Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Liam, thanks so much for coming on, of course.
I mean, I know it's a super farwalk from where you're living
now.
So Liam's still living just ablock away from campus,
30-minute walk, but yeah.
So I guess, to kind of catchthings up, so you graduated in
May of last year, Correct?
(00:32):
And I guess let's start withlike where, what, what's the
story?
So, like you, you got, you cameinto my class and you got the
internship and then like what,what's happened so far?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, I mean never really had any experience with
analytics until junior year Ithink it was In your first class
.
It just kind of got pitched tome.
The business analytics minorSounded interesting but I didn't
really have any knowledge aboutit and those first couple
classes we had, uh, with thepower bi and tableau and those
(01:09):
kind of things, I really startedenjoying it and, um, the big
project that we did.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
but then, so can I apologize.
What did you enjoy about likeworking with power bi?
Was it a project or was it thetool, or was it that it's like
it was both okay, yeah, um, Ihad never touched power bi or
tableau before that.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Um, so just kind of I like learning, so learning the
tool, kind of learn how it works.
But then also there's some datamanipulation that we had to do.
Um, so that was interesting aswell, so just being able to kind
of see the data, like wemanipulated it in Excel and then
we transferred it to Power BIand then we could kind of build
(01:51):
visuals out of just numbers andcolumns Right.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
It's almost like a much more three-dimensional
version of Excel.
Yeah, are you using in yourcurrent role Excel much?
Yes, so like well, first, allit's.
It's kind of crazy, like howmuch you learn, how much more
you learn on the job than inclass it is like so you're just
(02:17):
in excel, you have a tightdeadline.
You know the use case like yeah, and that's what?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
uh, the majority of my internship was just Excel.
I had a couple classes where itwas Excel and you know you get
graded but if you clicked in thewrong square, in the wrong
sequence, you're going to getpoints taken off and I don't
really know if that's the bestway to learn Excel.
Yeah, so through that class Ididn't really know if that's the
(02:43):
best way to learn Excel.
Yeah, so through that class Ididn't really learn Excel.
But then kind of once I wasgiven tasks in my internship
like figure this out.
There's really like no setdeadline or anything like that,
just figure it out.
And there's multiple ways.
There's not one correct way,there's two or three different
ways.
So I think that's what reallyhelped is just being able to be
(03:04):
free and creative and you know,if you mess up you can go back
in and fix it, but just beingable to kind of critically think
through okay, what do I need todo, what's the problem and how
can I solve the problem rightand it's, I think.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I think what I kind of did subversively was kind of
introduce you to likeuncertainty.
Yep, like you have to makeassumptions, yeah, and it's not
going to be perfect all of thetime because you know.
Like, for example, one thingthat I do is I build out
forecasts and it's a nine figurebusiness and think about all
(03:39):
the things that impact that.
So, like the hurricane thatcame through Right, like when's
the last time that we had ahurricane impact north carolina?
It completely knocked out ourasheville store.
Yeah.
So like creating a forecastthat included asheville sales
all of a sudden, that's wrong,yeah, but it's like you're,
you're good enough that it'swithin a the ballpark to make a
(04:02):
decision, right, but okay.
So you found out about theanalytics class junior year Then
.
So first semester of senioryear you came into Case Studies
and Business Analytics, correct,then kind of got the bug.
That's when you found how didyou find your internship?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
A recruiter came to Greensboro College at lunch one
day.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
That's so cool because I don't think you would
have even gone probably to thatevent if you hadn't even been
introduced to analytics and hadthat interest sparked?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Definitely not.
And it was like I mean I hadjust heard about it in the class
, they were going to be there atlunch.
I had just heard about it inthe class, like they were going
to be there at lunch.
I had just heard about it inthe class before I was in like
slides with no socks on and ballcap with a bunch of clothes
that didn't match.
I was like I'll just stop byand see what happens.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, and it sounds like you really hit it off with
the recruiter?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
We did.
Yeah, we had a really goodconversation.
We were able to sit down.
They really good conversation,we were able to sit down.
They were getting ready to toleave.
My class ran a little bit lateand I was kind of catching them
as they were wrapping up, but wesat down, had a brief
conversation at a table and gother contact information and just
went forward from there gotcha.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, well, because I remember we met over a cup of
coffee and helped you prep forlike the actual I, I guess was
that that wasn't the phonescreening, that was like the
behavioral portion of it there.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
it was a two-part interview um, I wouldn't say
they were really I don't thinkany of them were really what
people typically define as a umtactical, but it was kind of
just a brief Zoom meeting withthe recruiter that came to
Cogent and that's kind of likejust you know, feeling my
(05:54):
personality out, see if I wouldbe a good fit for the company,
getting to know me a little bitof my back story.
And then my second interview,which we had that cup of coffee
and prepped for.
That was a little bit more onthe technical side it was the
guy I would be working for andkind of just a breakdown of what
they do, you know, a briefstory about kind of their day to
(06:15):
day tasks and kind of thevision of where I could come in
and support them a little bit.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That's kind of incredible, thinking about the
timeline of that.
So how long had you beenlearning about analytics before
you had that interview?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
It wasn't a full year , it was probably six months.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Okay.
So was it mainly the Excelstuff that they were kind of
talking about, or was it alsolike the power bi and the
tableau stuff that you wereworking on?
I think so.
Okay, that's.
That's interesting because it'sit seems like a it's.
It's a lot lower of a bar thanI would have expected.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Well, but it is an internship though it's an
internship and um the positionthat I was interviewing for, um
the guy that I was I was workingfor at my internship, um their
role is kind of more on thebusiness side, like processes
and those kind of things, andthey use Excel to support them.
(07:12):
So it's not necessarily liketheir role is Excel.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It's just a tool that can but I mean that's kind of
the main lever they use to gettheir job done Correct, the main
like felt, like the lever theyuse to get their job done
correct.
Like you, you need to kind ofunderstand the business use case
and the decisions and like what, what, what metrics of
influence, what decision youmake right.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
but yeah, from the technical standpoint, um that
the excel yeah, the ideas andthe processes that they're
putting into place.
It needs to be visualized forthe clients so that the clients
can see it and get a fullunderstanding of it.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Gotcha Okay.
So quick question If let's saythat someone who is a sophomore
or junior in college islistening to this right now and
they're interested in getting asimilar, what was the specific
name of your internship?
Was it just marketing analyst,analyst?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
no, it was just a a general data analyst internship.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Okay yeah, so if someone was wanting to get a
similar job or internship thatyou got, what are the key things
that they would need to knowfrom excel?
That's a good question, um andI know the the conversation was
like a year ago at this point,but like I'm kind of curious I
(08:31):
would say the biggest thing isum kind of the, the willingness
to learn.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
That's really big um, because excel there's always
something.
Even now there's.
There's stuff I still need tolearn.
Um, I can always be better insomething, so that's the big
thing, but it really helps tohave a basic understanding, like
the, the formulas, like x, lookup, v, look up those kind of
things, and um, when to use.
You know the right formulas inthe right scenario.
(08:58):
So just a doesn't have to besuper in depth, but um, I would
say just enough to where, ifyou're given a couple of
different tasks, you at leasthave an idea or enough to be
dangerous, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Right enough to be dangerous?
Um, okay, that's interesting.
So you said that you're you'reyou're building out visuals.
Were you doing that with likepivot charts?
Are we doing that just out oflike the chart functionality
within excel?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I never really use pivot for pivot charts or are we
doing that just out of like thechart functionality within
Excel?
I never really use pivot chartsbecause they're not super
dynamic like the charts or thedata that you put in that pivot
chart.
You can't really have formulasto dynamically change.
Okay, so it's more of just justbuilding charts.
Usually within every workbookthere's always a tech tab that
you know.
If it's client-facing, you'llprobably hide that sheet just
(09:47):
because it's a bunch of data.
But you'll put all that data inthe tech tab and then just kind
of play with it from there.
Very cool.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I mean that's so cool because we were just talking
off air that you're now buildingvisualizations in Tableau,
Starting to Learning.
So Excel is kind of the naturalevolution, or Tableau is an
evolution from Excel in terms of, like, building out that pivot
chart functionality.
It is Making it dynamic.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It is.
It's more sophisticated interms of their queries and their
databases.
Tableau is always going to becompletely automated, for the
most part Right, Whereas Excel,if you're most of the time, the
data that you're going to beputting in there is going to be
(10:37):
some kind of export or somethingmanual.
So it's kind of interesting thedifference between Excel.
It's an interesting transitiongoing from Excel to Tableau,
because in Excel, if you needthe data, you just make it and
you create columns.
You create a table, somethingwhere you can format the data
(11:01):
how you want to, Whereas Tableauit's a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
It's more rigid from a data structure standpoint.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
It is, it has to be a certain way.
You can't really manipulate thedata as easily as you can in
Excel, but that could also bebecause I'm so new to Tableau.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah Well, two things .
I think it will get easier asyou get on.
You may.
Also, tableau is built on Ibelieve it's no sequel um, which
is just a type of sequel um.
So you may want to get deeperin a sequel to understand kind
of how all that which sequelsjust kind of like very similar
(11:42):
to the formulas that you learnin excel.
I feel like a lot of people gethung up on, including myself.
I kind of avoided SQL for yearsbecause it just seemed like I
don't know super tedious.
It seems like a big mountain toclimb.
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
And then, kind of, once you start typing some
things out, you realize howsimilar it is yeah, well, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
So it's funny because we're almost in an opposite
track in terms of therelationship to Excel and
Tableau, in that, you know, Iran my own agency for eight
years working mainly with PowerBI and Tableau, but now I've
taken on a full-time job and I'mworking in Excel and the thing
(12:25):
that's frustrating to me is thatthey're like sometimes I make
little mistakes that I justwould never make because of how
rigid that structure is withintableau or power bi, right, so
you don't have to tell yourselfyou don't want to, but how
accurate was your work?
Or, like, if you don't answerthat question, what level of
accuracy do they expect frompeople working in Excel?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
That's a good question.
I think, especially withinExcel, there's always going to
be something.
Just because of how Excel isbuilt, especially when you start
to get into the macros andstuff, you know, one comma in
the wrong place, something likethat it can tend to, you know,
(13:08):
mess things up.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I would say there is a kind of expectation and
knowledge that Excel tends to bea little bit more fragile than
Tableau.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, well, the best thing about Excel is that, like
you said earlier, you cancompletely customize it.
Correct?
The worst thing about Excel isthat you can completely
customize it, because you mightmanually type in an O instead of
a zero, and then your wholeformula is broken.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Right, there is there's.
You know, nobody's perfect.
I've made plenty of mistakesand I'm going to in the future.
But the big thing is you knowif you make a mistake are you
able to go back in there, knowwhat you did, why you did it and
learn from it to work.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Factor into my work more, now that I'm in a
different type of role, is theaccuracy of it, as opposed to
where I was just kind ofbuilding out infrastructure
before.
It's like here's, here's whatyour data is telling us.
Now I kind of have to take moreownership of, like what the
what the data is if it's wrong.
Going and investigating andfiguring out you know what's
(14:23):
going on specifically with it.
Um, yeah, I guess.
I guess it's just a maybe atrade-off or the difference
between doing consulting workversus, like being a full-time
analyst embedded within acompany.
But, okay, so you came to myclass, found out about analytics
(14:44):
, found an internship.
Then how did that internship go?
So that was kind of the firstsemester, the fall semester,
then over winter break you cameback, then you started the
internship, right, correct?
So feel free to tell us alittle bit about that.
Like, what kind of work did youdo?
What were the challenges?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, little bit about that.
Like, what kind of work did youdo, um, what were the
challenges?
Yeah, um, so kind of.
I think I had the internshipfor three months, um, so I got
back in january, um three tofour months, maybe five months,
something like that, because Iknow I started in january,
worked through the summertimepartially, um, but the the main
task of the internship wassupporting the APDs.
The APDs, that are people thatare talking to the clients.
(15:32):
They're communicating what thetools do, why they do, how to
use them and training theclients how to use those tools,
gotcha.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
I like strategy more than being super in in the weeds
personally, but continue.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So yeah, so that was a that was a big part of it.
There were a couple renovationsthat they wanted made to the
tool, some like new featuresadded in, so I got to help out
with those.
The guy that I was working forinto my internship he was very
good at Excel too, but, um, thebig thing was his capacity Like
he didn't have a lot of time togo in there and add some things
(16:10):
into the tool.
So, um, I got to work prettyclosely with him to um, make
those additions and add thatstuff in there.
So that was that was a learningexperience.
There was a lot of stuff that,um, I was really unfamiliar with
, like I had.
I really had no experience withmacros before that.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
You probably know more about macros than I do.
I don't really write macros.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
It's interesting.
It's not technically coding,it's very close and it's very
similar to the Excel formulas,but they do have their
differences.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Okay, so what?
What do you use?
Macros?
For my understanding of it andit's probably not 100 accurate,
it's like is it mainly aformatting thing, or is it?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
it can be.
The big thing that macros areused for is is automation.
Um, there's a couple, there's acouple limitations within excel
that you just can't really makesomething without.
Uh, macros one of the bigthings big things that the tool
used macros.
One of the big things that thetool used macros for was to
automate financial data history.
(17:17):
So they'll go through, they'llfill out a month or a year,
whatever time period worth ofdata, They'll click save and it
goes into a database.
And then it will refresh itself,clear itself.
So the next month or the nextyear, whatever they can go in
and and refill that withouthaving to like copy and paste
(17:37):
the data somewhere.
Yeah, and then we can buildthose charts off of that
database that it gets copy andpasted into okay, very cool, so
it's.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I didn't.
I didn't realize that was a usecase where it's like you can
write a macro to help.
Is it pushing it to a databaseor like a flat csv file?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
that's just huge no, it's pushing it into another
excel sheet.
Oh okay, so like there'susually like the tech tab and
then there's probably a data tab, um, that are both hidden, just
to what's tech tab?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
you said a couple times.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I'm not quite sure if that is, it's a very like is
that where you put like yourscratch work?
Yeah, basically where you'reputting all the data tables,
that kind of stuff, where notnecessarily if it's a
client-facing tool that you wantthe clients to see, because
it's just a bunch of numbers andstuff like that, but it's just
a sheet where all the data iscollected.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
It's almost like you have your engine and that's the
tech tab, and then you close thehood and that's you hiding it
in Excel, right yeah.
And then you close the hood andthat's that's you hiding it in
excel, right yeah.
Because, yeah, you don't wantthe client necessarily to go and
see the inner workings of it.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
that are just kind of would would be super confusing
to them, right?
And yeah, it's not necessarilythat you something that you need
to see.
If you're super technicallysavvy, it's interesting to look
at, but otherwise it's just abunch of numbers on a white
sheet I got you.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
So what were the major lessons that you feel like
you learned through thatinternship?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
I think the the biggest thing is just being open
to learning.
That was, you know, justabsorbing everything, and that I
could.
You know, if I had to giveadvice to anyone, it would kind
of be to go out of your way.
You know, ask for work, ask forstuff to do, stuff, to learn,
to help people out.
If you're at an internship,something like that, and kind of
(19:20):
just sitting at, I guess, moveforward into a full-time
position which was taking theinitiative to build the tools,
(19:43):
ask for work, seeing where Icould fit in and help out.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah.
So it sounds like you took fulladvantage of the opportunity in
front of you Because you couldhave just kind of coasted
through it and done the bareminimum.
But another way of reframing upwhat an internship is.
And, granted, not allinternships lead to jobs or lead
to a job opening, but it'salmost like an opportunity for
(20:09):
you to have a three to fourmonth interview where you get to
learn a little bit about thecompany.
You get to learn about how do Iinterface with this manager?
Would I want to work for thismanager?
What about the work?
What about the technical skills?
Like it's a really kind of safeway to go about vetting from
both sides, if you think aboutit.
(20:29):
So it's like you know what,what are?
What is liam?
Like you know, because peoplecould kind of lie in an
interview or deceive, um, orkind of come off in a way that
maybe isn't true to who they areday to day.
Um, but also it's kind of safefor you because then you get to
instead of having I mean, it'skind of crazy to think about
right, like you, you have aninterview with the company.
(20:52):
I mean sure, sure, you can lookthem up, but it's like you have
like three or fourconversations with one or two
people.
I mean, that's kind of a gamble, right there.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
It is.
Yeah, I wouldn't have verygrateful for how my experience
and having the internship kindof just just getting a foot in
the door kind of, I would say,easing your way into a full-time
position, so I am grateful forfor that opportunity well then
also, too, you kind of startlike a few months ahead of
(21:21):
somebody else starting in anentry-level role, because you
know, you know people right,you've access, you've got access
to the data.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
but you also understand the like what?
What's our product placement inthe market, who do we serve,
what are the main benefits ofthat, what are the risks?
So you can kind of navigate alittle bit more savvy than
somebody just walking in freshRight.
Okay, so how long was thatinternship?
Three months, four months.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Three to four months, maybe five.
It started in January and Ibelieve I transitioned to
full-time around June.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
July.
So what was the transition frominternship to working full-time
?
Was that it was.
It was significant, right itwas Because it's a lot more work
than it is.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I was working about 20 hours, yeah, a week as an
intern and uh, transferred to 40hours, so it was a big flip.
Um, I would say it was more oftrying to think how to word.
This wasn't necessarily like aa big flip, it was kind of just
(22:39):
getting adjusted to being therefrom from eight till five and um
so it was more of like anexpansion, right then like a
brand new, novel thing.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So it's like, okay, it's just more of what I'm,
which, honestly, that sounds alot less, um, stressful than you
know.
I feel like a lot of collegestudents are going months now
without landing a job.
So, like you graduate, then youapply, you apply, you apply,
then you finally get aninterview that leads to a job
(23:12):
and then you take that.
It sounds like your experiencefrom school to full-time work
was pretty seamless.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, yeah, I think I got lucky.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I definitely think so .
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's true, because it can be tough.
I mean, back when I was anundergrad I went from getting a
degree in economics to workingfull-time in a commissioned
sales role, so that was a superrough transition.
Well being in a commissionedsales role just exposes you to
(23:46):
so much rejection that I feellike you just don't get
typically Like in school.
You might, you might like, getyou know some feedback on like a
test or something or an essay,but it's not no, no, no, 20
times a day, five days a week onin Vermont's NEARS, right.
So would you have any otherthoughts on like that transition
(24:10):
?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
It wasn't necessarily , you know, it was more of.
I went in the internship as adata analyst and then my
full-time position now is amarketing KPI specialist.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
So I, you know I had taken a couple marketing classes
like digital marketing.
Okay, so I, you know I hadtaken a couple marketing classes
like digital marketing.
So it was interesting, kind ofadjusting to a different
environment.
There are there's a lot ofterminology, a lot of things
that I had touched over inschool, stuff like that.
But you know, when you'reactually looking at like real
(24:54):
numbers and those kind ofaspects, it's a little bit
different than you know.
A a digitally um create anenvironment in class or
something yeah, well, also, it's.
It's so much more dynamicbecause, like getting a textbook
, that's marketing 101, you knowthere's the five p's or
whatever, or digital prints,email, like focusing
specifically on one organizationor you know one vertical within
(25:16):
that, like there's, there's somuch complexity within that
there is, there's and there's somuch data to back it up to that
you can look into and um, youknow, the thing about the
marketing classes is that youknow you, you do an ad campaign
or something like that and youhave to do this keyword at a
certain price, or you know it'snot going to do very good and
it's not really.
(25:37):
You know how it works.
Marketing is is always evolving.
There's always um environmental, political things that affect
marketing, um, and it'sconstantly changing.
There's not typically like aright or wrong answer.
Like I said before, it'sthere's two or three different
ways to solve a problem and theythey're all right yeah, it
(25:57):
seems like a theme that we kindof keep coming back to is it's?
Speaker 1 (26:01):
it's almost like being a lawyer, like you need to
just come up with a goodjustification for what you're
talking about.
Yeah and um, and and this seemslike a pretty big difference
between being in school versusbeing on the job.
In school it's almost like, youknow, the teacher sits standing
in the front and you're sittingdown and you need to kind of
make the right answer versuslike I'm not sure if this is how
(26:24):
it works with your manager, butwith my manager he'll be like
hey, we've got this problem andthen that's pretty much it.
I've got to go and solve andlike fill in the gaps.
Sometimes I even have to likeinterpret what he's saying, um,
and then there's a trade-offthere of like okay, I can ask
for clarifying questions, but ifI ask for too many, then he
(26:46):
starts to get frustrated.
But if I don't ask for enough,then it's like why didn't you
ask for more clarifying question?
There there seems to be a lotmore um.
It's just net more nebulousworking on the job it is, yeah,
it's.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Uh, you know it's not .
It's not black and white, it'snot like there's a go, do this
this way and it's like you weresaying it's there's a problem.
Um know my managers, they do areally good job of kind of
explaining what the problem isand then this is what I think is
causing the problem and this ishow I think it could be fixed.
(27:22):
But I need you to go and figureit out.
So you're completely right inthe aspect of you know it's not
necessarily a right or wrong,it's just go figure it out
actually this might be aninteresting question.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
So what are the differences, or what is your
difference, between how yourelate to professors or teachers
and managers?
Because they're both kind ofsimilar, right like they're,
they're both somewhat of anauthority figure in your life.
I mean, the manager isdefinitely more serious because
it's like, all right, I've gotbills to pay, money coming in,
(28:00):
but I mean, still, a professorcan fail you if, like you didn't
, you didn't show up, you knowat least in my experience.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Um, you know with the professors just kind of like,
like read this so you can learnthat and get a good grade on
this test, whereas, um, you know, with my manager just kind of,
hey, let's, let's brainstormthis together, let's work
together and and try to figurethis out okay, so it feels much
more collaborative.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
It does okay.
That's cool, because I feellike a lot of that is not the
typical experience for a lot ofpeople getting their first job.
They feel like they're more so,like just an order taker, like
there's, hey, we have this, giveme this, give me this, give me
this, um, so that's awesome.
It sounds like you've you'vekind of found yourself in a
really like you.
It seems like your, yourthoughts and your opinions are
(28:50):
are heard.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
They are.
Yeah, it's a very positive andencouraging work environment.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
That's great.
So do you have any thoughts onwhat's next?
Are you wanting to go more downthe marketing space or are you
wanting to go more technical andlearn Python or dig into AI or
any kind of stuff like that?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I'm not super sure I've been this way my whole
entire life.
It's kind of just go with theflow and see where I end up.
You know, I find I'm verygrateful because I kind of have
the opportunity to work inmarketing, but then I also do a
lot of work outside of marketingfor more of the like internal
consulting side.
So I kind of get a taste of alittle bit of everything that
(29:34):
coaching has to offer and um, Iwas actually talking to someone
about this the other day butthey all kind of supplement each
other.
Like on the internal side, youknow, you're building tools, um,
helping create stuff that maybetracks internal employee
production, something like that.
Um, and there's there's not awhole lot of client facing
conversations and stuff likethat.
(29:54):
Um, whereas my position in the,in the marketing department, I
do get to, you know, hop onmeetings and have KPI reviews
with clients, so, um, I thinkthat is a it's.
I think that was very umimportant to me at least, cause
that was one of my strugglepoints coming out of college was
, you know, I learned a lot ofstuff, but when you're sitting
(30:17):
talking to a CFO of a, of acompany, it's the community like
how well, can you communicatethe data that you've collected
for them?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
so is that where you want?
Do you want to spend moreenergy that way, or was that
more of a?
I feel like this is a weaknessof mine that I wanted to
overcome it was.
Are you enjoying that, though?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I am, yeah, I kind of view it as a challenge and, um,
I'm trying to, you know, getbetter at it every time that I
that I'm on a call with a client.
But, um, it was definitely a Idon't want to say fear, but it's
kind of like a, a mental blockalmost.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
um, well, public, I mean public speaking is it's not
easy?
No, it's.
I mean I remember when I firststarted teaching, it was well,
it was in the middle of COVIDtoo, yeah, so like I was wearing
a mask, which I'd never reallyhad to do before, yeah, so that,
yeah, it was kind of a doublewhammy there.
Yeah, that's cool.
(31:18):
So it sounds like the kind ofthe key thing that you want to
get is communication and maybeinfluence.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah, communication influence and just being able to
.
There's a difference betweencommunicating and effectively
communicating.
Like you don't want to sitthere and talk to a business
owner that has 25 other thingson his head and just keep
blabbering to him.
You want to tell him what heneeds to know and tell him in a
(31:47):
way that he can make decisionsand then save his time.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Well, it kind of makes me think of it.
Kind of makes me think of it.
Kind of makes me think of, likeyou know, tableau or Power BI,
like have you ever done a levelof detail calculation?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Don't know if I've ran into that.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
So it's a little bit of a complex topic.
But it's like you can write anLOD calculation and if you're
pulling, you know location, youcan set it to be at state, or
you can set it to be at zip code, or you know region or whatever
, and it and it lets you kind ofdictate what level of
granularity.
So like when you're talking tothe cfo, you don't want all of
(32:26):
the weeds.
It's just like roll this upinto kind of what is the main
thing that I need to get out ofthis?
So what factor?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, what does?
Speaker 1 (32:35):
this mean.
To me it's almost likekindergarten math.
It's like you know, this squareis bigger than this square, so
you should do this decision,which is so funny.
But because I don't know, I'vehad this conversation before and
some people are like, well,that kind of makes like the
executive sounds stupid.
And it's not even that they'restupid, it's that they have so
(32:57):
much going on that they run fromlike 30-minute meeting to
15-minute meeting.
So you've got to get like,you've got to prioritize.
Like what am I communicatinghere?
Right, if you're talking tosomeone else on your team, yeah,
you can go super into the weedsand like, yeah, actually that's
what you should do.
(33:18):
You should kind of figure outokay, well, here's the problem
and then go and figure that out.
If you're talking to yourmanager, I mean you could still
get into the weeds in somesituations, but not all of them.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
That's what I was about to say.
And you know there are some youknow business owners that are
they still like to.
You know, even with all thedaily tasks and struggles that
they go through, they still liketo see the granular detail.
So I think it's theconversation I was having the
other day is, you know, showingwhat they need to see first and
then, if they need moreinformation, you can always dive
(33:50):
into that afterwards.
But if you bore them with thesmall things before you get to
the big factors, they might missthe big message that you're
trying to communicate to them.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, you don't want them to tune out, right?
So good, that's fantastic.
I feel like working oncommunication is going to be
huge for you.
It is, I feel, like thetechnical side.
I feel like that's going tocome somewhat natural to you.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
It is.
It's just, it's always alearning process.
I mean, the more time that youspend on something and you know
there's always going to besomething that you run into.
Even the other day, I ran intoan issue and I had absolutely no
idea how to figure it out, tooka little break, came back to it
and I was able to solve it.
So it's just kind of just messaround with it and find out.
(34:40):
There's another term for that.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Are you using AI at all?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Not really.
There's a couple times withformulas or know formulas or
maybe just a more of a spellcheck.
But I try to stay away from AIas much as I can.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Really.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Why?
Just because it's You're scaredof it?
I don't know.
At least with my experience,there's been a lot of
inaccuracies with AI.
Yeah well, Maybe some of themore advanced AIs are a little
bit different, but the AI thatI've kind of used more often
(35:26):
than not is ChatGPT.
In that there's a lot ofinaccuracies and errors within
the stuff it spits out.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Well, one thing that I'm starting to get deeper into
is working with databases andspecifically altrix.
Have you heard of altrix?
Have not?
So it's.
It's an etl tool, so it allowsyou to connect to multiple data
sources, manipulate the data,create calculations, you know.
But there's a, there's a tonwithin that suite, um.
It's kind of like the umtransform data button or power
(35:59):
query editor within power BI.
It's like that, but it, I wouldsay it's more expansive cause
it's, I mean, that's the mainfocus of the tool Um.
But one thing that has beeninteresting is there's like an
internal meetup group at thecompany I'm working at and
literally on wednesday of thisweek, what the guy who's been
(36:20):
working with altrux for like 15,20 years like walked through a
whole use case where he used, uh, specifically, isn't there an
ai with X Twitter that they'reusing?
And he wrote out like 20 linesof code using the AI prompt and
(36:42):
then optimized it and, yeah,there were a few little tweaks
that he had to make to it, butI'm starting to see this AI
stuff can be transformational.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
It is and it's super helpful.
And if you use it, um like veryloosely, like hey, I got this
issue, uh, maybe it's a formulaor a line of code that um you're
you were talking about, if youjust use it loosely, like I got
this um issue, what are a coupleof different ways I could solve
it?
You could take the overall ummessage that it spits out and
kind of type your own code orformula in with that, but it
(37:17):
definitely kind of helps youopen your your mind to a couple
different ways to solve theissue.
That may be more effective.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Well, it's just it's so fast and it, I think what it,
what it does a really good jobwith are like closed systems, so
like sequel, I mean.
I believe that's a closedsystem where it's got all the
logic laid out within it.
There's reference manuals,specific parameters yeah.
So it can go throughdocumentation and figure things
(37:45):
out.
Right, that's cool.
So any other closing thoughts.
So we've met what?
Speaker 2 (37:53):
We've met a couple times.
No, I'm saying when did we meetLike a year and a half ago when
we first met.
I think it's close to a yearand a half ago.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah Well, liam, you've come a super far away
since, like the shy kid whoshowed up in my class Still
working on it.
Yeah, I mean you're shy, butlike you know what I think it is
, I think you're a lot moreconfident now I think so like
and I.
Where do you think thatconfidence came from?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
really I think it was , uh, you know, with the
internship and um transferringto full-time, just being able to
be around a lot of intelligentpeople and you know everyone.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Like holding your own .
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Holding your own and you know, realizing that there's
a human factor Everyone makesmistakes.
If you're going to make mistakes.
You can't avoid it.
But it's how you, you know,handle those mistakes and how
you handle yourself within thosetime periods where time periods
where you, you know, you knowyou made a error or something
like that Do you kind of sitdown, talk about it, talk about
(38:59):
it, or do you pick yourself upand keep moving forward.
So that was that was a reallyum helpful factor is just seeing
other people you know havetheir, their human mistakes
along with me.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
You know, have their, their human mistakes along with
me.
Your voice keeps cracking dude,I'm sorry all right, that's it
folks.
No, I'm kidding.
Um, all right, lean.
(39:32):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Let's kind of close this out.
We met, I think, roughly what ayear and a half ago, close to a
year and a half ago, and I justgot to say, like you've come
super far away from, like, theshy, timid kid who walked into
my classroom.
Thank you, what do you thinkhas kind of like brought you out
of your shell?
(39:52):
Thank, you.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
What do you think has , kind of like, brought you out
of your shell?
I think you know being aroundother intelligent people and
getting to work closely withthem and learn from them has
helped, but also you know beingable to see the human factor,
that everybody makes mistakesand it's just about how you
handle those mistakes and howyou handle yourself within those
time periods.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
That's awesome.
Yeah Well, I feel like you'rejust so much more confident than
you were, and I guess the wayyou build confidence is through
demonstrated performance, right.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
It is, yeah, and it's completely.
You know how you handleyourself.
If you know what you're talkingabout and you sit back in a
corner and, you know, mumble itor something, people are less
likely to listen well, it's notconvincing.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
It's not convincing, you're not saying.
It's like I don't believe this.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
It's like right, very , very timid and well, I was
reading a uh a book the otherday and um, it was saying you
know, within communication, Ithink it's around 80 percent of
um tone and body language and20% the message that you're
trying to relay.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Yeah Well, Liam, I gotta say I'm proud of you.
You've come super far away.
It sounds like you're killingthis job.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I appreciate all the time and effort that you spent
in those classes with the PowerBI and Tableau and setting up
those real-world projects thatwe worked on.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, of course.
Thanks so much.
Yeah, alright, that's a littlebit better than Wubba Lubba, dub
Dub.
Liam, thanks so much for coming on, of course.
I mean, I know it's a super farwalk from where you're living
now.
So Liam's still living just ablock away from campus,
30-minute walk, but yeah.
So I guess, to kind of catchthings up, so you graduated in
May of last year, Correct?
(00:32):
And I guess let's start withlike where, what, what's the
story?
So, like you, you got, you cameinto my class and you got the
internship and then like what,what's happened so far?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, I mean never really had any experience with
analytics until junior year Ithink it was In your first class
.
It just kind of got pitched tome.
The business analytics minorSounded interesting but I didn't
really have any knowledge aboutit and those first couple
classes we had, uh, with thepower bi and tableau and those
(01:09):
kind of things, I really startedenjoying it and, um, the big
project that we did.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
but then, so can I apologize.
What did you enjoy about likeworking with power bi?
Was it a project or was it thetool, or was it that it's like
it was both okay, yeah, um, Ihad never touched power bi or
tableau before that.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Um, so just kind of I like learning, so learning the
tool, kind of learn how it works.
But then also there's some datamanipulation that we had to do.
Um, so that was interesting aswell, so just being able to kind
of see the data, like wemanipulated it in Excel and then
we transferred it to Power BIand then we could kind of build
(01:51):
visuals out of just numbers andcolumns Right.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
It's almost like a much more three-dimensional
version of Excel.
Yeah, are you using in yourcurrent role Excel much?
Yes, so like well, first, allit's.
It's kind of crazy, like howmuch you learn, how much more
you learn on the job than inclass it is like so you're just
(02:17):
in excel, you have a tightdeadline.
You know the use case like yeah, and that's what?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
uh, the majority of my internship was just Excel.
I had a couple classes where itwas Excel and you know you get
graded but if you clicked in thewrong square, in the wrong
sequence, you're going to getpoints taken off and I don't
really know if that's the bestway to learn Excel.
Yeah, so through that class Ididn't really know if that's the
(02:43):
best way to learn Excel.
Yeah, so through that class Ididn't really learn Excel.
But then kind of once I wasgiven tasks in my internship
like figure this out.
There's really like no setdeadline or anything like that,
just figure it out.
And there's multiple ways.
There's not one correct way,there's two or three different
ways.
So I think that's what reallyhelped is just being able to be
(03:04):
free and creative and you know,if you mess up you can go back
in and fix it, but just beingable to kind of critically think
through okay, what do I need todo, what's the problem and how
can I solve the problem rightand it's, I think.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I think what I kind of did subversively was kind of
introduce you to likeuncertainty.
Yep, like you have to makeassumptions, yeah, and it's not
going to be perfect all of thetime because you know.
Like, for example, one thingthat I do is I build out
forecasts and it's a nine figurebusiness and think about all
(03:39):
the things that impact that.
So, like the hurricane thatcame through Right, like when's
the last time that we had ahurricane impact north carolina?
It completely knocked out ourasheville store.
Yeah.
So like creating a forecastthat included asheville sales
all of a sudden, that's wrong,yeah, but it's like you're,
you're good enough that it'swithin a the ballpark to make a
(04:02):
decision, right, but okay.
So you found out about theanalytics class junior year Then
.
So first semester of senioryear you came into Case Studies
and Business Analytics, correct,then kind of got the bug.
That's when you found how didyou find your internship?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
A recruiter came to Greensboro College at lunch one
day.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
That's so cool because I don't think you would
have even gone probably to thatevent if you hadn't even been
introduced to analytics and hadthat interest sparked?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Definitely not.
And it was like I mean I hadjust heard about it in the class
, they were going to be there atlunch.
I had just heard about it inthe class, like they were going
to be there at lunch.
I had just heard about it inthe class before I was in like
slides with no socks on and ballcap with a bunch of clothes
that didn't match.
I was like I'll just stop byand see what happens.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Yeah, and it sounds like you really hit it off with
the recruiter?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
We did.
Yeah, we had a really goodconversation.
We were able to sit down.
They really good conversation,we were able to sit down.
They were getting ready to toleave.
My class ran a little bit lateand I was kind of catching them
as they were wrapping up, but wesat down, had a brief
conversation at a table and gother contact information and just
went forward from there gotcha.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yeah, well, because I remember we met over a cup of
coffee and helped you prep forlike the actual I, I guess was
that that wasn't the phonescreening, that was like the
behavioral portion of it there.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
it was a two-part interview um, I wouldn't say
they were really I don't thinkany of them were really what
people typically define as a umtactical, but it was kind of
just a brief Zoom meeting withthe recruiter that came to
Cogent and that's kind of likejust you know, feeling my
(05:54):
personality out, see if I wouldbe a good fit for the company,
getting to know me a little bitof my back story.
And then my second interview,which we had that cup of coffee
and prepped for.
That was a little bit more onthe technical side it was the
guy I would be working for andkind of just a breakdown of what
they do, you know, a briefstory about kind of their day to
(06:15):
day tasks and kind of thevision of where I could come in
and support them a little bit.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
That's kind of incredible, thinking about the
timeline of that.
So how long had you beenlearning about analytics before
you had that interview?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
It wasn't a full year , it was probably six months.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Okay.
So was it mainly the Excelstuff that they were kind of
talking about, or was it alsolike the power bi and the
tableau stuff that you wereworking on?
I think so.
Okay, that's.
That's interesting because it'sit seems like a it's.
It's a lot lower of a bar thanI would have expected.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Well, but it is an internship though it's an
internship and um the positionthat I was interviewing for, um
the guy that I was I was workingfor at my internship, um their
role is kind of more on thebusiness side, like processes
and those kind of things, andthey use Excel to support them.
(07:12):
So it's not necessarily liketheir role is Excel.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It's just a tool that can but I mean that's kind of
the main lever they use to gettheir job done Correct, the main
like felt, like the lever theyuse to get their job done
correct.
Like you, you need to kind ofunderstand the business use case
and the decisions and like what, what, what metrics of
influence, what decision youmake right.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
but yeah, from the technical standpoint, um that
the excel yeah, the ideas andthe processes that they're
putting into place.
It needs to be visualized forthe clients so that the clients
can see it and get a fullunderstanding of it.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Gotcha Okay.
So quick question If let's saythat someone who is a sophomore
or junior in college islistening to this right now and
they're interested in getting asimilar, what was the specific
name of your internship?
Was it just marketing analyst,analyst?
Speaker 2 (08:03):
no, it was just a a general data analyst internship.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Okay yeah, so if someone was wanting to get a
similar job or internship thatyou got, what are the key things
that they would need to knowfrom excel?
That's a good question, um andI know the the conversation was
like a year ago at this point,but like I'm kind of curious I
(08:31):
would say the biggest thing isum kind of the, the willingness
to learn.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
That's really big um, because excel there's always
something.
Even now there's.
There's stuff I still need tolearn.
Um, I can always be better insomething, so that's the big
thing, but it really helps tohave a basic understanding, like
the, the formulas, like x, lookup, v, look up those kind of
things, and um, when to use.
You know the right formulas inthe right scenario.
(08:58):
So just a doesn't have to besuper in depth, but um, I would
say just enough to where, ifyou're given a couple of
different tasks, you at leasthave an idea or enough to be
dangerous, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Right enough to be dangerous?
Um, okay, that's interesting.
So you said that you're you'reyou're building out visuals.
Were you doing that with likepivot charts?
Are we doing that just out oflike the chart functionality
within excel?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I never really use pivot for pivot charts or are we
doing that just out of like thechart functionality within
Excel?
I never really use pivot chartsbecause they're not super
dynamic like the charts or thedata that you put in that pivot
chart.
You can't really have formulasto dynamically change.
Okay, so it's more of just justbuilding charts.
Usually within every workbookthere's always a tech tab that
you know.
If it's client-facing, you'llprobably hide that sheet just
(09:47):
because it's a bunch of data.
But you'll put all that data inthe tech tab and then just kind
of play with it from there.
Very cool.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I mean that's so cool because we were just talking
off air that you're now buildingvisualizations in Tableau,
Starting to Learning.
So Excel is kind of the naturalevolution, or Tableau is an
evolution from Excel in terms of, like, building out that pivot
chart functionality.
It is Making it dynamic.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
It is.
It's more sophisticated interms of their queries and their
databases.
Tableau is always going to becompletely automated, for the
most part Right, Whereas Excel,if you're most of the time, the
data that you're going to beputting in there is going to be
(10:37):
some kind of export or somethingmanual.
So it's kind of interesting thedifference between Excel.
It's an interesting transitiongoing from Excel to Tableau,
because in Excel, if you needthe data, you just make it and
you create columns.
You create a table, somethingwhere you can format the data
(11:01):
how you want to, Whereas Tableauit's a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
It's more rigid from a data structure standpoint.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
It is, it has to be a certain way.
You can't really manipulate thedata as easily as you can in
Excel, but that could also bebecause I'm so new to Tableau.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah Well, two things .
I think it will get easier asyou get on.
You may.
Also, tableau is built on Ibelieve it's no sequel um, which
is just a type of sequel um.
So you may want to get deeperin a sequel to understand kind
of how all that which sequelsjust kind of like very similar
(11:42):
to the formulas that you learnin excel.
I feel like a lot of people gethung up on, including myself.
I kind of avoided SQL for yearsbecause it just seemed like I
don't know super tedious.
It seems like a big mountain toclimb.
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
And then, kind of, once you start typing some
things out, you realize howsimilar it is yeah, well, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
So it's funny because we're almost in an opposite
track in terms of therelationship to Excel and
Tableau, in that, you know, Iran my own agency for eight
years working mainly with PowerBI and Tableau, but now I've
taken on a full-time job and I'mworking in Excel and the thing
(12:25):
that's frustrating to me is thatthey're like sometimes I make
little mistakes that I justwould never make because of how
rigid that structure is withintableau or power bi, right, so
you don't have to tell yourselfyou don't want to, but how
accurate was your work?
Or, like, if you don't answerthat question, what level of
accuracy do they expect frompeople working in Excel?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
That's a good question.
I think, especially withinExcel, there's always going to
be something.
Just because of how Excel isbuilt, especially when you start
to get into the macros andstuff, you know, one comma in
the wrong place, something likethat it can tend to, you know,
(13:08):
mess things up.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I would say there is a kind of expectation and
knowledge that Excel tends to bea little bit more fragile than
Tableau.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, well, the best thing about Excel is that, like
you said earlier, you cancompletely customize it.
Correct?
The worst thing about Excel isthat you can completely
customize it, because you mightmanually type in an O instead of
a zero, and then your wholeformula is broken.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Right, there is there's.
You know, nobody's perfect.
I've made plenty of mistakesand I'm going to in the future.
But the big thing is you knowif you make a mistake are you
able to go back in there, knowwhat you did, why you did it and
learn from it to work.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Factor into my work more, now that I'm in a
different type of role, is theaccuracy of it, as opposed to
where I was just kind ofbuilding out infrastructure
before.
It's like here's, here's whatyour data is telling us.
Now I kind of have to take moreownership of, like what the
what the data is if it's wrong.
Going and investigating andfiguring out you know what's
(14:23):
going on specifically with it.
Um, yeah, I guess.
I guess it's just a maybe atrade-off or the difference
between doing consulting workversus, like being a full-time
analyst embedded within acompany.
But, okay, so you came to myclass, found out about analytics
(14:44):
, found an internship.
Then how did that internship go?
So that was kind of the firstsemester, the fall semester,
then over winter break you cameback, then you started the
internship, right, correct?
So feel free to tell us alittle bit about that.
Like, what kind of work did youdo?
What were the challenges?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, little bit about that.
Like, what kind of work did youdo, um, what were the
challenges?
Yeah, um, so kind of.
I think I had the internshipfor three months, um, so I got
back in january, um three tofour months, maybe five months,
something like that, because Iknow I started in january,
worked through the summertimepartially, um, but the the main
task of the internship wassupporting the APDs.
The APDs, that are people thatare talking to the clients.
(15:32):
They're communicating what thetools do, why they do, how to
use them and training theclients how to use those tools,
gotcha.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
I like strategy more than being super in in the weeds
personally, but continue.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So yeah, so that was a that was a big part of it.
There were a couple renovationsthat they wanted made to the
tool, some like new featuresadded in, so I got to help out
with those.
The guy that I was working forinto my internship he was very
good at Excel too, but, um, thebig thing was his capacity Like
he didn't have a lot of time togo in there and add some things
(16:10):
into the tool.
So, um, I got to work prettyclosely with him to um, make
those additions and add thatstuff in there.
So that was that was a learningexperience.
There was a lot of stuff that,um, I was really unfamiliar with
, like I had.
I really had no experience withmacros before that.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
You probably know more about macros than I do.
I don't really write macros.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
It's interesting.
It's not technically coding,it's very close and it's very
similar to the Excel formulas,but they do have their
differences.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Okay, so what?
What do you use?
Macros?
For my understanding of it andit's probably not 100 accurate,
it's like is it mainly aformatting thing, or is it?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
it can be.
The big thing that macros areused for is is automation.
Um, there's a couple, there's acouple limitations within excel
that you just can't really makesomething without.
Uh, macros one of the bigthings big things that the tool
used macros.
One of the big things that thetool used macros for was to
automate financial data history.
(17:17):
So they'll go through, they'llfill out a month or a year,
whatever time period worth ofdata, They'll click save and it
goes into a database.
And then it will refresh itself,clear itself.
So the next month or the nextyear, whatever they can go in
and and refill that withouthaving to like copy and paste
(17:37):
the data somewhere.
Yeah, and then we can buildthose charts off of that
database that it gets copy andpasted into okay, very cool, so
it's.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I didn't.
I didn't realize that was a usecase where it's like you can
write a macro to help.
Is it pushing it to a databaseor like a flat csv file?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
that's just huge no, it's pushing it into another
excel sheet.
Oh okay, so like there'susually like the tech tab and
then there's probably a data tab, um, that are both hidden, just
to what's tech tab?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
you said a couple times.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
I'm not quite sure if that is, it's a very like is
that where you put like yourscratch work?
Yeah, basically where you'reputting all the data tables,
that kind of stuff, where notnecessarily if it's a
client-facing tool that you wantthe clients to see, because
it's just a bunch of numbers andstuff like that, but it's just
a sheet where all the data iscollected.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
It's almost like you have your engine and that's the
tech tab, and then you close thehood and that's you hiding it
in Excel, right yeah.
And then you close the hood andthat's that's you hiding it in
excel, right yeah.
Because, yeah, you don't wantthe client necessarily to go and
see the inner workings of it.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
that are just kind of would would be super confusing
to them, right?
And yeah, it's not necessarilythat you something that you need
to see.
If you're super technicallysavvy, it's interesting to look
at, but otherwise it's just abunch of numbers on a white
sheet I got you.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
So what were the major lessons that you feel like
you learned through thatinternship?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
I think the the biggest thing is just being open
to learning.
That was, you know, justabsorbing everything, and that I
could.
You know, if I had to giveadvice to anyone, it would kind
of be to go out of your way.
You know, ask for work, ask forstuff to do, stuff, to learn,
to help people out.
If you're at an internship,something like that, and kind of
(19:20):
just sitting at, I guess, moveforward into a full-time
position which was taking theinitiative to build the tools,
(19:43):
ask for work, seeing where Icould fit in and help out.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah.
So it sounds like you took fulladvantage of the opportunity in
front of you Because you couldhave just kind of coasted
through it and done the bareminimum.
But another way of reframing upwhat an internship is.
And, granted, not allinternships lead to jobs or lead
to a job opening, but it'salmost like an opportunity for
(20:09):
you to have a three to fourmonth interview where you get to
learn a little bit about thecompany.
You get to learn about how do Iinterface with this manager?
Would I want to work for thismanager?
What about the work?
What about the technical skills?
Like it's a really kind of safeway to go about vetting from
both sides, if you think aboutit.
(20:29):
So it's like you know what,what are?
What is liam?
Like you know, because peoplecould kind of lie in an
interview or deceive, um, orkind of come off in a way that
maybe isn't true to who they areday to day.
Um, but also it's kind of safefor you because then you get to
instead of having I mean, it'skind of crazy to think about
right, like you, you have aninterview with the company.
(20:52):
I mean sure, sure, you can lookthem up, but it's like you have
like three or fourconversations with one or two
people.
I mean, that's kind of a gamble, right there.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
It is.
Yeah, I wouldn't have verygrateful for how my experience
and having the internship kindof just just getting a foot in
the door kind of, I would say,easing your way into a full-time
position, so I am grateful forfor that opportunity well then
also, too, you kind of startlike a few months ahead of
(21:21):
somebody else starting in anentry-level role, because you
know, you know people right,you've access, you've got access
to the data.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
but you also understand the like what?
What's our product placement inthe market, who do we serve,
what are the main benefits ofthat, what are the risks?
So you can kind of navigate alittle bit more savvy than
somebody just walking in freshRight.
Okay, so how long was thatinternship?
Three months, four months.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Three to four months, maybe five.
It started in January and Ibelieve I transitioned to
full-time around June.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
July.
So what was the transition frominternship to working full-time
?
Was that it was.
It was significant, right itwas Because it's a lot more work
than it is.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I was working about 20 hours, yeah, a week as an
intern and uh, transferred to 40hours, so it was a big flip.
Um, I would say it was more oftrying to think how to word.
This wasn't necessarily like aa big flip, it was kind of just
(22:39):
getting adjusted to being therefrom from eight till five and um
so it was more of like anexpansion, right then like a
brand new, novel thing.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So it's like, okay, it's just more of what I'm,
which, honestly, that sounds alot less, um, stressful than you
know.
I feel like a lot of collegestudents are going months now
without landing a job.
So, like you graduate, then youapply, you apply, you apply,
then you finally get aninterview that leads to a job
(23:12):
and then you take that.
It sounds like your experiencefrom school to full-time work
was pretty seamless.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, yeah, I think I got lucky.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I definitely think so .
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's true, because it can be tough.
I mean, back when I was anundergrad I went from getting a
degree in economics to workingfull-time in a commissioned
sales role, so that was a superrough transition.
Well being in a commissionedsales role just exposes you to
(23:46):
so much rejection that I feellike you just don't get
typically Like in school.
You might, you might like, getyou know some feedback on like a
test or something or an essay,but it's not no, no, no, 20
times a day, five days a week onin Vermont's NEARS, right.
So would you have any otherthoughts on like that transition
(24:10):
?
Speaker 2 (24:12):
It wasn't necessarily , you know, it was more of.
I went in the internship as adata analyst and then my
full-time position now is amarketing KPI specialist.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
So I, you know I had taken a couple marketing classes
like digital marketing.
Okay, so I, you know I hadtaken a couple marketing classes
like digital marketing.
So it was interesting, kind ofadjusting to a different
environment.
There are there's a lot ofterminology, a lot of things
that I had touched over inschool, stuff like that.
But you know, when you'reactually looking at like real
(24:54):
numbers and those kind ofaspects, it's a little bit
different than you know.
A a digitally um create anenvironment in class or
something yeah, well, also, it's.
It's so much more dynamicbecause, like getting a textbook
, that's marketing 101, you knowthere's the five p's or
whatever, or digital prints,email, like focusing
specifically on one organizationor you know one vertical within
(25:16):
that, like there's, there's somuch complexity within that
there is, there's and there's somuch data to back it up to that
you can look into and um, youknow, the thing about the
marketing classes is that youknow you, you do an ad campaign
or something like that and youhave to do this keyword at a
certain price, or you know it'snot going to do very good and
it's not really.
(25:37):
You know how it works.
Marketing is is always evolving.
There's always um environmental, political things that affect
marketing, um, and it'sconstantly changing.
There's not typically like aright or wrong answer.
Like I said before, it'sthere's two or three different
ways to solve a problem and theythey're all right yeah, it
(25:57):
seems like a theme that we kindof keep coming back to is it's?
Speaker 1 (26:01):
it's almost like being a lawyer, like you need to
just come up with a goodjustification for what you're
talking about.
Yeah and um, and and this seemslike a pretty big difference
between being in school versusbeing on the job.
In school it's almost like, youknow, the teacher sits standing
in the front and you're sittingdown and you need to kind of
make the right answer versuslike I'm not sure if this is how
(26:24):
it works with your manager, butwith my manager he'll be like
hey, we've got this problem andthen that's pretty much it.
I've got to go and solve andlike fill in the gaps.
Sometimes I even have to likeinterpret what he's saying, um,
and then there's a trade-offthere of like okay, I can ask
for clarifying questions, but ifI ask for too many, then he
(26:46):
starts to get frustrated.
But if I don't ask for enough,then it's like why didn't you
ask for more clarifying question?
There there seems to be a lotmore um.
It's just net more nebulousworking on the job it is, yeah,
it's.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Uh, you know it's not .
It's not black and white, it'snot like there's a go, do this
this way and it's like you weresaying it's there's a problem.
Um know my managers, they do areally good job of kind of
explaining what the problem isand then this is what I think is
causing the problem and this ishow I think it could be fixed.
(27:22):
But I need you to go and figureit out.
So you're completely right inthe aspect of you know it's not
necessarily a right or wrong,it's just go figure it out
actually this might be aninteresting question.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
So what are the differences, or what is your
difference, between how yourelate to professors or teachers
and managers?
Because they're both kind ofsimilar, right like they're,
they're both somewhat of anauthority figure in your life.
I mean, the manager isdefinitely more serious because
it's like, all right, I've gotbills to pay, money coming in,
(28:00):
but I mean, still, a professorcan fail you if, like you didn't
, you didn't show up, you knowat least in my experience.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Um, you know with the professors just kind of like,
like read this so you can learnthat and get a good grade on
this test, whereas, um, you know, with my manager just kind of,
hey, let's, let's brainstormthis together, let's work
together and and try to figurethis out okay, so it feels much
more collaborative.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
It does okay.
That's cool, because I feellike a lot of that is not the
typical experience for a lot ofpeople getting their first job.
They feel like they're more so,like just an order taker, like
there's, hey, we have this, giveme this, give me this, give me
this, um, so that's awesome.
It sounds like you've you'vekind of found yourself in a
really like you.
It seems like your, yourthoughts and your opinions are
(28:50):
are heard.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
They are.
Yeah, it's a very positive andencouraging work environment.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
That's great.
So do you have any thoughts onwhat's next?
Are you wanting to go more downthe marketing space or are you
wanting to go more technical andlearn Python or dig into AI or
any kind of stuff like that?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
I'm not super sure I've been this way my whole
entire life.
It's kind of just go with theflow and see where I end up.
You know, I find I'm verygrateful because I kind of have
the opportunity to work inmarketing, but then I also do a
lot of work outside of marketingfor more of the like internal
consulting side.
So I kind of get a taste of alittle bit of everything that
(29:34):
coaching has to offer and um, Iwas actually talking to someone
about this the other day butthey all kind of supplement each
other.
Like on the internal side, youknow, you're building tools, um,
helping create stuff that maybetracks internal employee
production, something like that.
Um, and there's there's not awhole lot of client facing
conversations and stuff likethat.
(29:54):
Um, whereas my position in the,in the marketing department, I
do get to, you know, hop onmeetings and have KPI reviews
with clients, so, um, I thinkthat is a it's.
I think that was very umimportant to me at least, cause
that was one of my strugglepoints coming out of college was
, you know, I learned a lot ofstuff, but when you're sitting
(30:17):
talking to a CFO of a, of acompany, it's the community like
how well, can you communicatethe data that you've collected
for them?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
so is that where you want?
Do you want to spend moreenergy that way, or was that
more of a?
I feel like this is a weaknessof mine that I wanted to
overcome it was.
Are you enjoying that, though?
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I am, yeah, I kind of view it as a challenge and, um,
I'm trying to, you know, getbetter at it every time that I
that I'm on a call with a client.
But, um, it was definitely a Idon't want to say fear, but it's
kind of like a, a mental blockalmost.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
um, well, public, I mean public speaking is it's not
easy?
No, it's.
I mean I remember when I firststarted teaching, it was well,
it was in the middle of COVIDtoo, yeah, so like I was wearing
a mask, which I'd never reallyhad to do before, yeah, so that,
yeah, it was kind of a doublewhammy there.
Yeah, that's cool.
(31:18):
So it sounds like the kind ofthe key thing that you want to
get is communication and maybeinfluence.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah, communication influence and just being able to
.
There's a difference betweencommunicating and effectively
communicating.
Like you don't want to sitthere and talk to a business
owner that has 25 other thingson his head and just keep
blabbering to him.
You want to tell him what heneeds to know and tell him in a
(31:47):
way that he can make decisionsand then save his time.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Well, it kind of makes me think of it.
Kind of makes me think of it.
Kind of makes me think of, likeyou know, tableau or Power BI,
like have you ever done a levelof detail calculation?
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Don't know if I've ran into that.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
So it's a little bit of a complex topic.
But it's like you can write anLOD calculation and if you're
pulling, you know location, youcan set it to be at state, or
you can set it to be at zip code, or you know region or whatever
, and it and it lets you kind ofdictate what level of
granularity.
So like when you're talking tothe cfo, you don't want all of
(32:26):
the weeds.
It's just like roll this upinto kind of what is the main
thing that I need to get out ofthis?
So what factor?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, what does?
Speaker 1 (32:35):
this mean.
To me it's almost likekindergarten math.
It's like you know, this squareis bigger than this square, so
you should do this decision,which is so funny.
But because I don't know, I'vehad this conversation before and
some people are like, well,that kind of makes like the
executive sounds stupid.
And it's not even that they'restupid, it's that they have so
(32:57):
much going on that they run fromlike 30-minute meeting to
15-minute meeting.
So you've got to get like,you've got to prioritize.
Like what am I communicatinghere?
Right, if you're talking tosomeone else on your team, yeah,
you can go super into the weedsand like, yeah, actually that's
what you should do.
(33:18):
You should kind of figure outokay, well, here's the problem
and then go and figure that out.
If you're talking to yourmanager, I mean you could still
get into the weeds in somesituations, but not all of them.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
That's what I was about to say.
And you know there are some youknow business owners that are
they still like to.
You know, even with all thedaily tasks and struggles that
they go through, they still liketo see the granular detail.
So I think it's theconversation I was having the
other day is, you know, showingwhat they need to see first and
then, if they need moreinformation, you can always dive
(33:50):
into that afterwards.
But if you bore them with thesmall things before you get to
the big factors, they might missthe big message that you're
trying to communicate to them.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, you don't want them to tune out, right?
So good, that's fantastic.
I feel like working oncommunication is going to be
huge for you.
It is, I feel, like thetechnical side.
I feel like that's going tocome somewhat natural to you.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
It is.
It's just, it's always alearning process.
I mean, the more time that youspend on something and you know
there's always going to besomething that you run into.
Even the other day, I ran intoan issue and I had absolutely no
idea how to figure it out, tooka little break, came back to it
and I was able to solve it.
So it's just kind of just messaround with it and find out.
(34:40):
There's another term for that.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Are you using AI at all?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Not really.
There's a couple times withformulas or know formulas or
maybe just a more of a spellcheck.
But I try to stay away from AIas much as I can.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Really.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Why?
Just because it's You're scaredof it?
I don't know.
At least with my experience,there's been a lot of
inaccuracies with AI.
Yeah well, Maybe some of themore advanced AIs are a little
bit different, but the AI thatI've kind of used more often
(35:26):
than not is ChatGPT.
In that there's a lot ofinaccuracies and errors within
the stuff it spits out.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Well, one thing that I'm starting to get deeper into
is working with databases andspecifically altrix.
Have you heard of altrix?
Have not?
So it's.
It's an etl tool, so it allowsyou to connect to multiple data
sources, manipulate the data,create calculations, you know.
But there's a, there's a tonwithin that suite, um.
It's kind of like the umtransform data button or power
(35:59):
query editor within power BI.
It's like that, but it, I wouldsay it's more expansive cause
it's, I mean, that's the mainfocus of the tool Um.
But one thing that has beeninteresting is there's like an
internal meetup group at thecompany I'm working at and
literally on wednesday of thisweek, what the guy who's been
(36:20):
working with altrux for like 15,20 years like walked through a
whole use case where he used, uh, specifically, isn't there an
ai with X Twitter that they'reusing?
And he wrote out like 20 linesof code using the AI prompt and
(36:42):
then optimized it and, yeah,there were a few little tweaks
that he had to make to it, butI'm starting to see this AI
stuff can be transformational.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
It is and it's super helpful.
And if you use it, um like veryloosely, like hey, I got this
issue, uh, maybe it's a formulaor a line of code that um you're
you were talking about, if youjust use it loosely, like I got
this um issue, what are a coupleof different ways I could solve
it?
You could take the overall ummessage that it spits out and
kind of type your own code orformula in with that, but it
(37:17):
definitely kind of helps youopen your your mind to a couple
different ways to solve theissue.
That may be more effective.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Well, it's just it's so fast and it, I think what it,
what it does a really good jobwith are like closed systems, so
like sequel, I mean.
I believe that's a closedsystem where it's got all the
logic laid out within it.
There's reference manuals,specific parameters yeah.
So it can go throughdocumentation and figure things
(37:45):
out.
Right, that's cool.
So any other closing thoughts.
So we've met what?
Speaker 2 (37:53):
We've met a couple times.
No, I'm saying when did we meetLike a year and a half ago when
we first met.
I think it's close to a yearand a half ago.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah Well, liam, you've come a super far away
since, like the shy kid whoshowed up in my class Still
working on it.
Yeah, I mean you're shy, butlike you know what I think it is
, I think you're a lot moreconfident now I think so like
and I.
Where do you think thatconfidence came from?
Speaker 2 (38:26):
really I think it was , uh, you know, with the
internship and um transferringto full-time, just being able to
be around a lot of intelligentpeople and you know everyone.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Like holding your own .
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Holding your own and you know, realizing that there's
a human factor Everyone makesmistakes.
If you're going to make mistakes.
You can't avoid it.
But it's how you, you know,handle those mistakes and how
you handle yourself within thosetime periods where time periods
where you, you know, you knowyou made a error or something
like that Do you kind of sitdown, talk about it, talk about
(38:59):
it, or do you pick yourself upand keep moving forward.
So that was that was a reallyum helpful factor is just seeing
other people you know havetheir, their human mistakes
along with me.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
You know, have their, their human mistakes along with
me.
Your voice keeps cracking dude,I'm sorry all right, that's it
folks.
No, I'm kidding.
Um, all right, lean.
(39:32):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Let's kind of close this out.
We met, I think, roughly what ayear and a half ago, close to a
year and a half ago, and I justgot to say, like you've come
super far away from, like, theshy, timid kid who walked into
my classroom.
Thank you, what do you thinkhas kind of like brought you out
of your shell?
(39:52):
Thank, you.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
What do you think has , kind of like, brought you out
of your shell?
I think you know being aroundother intelligent people and
getting to work closely withthem and learn from them has
helped, but also you know beingable to see the human factor,
that everybody makes mistakesand it's just about how you
handle those mistakes and howyou handle yourself within those
time periods.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
That's awesome.
Yeah Well, I feel like you'rejust so much more confident than
you were, and I guess the wayyou build confidence is through
demonstrated performance, right.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
It is, yeah, and it's completely.
You know how you handleyourself.
If you know what you're talkingabout and you sit back in a
corner and, you know, mumble itor something, people are less
likely to listen well, it's notconvincing.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
It's not convincing, you're not saying.
It's like I don't believe this.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
It's like right, very , very timid and well, I was
reading a uh a book the otherday and um, it was saying you
know, within communication, Ithink it's around 80 percent of
um tone and body language and20% the message that you're
trying to relay.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Yeah Well, Liam, I gotta say I'm proud of you.
You've come super far away.
It sounds like you're killingthis job.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I appreciate all the time and effort that you spent
in those classes with the PowerBI and Tableau and setting up
those real-world projects thatwe worked on.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, of course.
Thanks so much.
Yeah, alright, that's a littlebit better than Wubba Lubba, dub
Dub.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com