of five because you could just get started today.

You can take out your phone, record a short, you could just write a blog post. In terms of the money-making potential, I rate this one out of five because AdSense doesn’t pay that much, right?

You can’t earn that much from advertising unless you have a lot of content, but it opens up a lot of opportunities, like all the ones that we discussed here. So all in all, it could be a three out of five depending on how you leverage your content.

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