June 25, 2024 • 53 mins
Join Ola Williams in this insightful episode of the Small Business Startup School as she sits down with Therman Trotman, Founder of the SharePoint Helpdesk, to explore the transformative power of SharePoint for small businesses.
Discover how SharePoint can eliminate human error, enhance collaboration, and provide clean, scalable data solutions, making it a superior alternative to traditional spreadsheets. Therman explains the key benefits of using SharePoint, including version control, data accuracy, and automation, all while keeping costs minimal and accessible for businesses of all sizes.
Whether you're a small business owner, accountant, or project manager, this episode will provide valuable insights into how SharePoint can revolutionize your data management processes and help you achieve your business goals. Tune in and find out how you can make the most of this powerful tool.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When you use SharePoint, one of the most powerful things you have,
this is the way you want to deal with your data.
This is scalable because you're using a tool, you're using a system.
So one of the first examples I like to give is... I had a conversation with Taman Trotman.
Taman is a SharePoint app desk expert.
You know, I use Excel a lot, as I'm sure a lot of people do as well.
(00:25):
And I learned from Terman how I can use SharePoint as a tool in my business
in ways that Excel would not make me as efficient as using SharePoint.
It gave me insight on what I could be doing better or what I didn't know before.
(00:50):
You know, I am a big believer in continuous learning And this conversation with
Thurman just opened my eyes to things I didn't even know.
And who knows, by listening, you could just be exposing yourself to your next big thing.
Why don't you join me? My name is Ola Williams, and this is Small Business Startup School.
(01:16):
Who is Thurman? Give us a brief introduction. Okay.
All right. Um, well, so my name is Thurman Trotman, Thurman Trotman.
And, uh, I'm from the Bronx for anybody that knows in New York city,
uh, born and raised there.
Uh, I'm a Buffalo bills fan, even though we have three football teams,
I chose the Buffalo bills specifically because when I was growing up,
(01:39):
there was a team, there was a player on the bills. His name was Thurman Thomas.
And it was the only Thurman I've ever known in my entire life.
I was like, wait a minute, it. There's somebody else named Thurman.
Like for a long time, I was like, why did my parents name me Thurman?
Because it's not a cool name. Like other people didn't have the name Thurman.
So I picked that team because Thurman Thomas was on the team.
And then as I got older, I got very excited about the fact that there's not
(02:03):
a lot of people with my name.
Now I'm like, I'm all in, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, Bill's fan.
I'm an army veteran, support the government. I'm a public servant.
That's what I do. And I'm here to talk about SharePoint.
Very excited. Yeah, I am very, because like I was just saying before we started
recording, Chairman, a lot of people use spreadsheets, including myself.
Yes. And so it's one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation.
(02:26):
So what's the difference between the work that you do, which is SharePoint Helpdesk and SharePoint?
Spreadsheet. You know, a lot of people will use a spreadsheet to collect information, right?
Like if you, you know, you work at an organization or you run your business,
maybe you say, I need to know something from everybody.
It's normal to spin up a spreadsheet, send it out via email and then ask everybody
(02:49):
to put in the information and then you get it back.
Right. Right. Like we all know that that process.
All right. Right. Do you have Netflix? Yes.
Okay. OK, when you first were signing up for Netflix, if Netflix,
if you went to Netflix's website and they said, hey, we want you to sign up,
but we're going to give you a spreadsheet.
We want you to download this spreadsheet, put your email and your name inside
(03:12):
of the spreadsheet and then send it back to us. Would you raise an eyebrow?
Would you be like, yo, what's going on here? Like, why are they asking me to fill out a spreadsheet?
I would. Yeah. It would be weird, right?
It would be super weird if a company like Netflix said, hey,
download the spreadsheet, fill it out, and then give it back to us.
The way that you do it, if you go to Netflix to sign up, is that you go to a
(03:33):
form. You put your information into a form.
You put your name. You put your email address. You hit submit.
And then that information goes inside of their system, their database,
or whatever they got going on, right?
That is the natural way that we use the internet.
We use IT services to collect information.
The way that you do it in a spreadsheet, to me, is a personal thing, is backwards.
(03:55):
Because now let's go back to Netflix, right? If Netflix wanted to get all of
their users' information and run some data analytics on it, let's say,
they could export that information.
And highly likely, they're going to export it to a CSV, or they're going to
export it to Excel, or they're going to export it somewhere else.
They want to export it to a spreadsheet.
The way that they have first collected the information cleanly inside of their
(04:17):
form, and all your user details, if they have a different tool that they want
to, you know, use to run metrics, they do an export.
So your data lands inside of a spreadsheet. It doesn't start in a spreadsheet.
You know that when you put your data inside of a spreadsheet,
what's one of the biggest issues is human error. So I'm going to go back to Netflix.
(04:38):
First of all, I have no deal with Netflix and I did not plan to use Netflix,
but that's what came to my head, right? So hopefully we're not giving them too much promotion.
All right. So now,
If you go to the Netflix site and you put in your name and then you type in
your email address and you forget to type in .com, let's say it's hola at email.com.
(04:59):
If you forget to type in .com and you hit submit, you're going to get a squiggly line.
The squiggly line, or you're going to get a red message that says,
you know, you need to submit your
email address or this email address is incorrect, something like that.
So their form forces you to give them the clean data. So you go,
oh, man, I typed my information wrong.
Let me retype that. Ola at email dot com.
(05:19):
Now you've given them clean data. Now you hit submit.
Your clean data goes inside of that system.
So when they go, when Netflix goes to do their export, they're exporting clean data.
And now it's time to run metrics on that super clean data.
You know what I mean? Where if Netflix would have said, hey, no,
fill out this spreadsheet and you accidentally type in hola at email dot and
(05:44):
then you forget to come for whatever reason and you send that back to them,
now they got to do this back and forth.
It's like, hey, Ola, I'm sorry, you forgot to type in .com.
Can you re-enter that into the spreadsheet? And you're like, oh, yeah, my fault.
But if you let the system do it, a system like a form, a form can tell you,
(06:04):
don't give us that information because it's incorrect. Fix it first and then hit submit.
That's what you want. You don't get that with a spreadsheet. spreadsheet so
when you start putting data into a spreadsheet that's i
only named one thing but that's one of the things you lose you get
human error and you get dirty data you know
no disrespect to your data yeah absolutely so tamra and i as you were speaking
(06:28):
i i think i get that the thing that was going on in my head was that okay wouldn't
this be more expensive to,
because usually I feel I'll quickly equate efficiency in terms of putting data
into a system with more money, more money for me to spend in my business.
(06:51):
So how reasonable or how accessible is the money we're talking about in terms
of automating things instead of expressions?
So because SharePoint is a Microsoft tool.
And we all know who Microsoft is, Microsoft has put SharePoint inside of your
office suite and inside of your 365 suite.
(07:12):
So if you already pay for that suite, which gives you access to Excel,
you don't have to pay anything extra to use SharePoint.
It's already there for you and available for you to just reach into the suite and use it.
I don't know at this point how many tools they have inside of the suite,
Microsoft, but it's a lot.
But because they're such a big company and they have a big market share,
(07:33):
they can charge a little bit of money.
So it's like, uh, I think $6 a month to get office 365 and people will not believe
it, but for $6 a month, you get a ton of tools, like a lot, you know what I'm saying?
That you could just run your business on, especially if you just started your
business, there's no need to go crazy and get all the big, crazy, fancy tools.
(07:53):
$6 a month will get you a suite full of tools that you can run your business on.
However, me personally, I would recommend going up one more level. Here's why.
The next level is like $12 and some change a month, I think.
Because with that $6 one, you get the mobile and web versions of your favorite
tools like Word, PowerPoint, all that stuff.
(08:13):
But the next one that I'm talking about, the $12 and something,
you get the desktop versions of those tools.
And I know people need those desktop, more powerful, more feature tools.
So as far as the money, if you're already paying for the 365 suite,
suite, there's no extra money for you to pay.
If you are not paying for the Microsoft 365 suite, you step in one level in,
(08:35):
you could get it for $6 a month.
If not, you get 12 something a month. And then there's some other levels and
all that. But just to get started, $6 a month. It's not a big deal.
And to clarify, we're talking of US dollars, right?
Oh, yes. Sorry. Yes, yes, yes. US dollars. So wherever you are,
wherever you're listening to this, do your conversion. I mean, $6 in the U.S. money.
Right. So how does what you do come in?
(08:58):
So as I mean, I have already paid for Microsoft, you know, how does Timon help me?
Ah, that's a great question. So if you are a matter of fact,
my daughter right now is learning to drive, which is a whole,
you know, that's a whole nother podcast.
She's learning to drive. Right. And she knows what a car is.
(09:21):
She's seen a car a million times.
She's been inside of a car in a passenger seat, driver's seat,
whatever, if she was practicing it. So she's learning how to drive.
When she's learning how to drive, the only gap, there's only one gap between
her hitting the road as a licensed driver to drive on her own versus where she
is now. The gap is just education.
(09:44):
That's all it is. She just needs to be taught how to drive the car.
That's it. There's nothing special there. You know what I'm saying?
First, you read the books, you read the manual to understand street signs and
how the streets work and all that other stuff.
Cool. tool, but then it's time to now get in a driver's seat and have either
the driver sit in the passenger side with a regular car, or you get the,
(10:06):
I don't know if they still got them steering wheels on the other side of the,
you know, what is like two steering wheels in one car or the brakes.
They got something fancy. I don't know if they still do that,
but someone is going to train her on how to use that car. And that's it.
That's where I come in. I'm just education and Microsoft, this tool, okay.
So this tool has been around since they had a version 2007.
(10:29):
It actually goes earlier than that, but we don't got to worry about that.
I have been using the tool for organizations since 2009.
So 15 years of education I have with this tool, but back in the days,
Microsoft made it where you didn't need to just be my daughter and get education.
You needed to have keys to start the car.
(10:52):
So you needed access, you know what I'm saying? Where before now,
Microsoft handed over the keys. They said, you're good to go.
We're going to make this tool something like where everybody has the keys. So here you go.
But they handed over the keys and didn't say, hey, y'all, we've given you the keys to cars.
Now we want to teach you how to drive these cars. They didn't do that.
(11:12):
Well, I personally think they didn't do a good job of that.
Because because again, SharePoint is a super powerful tool.
So back in the days you needed the keys.
And there was a crew of us. There was a crew of people who were called SharePoint
admins, SharePoint SMEs, SharePoint whatever.
You know what I mean? We had keys and we knew how to drive.
(11:34):
Microsoft has given over the keys and they're not doing a good job of telling
you how to drive. I come in by showing you how to drive.
You don't need keys anymore. I got you with the keys because Microsoft handed
you the keys, but you do need to know how to drive.
You got this super powerful thing in front of you and you have no idea how to use it.
That's what I'm here for. That's what the SharePoint help desk is here for,
to bridge the gap, give you the education.
(11:54):
If you're the type who likes to go to YouTube and Google some stuff or just
Google some stuff, whatever, you will find a ton of people out there teaching
you how to use SharePoint.
Absolutely. That's all in there. Then Microsoft themselves, they have Microsoft
Learn, which is also free, and it can take you through the steps of using SharePoint.
(12:17):
You know what I mean? Like, that's all out there. Absolutely.
In addition, there's also, not free, there's paid training from other people
who are like me, who've used it for a while, and they're going to teach you
how to use it. All of that is existing. All of that is out there.
But let me tell you this. Let me put a little twist on this, right? So I'm not a chef.
I'm not going to call myself a chef, but I do know how to cook.
(12:37):
You understand what I'm saying?
And if I have a knife and someone else has a knife, you know,
the way they cook and cut up their vegetables and how they use their vegetables
and, you know, all other stuff and their onions and potatoes or whatever,
however they use that knife is how they use that knife. and then they get you to dinner.
Me, I use my knife differently and I cook differently. You know what I'm saying?
(13:01):
So like, for instance, there is a class that I have which is teaching you how
to build a risk register inside of SharePoint.
No one else has this class because they're not speaking to the people that I'm speaking to. So...
Other SharePoint people in that SharePoint world, they do a great job of teaching,
(13:21):
but you know who they're teaching?
They're teaching other SharePoint people. I don't speak to SharePoint people.
I speak to regular people who I know will use Excel.
So if you're a project manager, if you're a business owner, if you're a program
manager, if you're in HR, it doesn't matter.
If you are in a profession where you think you can use Excel or you already
use Excel, I'm sure you're doing it, then I can almost bet, I'll say 98.2%,
(13:45):
you know what I'm saying,
that you can use SharePoint and it'll be better than the way you use Excel.
That's just my thought process there. But as far as like prices,
that risk register class, right now, Ola, I'm going to tell you,
just right now is $147. dollars.
That's just right now, because in the future, if you listen to this in six months
or another year or whatever, price might go up.
(14:06):
So just know that's specific.
But the reason why I made that is because I see people all the time,
they'll go to Excel to create their risk register and all of the benefits that
you get from SharePoint compared to creating it in Excel, it just outweighs,
it's almost like a no brainer.
You absolutely should be putting your risk register inside of SharePoint.
(14:27):
And I don't mean make your risk register in a spreadsheet and then upload it
into a folder in SharePoint.
Because a lot of people think SharePoint is just a document repository.
It's not. I mean, it is, but it's way more than that.
But yeah, as far as prices, let's just say for that risk register course, it's right now 147.
But if you, let's say, want to have your business or your team come and sit
(14:53):
down for some SharePoint training, some group training.
Like some virtual training, that's going to be higher. It just costs more. That's just what it is.
But don't be afraid to invite me to your organization because I will love to
come to your organization and do some training inside of your conference room. Just don't hesitate.
Right. How about people that are like individuals, like small business owners,
(15:17):
they don't have this big corporation.
They just have, I call them micro businesses. They have less than five employees
and they use spreadsheets a lot. Yep.
How can we, and I'll give you some context.
Like you'll find business owners that are maybe startup or micro business owner,
(15:41):
like I just said, they use spreadsheets a lot for their admin,
for their budgeting, for their cash flow.
And basically they just put, oh, this is the amount of money I have spent in the past.
This is the amount of money I am projecting to spend next week.
(16:03):
And they do that. They do all those basic things.
And you know, in the spreadsheets where just draw down on a spreadsheet and
then, especially if you put formulas and then you just copy all those formulas
for you, there's some little,
little tricks that you could do in spreadsheet that could make you gain time.
And I find a lot of people do this.
(16:24):
So how does SharePoint help them for those simple tasks?
Or are we just talking about people that have big corporations?
No, no, no, not at all. Talking about everybody. I'm talking about one person
businesses. I'm a one person business right now.
And I use SharePoint. My intranet is on SharePoint.
(16:45):
Any and everything that I need from anywhere to get whatever I need for my business,
it's on SharePoint. That's where I go.
So it's not just for one person business or the five people,
micro businesses that you mentioned or the big organizations.
All of them, as long as they have an ability to use a spreadsheet and they have
deployed that ability by using a spreadsheet, they can use SharePoint.
(17:07):
So to your point about these number crunches, here's how I see this.
If you are doing finances, then you, I assume, would be in something like QuickBooks, right?
Because QuickBooks just does it for you. And QuickBooks is also pretty affordable.
So I imagine the finance team, if they're looking for a collaborative environment
(17:29):
where all of the invoices go and all of the numbers go inside of the system,
I imagine that's where they work in.
However, when it's time for you to do whatever QuickBooks can't do for you,
like I talked about with Netflix, you need to export.
Export that information out of QuickBooks and then do your number crunching
in the spreadsheet there because the data is clean, it's accurate,
(17:52):
and it's coming from that one source of information.
In this five-person business, are we saying that the finance person has this
one spreadsheet that runs everything?
If they are, which I know that's very, very possible.
If they are, I would highly encourage you not even to move to SharePoint.
I would highly encourage you to move to a finance system that will take care
(18:13):
of getting rid of that human error, period.
We want to get rid of the human and error. QuickBooks is a tool, again, no affiliation.
Although, you know what? I probably need to get affiliated with QuickBooks and
Netflix if I'm going to be using these examples.
I think so. So QuickBooks and any other financing tool that you like,
that you have found and used that you like, I'd imagine you'd want to use that.
(18:35):
And then if you see that that tool can't do what you needed to do,
it's not crunching some numbers, it's not bringing up certain graphs that you
want, Pull that information out, export your clean data, and then run your calculations
and all that other stuff.
I think that if you are sitting at a company doing the finances and entering
(18:56):
that money directly into the spreadsheets, you're opening yourself up for a human error.
Unless you're like me. Me. And even if you, you know what?
Not like if you're like me, because I what I would do is if I have a project,
I'll have a site on my SharePoint site for that project.
And a portion of that site will have my numbers. So as I work and do some development,
(19:19):
I'll record it inside of there.
So I'm doing that. But I will put it in QuickBooks and invoice the person from
QuickBooks. folks, it's just me.
The numbers are extremely simple. It's pretty hard to get something jacked up.
If you're in a situation like that, by all means, just, you know,
I personally wouldn't recommend you use a spreadsheet, but go ahead and use
(19:40):
the spreadsheet because what are we working with?
We're working with people who want to get the job done. They want to do a good job.
That's it. So if you know that you're the type of person who's going to knock
out the thing that you need to do for the mission, to support the company,
then yes, spin up your spreadsheet and go do it. But if you are a finance person.
Managing, you know, the finances for this five person company,
(20:02):
I would think it's in your best interest to use a tool that just,
you know, does that for you.
So what I'm hearing is the SharePoint is not a replacement of spreadsheet.
So for number crunchers, am I hearing correctly that they will still need their
spreadsheets with their finance tools?
Like you mentioned, like there's a There's a lot of tools like QuickBooks out there.
(20:26):
So for a number cruncher, maybe for an accountant, a bookkeeper,
they will still need their spreadsheet.
So now while we're on that, how does SharePoint help an accountant, for example?
And I am interested in that personally, and I want to believe some people will
be too because I am an accountant.
(20:48):
So how does SharePoint help?
An account at all. It doesn't help at all. Well, so here's the thing.
I have used SharePoint to do budget tasks or projects for an organization.
Here's an example. They have to run a budget every year. They have to do budget drills.
(21:10):
They have to set up the budget before, you know, this is the government I'm
talking about. Uh, they got to, uh, do a lot of budget tasks.
The information starts inside of a spreadsheet. That's where that's where the money starts.
But then I get it. I tell them, hey, export it. And let's let's start from here.
(21:30):
I take that data and I put it inside of a SharePoint list.
The reason I'm doing that is so that I can make it easy for me to now create
charts off of that SharePoint list.
So all of my data just sits there and we connect something like Power BI because
it's another tool in Microsoft Suite. or you can use Excel connected to the data and show charts.
(21:52):
I don't know the specifics of what an accountant does on a daily basis because
I've never worked very closely with an accountant.
But if what an accountant is doing is entering numbers inside of a spreadsheet
so that they can then do analysis on those numbers, I would recommend that you
start by putting the numbers inside of SharePoint.
(22:13):
That's where you would. That's why I recommend that you start because Because it's collaborative.
You know what I mean? If you're not going to be doing this thing for the rest
of the time of this business, when you hire someone, you're not passing them off to a spreadsheet.
You're passing them off to a site, a site that has a table, which is a list,
with all this information.
So if they feel like they are better at crunching numbers than you are,
(22:35):
they export that information.
You have one source of truth, which is the SharePoint list. They export it out
of there, and then they start to run their charts, run their numbers.
Because I'm seeing something that you're not seeing.
You could at the same time, you and your wisdom with your accounting skills
and all of that, you can pull the same information out into a spreadsheet and
(22:55):
run all of the charts that you, you know, you want to, you want to do on your own.
The one source of truth is the SharePoint list, which is to me more reliable than a spreadsheet.
But again, this is for me, this is coming from me, not.
Working directly with accountants, but budget information, budget drills,
(23:16):
budget tasks, all of that.
I've fixed those situations for a lot of organizations. Matter of fact,
here, hold on. Let me tell you one specific example.
The last organization that I helped, I came to them and they were doing,
again, it's a budget drill, right?
What they do is they need to set a baseline for the upcoming budgets.
(23:37):
So they'll say to the folks who, I guess, No, they'll be a program manager.
The program manager will put the information inside of the spreadsheet and say,
hey, this is my baseline budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This is what I want to do.
These programs is what I want to enhance. So I need to procure these things.
I want to buy this, buy that.
Here's how much money is going to cost me and what it's going to cost me over
(23:59):
the next few fiscal years. is. They put that in a spreadsheet,
they send it to the budget folks who oversee it, and then those budget folks
put all those spreadsheets together and start to provide charts to the higher ups.
I eliminated this whole, put the thing inside of a spreadsheet,
and then we will copy and paste into our master spreadsheet.
Instead, I made it so those folks who need to put in all of their requests,
(24:23):
they do it through a form.
They do it through a process, which is what we talked about when we were talking about with Netflix.
So now nobody's sending a bunch of spreadsheets. They're going to a tool.
They're putting the information in, how much money they need,
all this other stuff, hit and submit.
And then the people who manage the budget, they get it all at once.
It's not a thing. They don't have to do no copying and pasting.
(24:45):
So in that situation, that's where you would have, you know,
we got the larger organization.
So that's where we eliminate those spreadsheets. That's why I said,
in your case, if you're just doing it for a micro business, I still believe
even in a five-person business, you want that single source of truth that everybody can access.
And we start there and then you pull information off of it to do your number crunch.
(25:11):
So I hear one reason why you should stop imputing data in spreadsheet is to remove errors.
Human error, yep. Because SharePoint is more collaborative.
Yep. And, you know, Timon, we said we're going to say five reasons.
So what are the three other reasons why people should do this?
(25:35):
We just talked about the errors. We talked about collaboration.
Let's talk about the other three.
Okay, so there's version control, right? Here's a cool thing about SharePoint.
Once you log into the Microsoft 365 suite, Microsoft knows who you are.
So they'll see your name, your email address, who's your manager,
(25:56):
all this other stuff. It knows who you are.
If you are using a spreadsheet and you go and put in five lines of information
and somebody else goes and puts in five lines of information.
Cool, we got the information, but I don't know who did it.
You know what I mean? I don't know who put those lines in. They're just putting
a bunch of information in there.
So every row inside of a spreadsheet is just that. It's just a row.
(26:21):
Every row inside of SharePoint is a record.
So if you go put in a row of information inside of SharePoint,
I know because, again, you logged into the Microsoft 365 suite to do this. I know who you are.
I know when you did it. I know the last time you edited it. And I know who was
the person who last edited it.
All of that information comes standard out of the box with SharePoint.
(26:44):
So I don't need to collect your name and all that other stuff.
SharePoint is already collecting it for me. so because again
you are you're logged into the 365 suite sharepoint
knows who you are and we track that
information at the row level every single row
is a record and if that's not enough then when i right click on this row of
(27:07):
information i can see a version history so i can see who's been doing what on
that record you know i mean so the the benefit is that you know uh uh there's
It's profile information.
Every row inside of a spread inside of a list is a record.
So how, I don't even know how you would define that, but, uh,
yeah, so we have, we have three now.
(27:28):
So there's, but I may have missed some, we have version control.
I'm taking some notes here, collaboration and then human error removal of errors.
So are we missing any other reason? Yes. So.
Scalability, right? Let's say that you have multiple programs.
(27:49):
Let's say you got multiple programs that you're running and there's different
sets of data for these programs, but it's all similar.
So HR is inside of HR.
They have multiple programs that they do and they have the same information
being collected for each.
But what they do is they use a different spreadsheet sheet for each one.
(28:10):
When you use SharePoint, one of the most powerful things you have is views.
Views, all a view is, is just a different way to view your information.
So it's the same information, you're just viewing it differently.
So let's go to this HR example, right?
Let's say the HR person has two programs.
And in these two programs that they run, maybe it's like, what is recruiting?
(28:34):
So they're doing recruiting. They go to events and they do recruiting.
And every year they do recruiting, but every year that they do this recruiting,
they use a new spreadsheet.
So by year three, year four, you're now with your multiple spreadsheets.
And this is the way your business is growing, which is not a way I would recommend. in.
(28:55):
If instead you have a tool that you actually created inside of SharePoint that
collects this recruiting and recruitment information, and all you do is just
tag the information with what year it is, like what fiscal year it is.
Let's say it's fiscal year 24.
Then we do another set of information, fiscal year 25, another set fiscal year 26.
(29:15):
You're scaling way better than
multiple spreadsheets because you now have your data inside of a system.
And let's go back to what I said before. You know what I mean? It's clean data.
So if I say to myself, if the boss comes in, a new boss comes in and they go, yeah, where's um...
Where's the recruitment data for FY23? You're going to go looking for a spreadsheet.
(29:36):
But if the boss says, where's the recruitment data for FY23?
And you've done it in SharePoint, you just go to SharePoint,
filter for the FY23 stuff and export it.
Or filter for FY23 and send your boss a link.
That link will actually go directly to the FY23 information.
This is the way you want to deal with your data. This is scalable because you're using a tool.
(29:59):
You're You're using a system that, you know, over time you can keep upgrading it.
You can keep making it better, but all your data is sitting inside of there
and you can do whatever you want with it.
You can do absolutely anything you want with it.
And if someone comes in and they say, hey, again, back to the accountant,
this example, I am really good with Excel and spinning up charts and doing some great analysis.
(30:22):
You're missing X, Y, and Z in your business. business, I bet you I can pull
up some charts that you don't even know about because you have some blind spots in your business.
You go, okay, with this contractor that we're working with that says that they
could do all of these cool things with charts, go get them the FY23 information.
Export it, and let them go do what they got to do and bring it back to us. There you go.
(30:45):
Versus if you were managing this information in a spreadsheet, what are you going to do?
You're going to make a copy of your spreadsheet, send them a copy of the FY23
spreadsheet that you you made.
And I'm very against this because once you make one copy of your data,
we have now made our data dirty.
You know what I'm saying? And once you make a copy, you've now put your data
(31:06):
in two different places and now we have problems.
So scalability is the other thing.
You run a system and you're able to scale this system and grow your business.
So, and then I put clean data too, because I hear clean data from a lot from your discussion.
Absolutely. And I like the example where, you know, I never viewed copying an
(31:28):
Excel file as making it dirty. I never viewed it that way.
Well, so you've never gotten a spreadsheet that was called like V1 2.22 or something?
So am I putting a new version on it? Of course I have. You know, updated.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Afternoon of June 10, 2024.
(31:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We eliminate all of that because, again,
the data inside of the system will tell us what we need to know about it.
When it was created, who last touched it, all this other stuff.
The system will tell us that.
But the spreadsheet and you making copies and you.
Here's a quick example that I always use. I create a spreadsheet and I want
(32:12):
to share it with my folks. Let's say it's a micro business and it's five people
in this business and I create this spreadsheet.
When I attach this spreadsheet to my email and I send it out to the other four
people in the organization, from the time that I hit send, I have now made four
extra copies of that data, period.
It's in mailbox one, mailbox two, three, and four.
(32:35):
Those are four copies. And then I have my copy, which is, quote,
the original copy. So now we have five copies of this data right there.
You're asking for trouble.
So people have stepped it up. They say, you know what? I know about SharePoint
or Dropbox or Google Drive.
I'm going to take one spreadsheet and put it inside of that central location
and then just tell everybody to go there. I ain't against that.
(32:58):
That's cool. That works.
But SharePoint is a more powerful version of that because no matter what,
you still are working with a spreadsheet and you still have human error going
on inside of that spreadsheet. You're just doing it in the web now in one central location.
If you've listened or watched to this point, hopefully you are learning in one way or the other.
(33:21):
And I have a favor to ask from you. Why don't you like the episode and subscribe to the channel?
What this does, it helps us to continue to bring the podcast to you and to others as well.
It also helps to continue to get the podcast to people that would benefit from it.
(33:44):
Thanks very much. Yeah, I like that because I do that as well.
No, I put my expressions in.
Look, I want to make sure. I'm saying this.
I'm saying this with my chest, but I want to make sure that everybody knows
I am the most down-to-earth, easy-to-work-with person.
(34:05):
I'm never going to judge you. You know what I'm saying? And here's why.
Because I don't know anything about cars. And when I go into a car dealership
or I go to get my car fixed or whatever, if that person is talking to me in
languages that's going over my head, I'm immediately like, man.
And I don't even feel comfortable here.
You got to talk to me like a person. You know what I'm saying?
And I'm extremely good at that. I am knee deep in tech.
(34:27):
I love technology, but I love people more. Like people are just way more fun to me.
You know what I'm saying? So if I talk to you about technology,
which is on a regular basis is what I do. I talk to people about technology.
I'm going to speak to you like we're friends, like we're just regular people.
I'm very good at making the technology not sound all crazy because I know I
don't like when people talk to me crazy about something I don't like.
(34:48):
I mean, something I don't understand, like cars.
Right. You know what I mean? I'm talking about technology. So is there a high,
you know, capabilities with this SharePoint? What's the relationship?
How do we bring a high into all this?
So if you're familiar with Copilot, you know Copilot is, that's Microsoft.
(35:11):
Yeah. You know what I mean? I love it. I love using it. That's what I'm talking
about. So now what I've seen, what I've seen on the horizon looks...
Good. But as much as I love me some SharePoint and I'm a Microsoft supporter,
I don't speak deeply about a thing until I have touched it.
(35:32):
I have used it enough times and I've passed it off to customers, gotten some feedback.
And then I start to speak intelligently about the thing.
As of right now, what I've seen looks good, but I haven't touched it yet and
used it. And we tell let me give you an example.
So if you have a project coming up, you would probably create a project plan.
And a project plan involves multiple documents and all this other stuff that
(35:56):
you got to track to run your project.
But I personally tell you, you can create a website in SharePoint and run your
project plan from there.
Big, big, big believer in creating a website and putting everything,
any and everything on that site for your project, put it there. Yeah.
So right now, if I showed you how to do that, you would you would do it yourself.
(36:19):
What I've seen with AI is you could do this.
Hey, create a site for me for this project. I have this, that and third coming up.
I'm going to need to track this and I'm going to need to track this.
And I'm working with these people and they need to know X, Y and Z. Go.
And then it'll spin up the site for you. When I get my hands on that.
(36:41):
Then I'm going to be going crazy because I can't wait to tell business owners,
project managers, program managers, whatever, what they could do inside of this
Microsoft 365 suite with SharePoint.
It's going to blow their mind. I guarantee it's going to be beautiful.
So that's where AI is going with Copilot inside of the 365 suite.
(37:02):
The other stuff that I've seen, it looks good, but again, I got to touch it
and I got to use it, give it to customers, hear their feedback,
back and then I'll really start talking about it.
The way I use it now, though, let's say that you're an accountant, right?
I would go and learn a little bit about you from chat GBT and see how I can
incorporate SharePoint.
I'd say things like, hey, so tell me what an accountant does on a daily basis.
(37:25):
Then I'll be like, if an accountant was to create a spreadsheet,
what would they put inside his spreadsheet?
Then I'll say, all right, well, if an accountant is running their own business
and they're offering accountant services, what are they offering?
What are they doing? And once I start to find out what your process looks like
and how you're using spreadsheets, my wheels start to turn and I'm like,
oh, so hey, if I was to use this in SharePoint.
(37:50):
How would they correlate? Do you see this as a thing that I can actually do?
And it'll be like, well, accountants do this, so you want to think about this, this, and this.
And then I'll be like, oh, that's how I can help accountants with SharePoint.
That's how I use SharePoint right now.
And for a lot of, I mean, how I use AI right now and for a lot of marketing
(38:11):
too. So if I want to just quickly get spun up on how someone is tracking a spreadsheet
in their business or in their environment, I'll ask AI about it because,
you know, I'm learning industries.
I have my specific industries that I know a lot about, but I'm learning other
industries. And that's super fun to me to learn about different things people are doing.
Yeah. So anyway, I like the fact that SharePoint, I like the collaboration feature.
(38:37):
Feature, like you can, you can, um, easily collaborate.
You can easily, even if you have a team of five, um, as supposed to just,
um, send in spreadsheets in an email or putting it on Google drive or one drive,
uh, I getting, you know, I like that.
(38:57):
I like the fact that you could use it for version control, which is a big deal.
Because sometimes you don't even know, oh, what was the last one we worked on?
And, you know, you don't.
So, and then you talked about clean data. And I think the most important to me is even error-free.
Like, you want things that are not prone to error.
(39:18):
I have seen organizations that lost a lot of money.
I don't want to quantify it, but a lot because of error in spreadsheets.
You know, when you use spreadsheets to develop models and all that and all that,
and then there's a tiny bit of error and it just messes things up.
I know you work with businesses, you work with professionals.
(39:39):
Are you able to give us like some examples of how SharePoint,
maybe somebody you have worked with before that was using spreadsheets and then
you educated them to use SharePoint and the transition and how that ultimately
helped them with the bottom line, which is the revenue or profit.
(40:00):
Are you able to give us one or two examples?
I know, you know, why protecting the business, just to give us some context
into how that has helped business people.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So one of the first examples I like to give is,
one of the frequent examples is, a couple years ago, a friend of mine,
long-term friend of mine, was starting a business. business and we're just chatting
(40:24):
about regular stuff that we always chat about.
And then he brings up this business and he, I could hear the stress in his voice
when he talks about the spreadsheets that he has. Right.
I'm like, bro, what, what, what, um, what's your business? Like, what do you do?
Because this was, I didn't even, I didn't even know he was doing this.
Cause we, we were, we're friends from the army.
And every few months we talk and catch up with a whole bunch of stuff.
This was one of them times where he was catching up and he was telling me about his business.
(40:48):
So what he does, the business that he does is like van pools.
So they have soldiers sign up to...
Uh, be the, like, I I'm using the wrong term, but it's like,
they're, they're the main driver of a van.
And what they do is that they make that van into a, uh, instead of a carpool, they call it a van pool.
(41:10):
So that soldier will go pick up other soldiers and take them to where they need
to go so that every soldier ain't running around driving cars or they don't need a car.
The soldier just, there's one, one main soldier that is in charge of the van.
They drive the van and then they pick up other soldiers and take them where
they need to go. Right? Right. So.
This business required.
(41:30):
Managing all your vehicles and managing all those soldiers.
There was some more going on there, but let's just say you have two sets of
data. You have all your soldiers and you have all your vehicles.
They were running these things. They were managing this information on multiple
spreadsheets, trying to put all of the soldier in their details in one spreadsheet,
put all the vehicles and their details on another spreadsheet or another tab. I can't remember.
(41:54):
And then they had to keep track of what was that of the insurance information for each vehicle.
They had to keep track of the the soldiers details, all of this. Right.
So here's what I did. I put this stuff all in SharePoint and I gave them a Web site.
I gave them a intranet basically on this intranet. Look at what you could do now.
(42:15):
First, you go to the to the main page and you click a button that says I gave
it a name by accident. Vehicle and driver management system.
So the VDMS is what they call it now. You know, the military loved their acronyms.
So I accidentally, they now call it the VDMS, but I originally called it the
Vehicle and Driver Management System.
(42:37):
So you go on the page, you click on the VDMS. When you get there,
you now have another page to where you can see either all of the soldier's information,
click a button to do that, or you see all your vehicle information,
click a button to do that.
So if you click on vehicle, you'll get to what looks like a spreadsheet,
but it's a list. It's a SharePoint list.
And you see pictures of the vehicles. You see the vehicle information.
(43:01):
You see a link that allows you to click and see the soldiers that are attached
to this vehicle. You have the ability to click and see the insurance paperwork
that they could attach to.
Remember, I said each world's a record.
They could attach the insurance information, even the registration.
We made a column for registration and SharePoint offers automation out of the box.
(43:26):
So we put the registration column there and you put a date in there and then
out of the box, I turned it on and I said, remind, send an email to this person
or these people 60 days before this date.
Because when they're two months out from the registration, they got to prepare
to do the registration to renew the registration for the vehicle.
(43:47):
So all things that you cannot do with with a spreadsheet.
They have a system now that they use and it has everything all interconnected
as opposed to now managing spreadsheets.
I got some good write-ups from them, some feedback talking about how I changed
their life because that's what I'm there for.
I want to change the way you do business by making it easier for you to do the
(44:08):
things that you already know how to do.
So now if they want to graduate out of SharePoint, let's say SharePoint has
done everything it could for them, but they're ready for like a different solution.
You know what they could do when it's time to go, export their clean data.
When they get to the new system, they just import all their historical data,
their clean historical data, put it inside of there, and they're ready to go.
(44:32):
You know what I'm saying? They can work with another developer or they can move
up into different pieces of the 365 suite.
SharePoint, to me, is just the starting place.
But you can move up in the suite to power apps, which allows you to build complex
business apps apps, you know, there's data.
This is a whole thing. I'm not going to go down that road. Just know that,
(44:53):
you know what I'm saying? SharePoint is the starting point.
When you export data out of SharePoint, does it come, like, what form do you have it in, that file?
I can go CSV, so Common Separated Values, or I can go straight into Excel,
or I can export into Power BI.
Oh, okay. So, Timon, I was just thinking now, um.
(45:18):
If somebody was listening now and thinking, well, I don't know,
and they want to, you know, we've been talking about this and they want to just
see the difference for themselves.
And we already said that it could go to YouTube. They could,
there's a lot of free resources on YouTube.
We all know, but is there a specific site or that you could point people to
(45:39):
that could give them kind of like, let them get their interest,
like maybe free things they could just use to learn first to see if they're even interested.
Interested to speak to you more about this?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, I mean, I do workshops all the time.
So if you connect with me on LinkedIn, you'll see me promoting a workshop.
It's like, it's inevitable.
(45:59):
Now I used to do them twice a month. I've slowed that down because I was kind
of generating a little bit too much interest and it's only me right now.
So probably the best way literally for me to see if you would benefit from SharePoint
is to just book a call with me.
That's it. It's as simple as that. Get on my calendar.
(46:19):
I will give you a half hour of my time and tell you if, like you could come
on and ask me, hey, can SharePoint do that?
Yeah, it probably can. You know what I'm saying? And here's what I would recommend you do.
So yeah, just get on my calendar. We'll have a conversation and I will give
you a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
A kindness tea for you. Your next big win or small win, it doesn't really matter.
(46:43):
A win is a win. could be hidden in form of an uncomfortable question or an unwelcome task.
I recently asked a business person to perform a task, but I presume because
it's not part of their routine task, they didn't lean in.
Unknown to them, I could see what would lead their business to their next desired target.
(47:08):
Level. But because they didn't lean in, they lost the opportunity.
Unlock kindness by leaning in, just leaning, be curious about that uncomfortable
question or task that somebody is asking of you.
Ola, I want to make sure that people know exactly where to go to get a hold of me.
Now, I wanted to get a custom URL that makes it easy to remember,
(47:31):
but I'm going to give you my shortest this URL.
So it's bio, like B-I-O, bio.site slash S-P-H-D.
And S-P-H-D just stands for the SharePoint help desk.
So remember, bio.site slash S-P-H-D. And bio.site is just like a link tree.
(47:52):
So all my links are going to be there. One more time, bio.site slash S-P-H-D.
Here's another thing to to remember the best way to think about it
again if you use spreadsheets for
a thing i can probably help you that's it
i know that's mad general and super wide but it's the truth i like the way you
(48:14):
put that that's puts it in perspective if you use spreadsheet for your thing
term and it can probably help you you can probably help me in sermon i use spreadsheets
a lot i would love to help you.
And I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what SharePoint can do three.
It's three major things that you have to remember about SharePoint.
SharePoint has sites, SharePoint has lists and SharePoint has libraries.
(48:39):
Those are the three major things that SharePoint can do for you.
And the portion that I've been talking about the most here today is the list.
I have not even covered what it could do with documents, and I have not covered
what it can do with sites.
I spoke about it a little bit when I talked about my friend who got the vanpool.
But SharePoint sites, SharePoint document libraries, we haven't even covered
(49:02):
that. We've only been talking about the list.
Reason being is because that's my favorite part about SharePoint.
And to be fair, that's, I think that's the most common, like people build lists.
You know, I don't even want to
tell you the number of lists I have in my business. Um, so that's common.
Yeah. So, so that's a fair point to, to, to start with.
So Tamar, we have a tradition on this show and, um, I always like to ask my
(49:26):
guests, uh, what they would like to learn next.
I tell you what, Ola, to be completely honest, which I mean,
I've been being honest the whole time.
I don't even I don't know why I picked up that saying, but we all we all have.
Yeah, I keep saying that. And I'm like, bro, I'm already telling the truth.
All right. So this is going to sound weird, but it's to learn more about in
(49:50):
this specific instance. It's to learn more about you.
So and I don't mean you as a person in general. I mean, Ola,
like before we were talking, when I was learning about your name and you said it's Ola.
Hola you know i'm saying i'm still trying to practice it but that
type of stuff is super interesting to me you know i'm saying like i'm
like i said i'm uh i have a saying i always uh put out
there which is people over technology so like i'm way into the person and the
(50:15):
more i get to know about you the more it fills my cup up like i'm all into that
but then uh what makes it twofold is that the more i learn about you and how
you work and you know how you feel about things and how you see the world and all this other stuff,
I can make better technology recommendations to you. That's just how it is.
Period. If you go to the gym, you're going to get faster if you have a personal trainer, right?
(50:39):
But if that personal trainer you are connecting with on a regular basis and
they know more about you and how you work and all this other stuff,
they'll be even better to work with because y'all are building a real relationship
and they know how you operate.
They know what machines you do better on. They know where your weak points are,
where your strong points. They can see you outside looking in.
So that's what I try to be.
(51:00):
I don't compete with other IT people. You know what I'm saying?
I'm in my own world trying to learn about people and then recommend technology.
You know what I'm saying?
I like that. People who are technology.
That is so good to hear because even my staff in my business,
sometimes I'm trying to bring a new thing and they are afraid that technology
(51:24):
is going to take away their jobs.
And I try to educate them. Technology is going to make your jobs difficult.
Easier. So I like when you say people, but technology.
Yeah, absolutely. That would just calm people. And I agree with that.
It's absolutely the way to go.
People, when you understand people, then you can know how to help them. Yes.
(51:46):
That's me. I'm not, I'm not good at, at blindly selling.
I mean, I can, you know, maybe, you know what I'm saying?
I could, I could tell you in general, something is good. Like if you watch my
LinkedIn feed, I talk all day, every day about SharePoint and how I can help you.
But when I'm writing, I am speaking to, I'm like in my head,
I'm talking to people who I've known, I've helped before and specifically done a thing for them.
(52:09):
So I speak in that way. It's hard for me to say, even though I'll say,
if you use a spreadsheet, I can probably help you.
I throw in probably because I think a good salesperson would say,
if you use spreadsheets, I can help you.
I throw in probably because I'm like, maybe I can't.
Said and i'm gonna be honest about that so i'm
working on that i'm working on it but uh maybe you could
(52:30):
let's have a conversation first well thank
you so much them and it's been so so i've
enjoyed every bit of this yeah thank you you know spring for i i have learned
so much and i i am looking forward to you helping me is that i'm using spreadsheets
i i'm just interested i want to see how SharePoint works and what it can do better.
(52:54):
I have learned from today's conversation, you know, be better.
I would like to, I like experimenting a lot. So that's the next thing I'm going to be doing.
I'm exploring that with you to see how, you know, SharePoint can be used better in my business.
Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, not a problem.
Real quick, Before we hang up, I just want to say that I am that guy that will
(53:19):
say people over technology all the time.
So I don't want anybody to feel, you know, I'm going to point out your bad technology.
But if we link up, don't feel like I'm going to be, you know,
judging you and making you feel some type of way. Like, I want to get to know
you and I want to help you out. So don't be afraid.
I don't bite. You know what I'm saying? Beautiful.
When you use SharePoint, one of the most powerful things you have,
this is the way you want to deal with your data.
This is scalable because you're using a tool, you're using a system.
So one of the first examples I like to give is... I had a conversation with Taman Trotman.
Taman is a SharePoint app desk expert.
You know, I use Excel a lot, as I'm sure a lot of people do as well.
(00:25):
And I learned from Terman how I can use SharePoint as a tool in my business
in ways that Excel would not make me as efficient as using SharePoint.
It gave me insight on what I could be doing better or what I didn't know before.
(00:50):
You know, I am a big believer in continuous learning And this conversation with
Thurman just opened my eyes to things I didn't even know.
And who knows, by listening, you could just be exposing yourself to your next big thing.
Why don't you join me? My name is Ola Williams, and this is Small Business Startup School.
(01:16):
Who is Thurman? Give us a brief introduction. Okay.
All right. Um, well, so my name is Thurman Trotman, Thurman Trotman.
And, uh, I'm from the Bronx for anybody that knows in New York city,
uh, born and raised there.
Uh, I'm a Buffalo bills fan, even though we have three football teams,
I chose the Buffalo bills specifically because when I was growing up,
(01:39):
there was a team, there was a player on the bills. His name was Thurman Thomas.
And it was the only Thurman I've ever known in my entire life.
I was like, wait a minute, it. There's somebody else named Thurman.
Like for a long time, I was like, why did my parents name me Thurman?
Because it's not a cool name. Like other people didn't have the name Thurman.
So I picked that team because Thurman Thomas was on the team.
And then as I got older, I got very excited about the fact that there's not
(02:03):
a lot of people with my name.
Now I'm like, I'm all in, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, Bill's fan.
I'm an army veteran, support the government. I'm a public servant.
That's what I do. And I'm here to talk about SharePoint.
Very excited. Yeah, I am very, because like I was just saying before we started
recording, Chairman, a lot of people use spreadsheets, including myself.
Yes. And so it's one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation.
(02:26):
So what's the difference between the work that you do, which is SharePoint Helpdesk and SharePoint?
Spreadsheet. You know, a lot of people will use a spreadsheet to collect information, right?
Like if you, you know, you work at an organization or you run your business,
maybe you say, I need to know something from everybody.
It's normal to spin up a spreadsheet, send it out via email and then ask everybody
(02:49):
to put in the information and then you get it back.
Right. Right. Like we all know that that process.
All right. Right. Do you have Netflix? Yes.
Okay. OK, when you first were signing up for Netflix, if Netflix,
if you went to Netflix's website and they said, hey, we want you to sign up,
but we're going to give you a spreadsheet.
We want you to download this spreadsheet, put your email and your name inside
(03:12):
of the spreadsheet and then send it back to us. Would you raise an eyebrow?
Would you be like, yo, what's going on here? Like, why are they asking me to fill out a spreadsheet?
I would. Yeah. It would be weird, right?
It would be super weird if a company like Netflix said, hey,
download the spreadsheet, fill it out, and then give it back to us.
The way that you do it, if you go to Netflix to sign up, is that you go to a
(03:33):
form. You put your information into a form.
You put your name. You put your email address. You hit submit.
And then that information goes inside of their system, their database,
or whatever they got going on, right?
That is the natural way that we use the internet.
We use IT services to collect information.
The way that you do it in a spreadsheet, to me, is a personal thing, is backwards.
(03:55):
Because now let's go back to Netflix, right? If Netflix wanted to get all of
their users' information and run some data analytics on it, let's say,
they could export that information.
And highly likely, they're going to export it to a CSV, or they're going to
export it to Excel, or they're going to export it somewhere else.
They want to export it to a spreadsheet.
The way that they have first collected the information cleanly inside of their
(04:17):
form, and all your user details, if they have a different tool that they want
to, you know, use to run metrics, they do an export.
So your data lands inside of a spreadsheet. It doesn't start in a spreadsheet.
You know that when you put your data inside of a spreadsheet,
what's one of the biggest issues is human error. So I'm going to go back to Netflix.
(04:38):
First of all, I have no deal with Netflix and I did not plan to use Netflix,
but that's what came to my head, right? So hopefully we're not giving them too much promotion.
All right. So now,
If you go to the Netflix site and you put in your name and then you type in
your email address and you forget to type in .com, let's say it's hola at email.com.
(04:59):
If you forget to type in .com and you hit submit, you're going to get a squiggly line.
The squiggly line, or you're going to get a red message that says,
you know, you need to submit your
email address or this email address is incorrect, something like that.
So their form forces you to give them the clean data. So you go,
oh, man, I typed my information wrong.
Let me retype that. Ola at email dot com.
(05:19):
Now you've given them clean data. Now you hit submit.
Your clean data goes inside of that system.
So when they go, when Netflix goes to do their export, they're exporting clean data.
And now it's time to run metrics on that super clean data.
You know what I mean? Where if Netflix would have said, hey, no,
fill out this spreadsheet and you accidentally type in hola at email dot and
(05:44):
then you forget to come for whatever reason and you send that back to them,
now they got to do this back and forth.
It's like, hey, Ola, I'm sorry, you forgot to type in .com.
Can you re-enter that into the spreadsheet? And you're like, oh, yeah, my fault.
But if you let the system do it, a system like a form, a form can tell you,
(06:04):
don't give us that information because it's incorrect. Fix it first and then hit submit.
That's what you want. You don't get that with a spreadsheet. spreadsheet so
when you start putting data into a spreadsheet that's i
only named one thing but that's one of the things you lose you get
human error and you get dirty data you know
no disrespect to your data yeah absolutely so tamra and i as you were speaking
(06:28):
i i think i get that the thing that was going on in my head was that okay wouldn't
this be more expensive to,
because usually I feel I'll quickly equate efficiency in terms of putting data
into a system with more money, more money for me to spend in my business.
(06:51):
So how reasonable or how accessible is the money we're talking about in terms
of automating things instead of expressions?
So because SharePoint is a Microsoft tool.
And we all know who Microsoft is, Microsoft has put SharePoint inside of your
office suite and inside of your 365 suite.
(07:12):
So if you already pay for that suite, which gives you access to Excel,
you don't have to pay anything extra to use SharePoint.
It's already there for you and available for you to just reach into the suite and use it.
I don't know at this point how many tools they have inside of the suite,
Microsoft, but it's a lot.
But because they're such a big company and they have a big market share,
(07:33):
they can charge a little bit of money.
So it's like, uh, I think $6 a month to get office 365 and people will not believe
it, but for $6 a month, you get a ton of tools, like a lot, you know what I'm saying?
That you could just run your business on, especially if you just started your
business, there's no need to go crazy and get all the big, crazy, fancy tools.
(07:53):
$6 a month will get you a suite full of tools that you can run your business on.
However, me personally, I would recommend going up one more level. Here's why.
The next level is like $12 and some change a month, I think.
Because with that $6 one, you get the mobile and web versions of your favorite
tools like Word, PowerPoint, all that stuff.
(08:13):
But the next one that I'm talking about, the $12 and something,
you get the desktop versions of those tools.
And I know people need those desktop, more powerful, more feature tools.
So as far as the money, if you're already paying for the 365 suite,
suite, there's no extra money for you to pay.
If you are not paying for the Microsoft 365 suite, you step in one level in,
(08:35):
you could get it for $6 a month.
If not, you get 12 something a month. And then there's some other levels and
all that. But just to get started, $6 a month. It's not a big deal.
And to clarify, we're talking of US dollars, right?
Oh, yes. Sorry. Yes, yes, yes. US dollars. So wherever you are,
wherever you're listening to this, do your conversion. I mean, $6 in the U.S. money.
Right. So how does what you do come in?
(08:58):
So as I mean, I have already paid for Microsoft, you know, how does Timon help me?
Ah, that's a great question. So if you are a matter of fact,
my daughter right now is learning to drive, which is a whole,
you know, that's a whole nother podcast.
She's learning to drive. Right. And she knows what a car is.
(09:21):
She's seen a car a million times.
She's been inside of a car in a passenger seat, driver's seat,
whatever, if she was practicing it. So she's learning how to drive.
When she's learning how to drive, the only gap, there's only one gap between
her hitting the road as a licensed driver to drive on her own versus where she
is now. The gap is just education.
(09:44):
That's all it is. She just needs to be taught how to drive the car.
That's it. There's nothing special there. You know what I'm saying?
First, you read the books, you read the manual to understand street signs and
how the streets work and all that other stuff.
Cool. tool, but then it's time to now get in a driver's seat and have either
the driver sit in the passenger side with a regular car, or you get the,
(10:06):
I don't know if they still got them steering wheels on the other side of the,
you know, what is like two steering wheels in one car or the brakes.
They got something fancy. I don't know if they still do that,
but someone is going to train her on how to use that car. And that's it.
That's where I come in. I'm just education and Microsoft, this tool, okay.
So this tool has been around since they had a version 2007.
(10:29):
It actually goes earlier than that, but we don't got to worry about that.
I have been using the tool for organizations since 2009.
So 15 years of education I have with this tool, but back in the days,
Microsoft made it where you didn't need to just be my daughter and get education.
You needed to have keys to start the car.
(10:52):
So you needed access, you know what I'm saying? Where before now,
Microsoft handed over the keys. They said, you're good to go.
We're going to make this tool something like where everybody has the keys. So here you go.
But they handed over the keys and didn't say, hey, y'all, we've given you the keys to cars.
Now we want to teach you how to drive these cars. They didn't do that.
(11:12):
Well, I personally think they didn't do a good job of that.
Because because again, SharePoint is a super powerful tool.
So back in the days you needed the keys.
And there was a crew of us. There was a crew of people who were called SharePoint
admins, SharePoint SMEs, SharePoint whatever.
You know what I mean? We had keys and we knew how to drive.
(11:34):
Microsoft has given over the keys and they're not doing a good job of telling
you how to drive. I come in by showing you how to drive.
You don't need keys anymore. I got you with the keys because Microsoft handed
you the keys, but you do need to know how to drive.
You got this super powerful thing in front of you and you have no idea how to use it.
That's what I'm here for. That's what the SharePoint help desk is here for,
to bridge the gap, give you the education.
(11:54):
If you're the type who likes to go to YouTube and Google some stuff or just
Google some stuff, whatever, you will find a ton of people out there teaching
you how to use SharePoint.
Absolutely. That's all in there. Then Microsoft themselves, they have Microsoft
Learn, which is also free, and it can take you through the steps of using SharePoint.
(12:17):
You know what I mean? Like, that's all out there. Absolutely.
In addition, there's also, not free, there's paid training from other people
who are like me, who've used it for a while, and they're going to teach you
how to use it. All of that is existing. All of that is out there.
But let me tell you this. Let me put a little twist on this, right? So I'm not a chef.
I'm not going to call myself a chef, but I do know how to cook.
(12:37):
You understand what I'm saying?
And if I have a knife and someone else has a knife, you know,
the way they cook and cut up their vegetables and how they use their vegetables
and, you know, all other stuff and their onions and potatoes or whatever,
however they use that knife is how they use that knife. and then they get you to dinner.
Me, I use my knife differently and I cook differently. You know what I'm saying?
(13:01):
So like, for instance, there is a class that I have which is teaching you how
to build a risk register inside of SharePoint.
No one else has this class because they're not speaking to the people that I'm speaking to. So...
Other SharePoint people in that SharePoint world, they do a great job of teaching,
(13:21):
but you know who they're teaching?
They're teaching other SharePoint people. I don't speak to SharePoint people.
I speak to regular people who I know will use Excel.
So if you're a project manager, if you're a business owner, if you're a program
manager, if you're in HR, it doesn't matter.
If you are in a profession where you think you can use Excel or you already
use Excel, I'm sure you're doing it, then I can almost bet, I'll say 98.2%,
(13:45):
you know what I'm saying,
that you can use SharePoint and it'll be better than the way you use Excel.
That's just my thought process there. But as far as like prices,
that risk register class, right now, Ola, I'm going to tell you,
just right now is $147. dollars.
That's just right now, because in the future, if you listen to this in six months
or another year or whatever, price might go up.
(14:06):
So just know that's specific.
But the reason why I made that is because I see people all the time,
they'll go to Excel to create their risk register and all of the benefits that
you get from SharePoint compared to creating it in Excel, it just outweighs,
it's almost like a no brainer.
You absolutely should be putting your risk register inside of SharePoint.
(14:27):
And I don't mean make your risk register in a spreadsheet and then upload it
into a folder in SharePoint.
Because a lot of people think SharePoint is just a document repository.
It's not. I mean, it is, but it's way more than that.
But yeah, as far as prices, let's just say for that risk register course, it's right now 147.
But if you, let's say, want to have your business or your team come and sit
(14:53):
down for some SharePoint training, some group training.
Like some virtual training, that's going to be higher. It just costs more. That's just what it is.
But don't be afraid to invite me to your organization because I will love to
come to your organization and do some training inside of your conference room. Just don't hesitate.
Right. How about people that are like individuals, like small business owners,
(15:17):
they don't have this big corporation.
They just have, I call them micro businesses. They have less than five employees
and they use spreadsheets a lot. Yep.
How can we, and I'll give you some context.
Like you'll find business owners that are maybe startup or micro business owner,
(15:41):
like I just said, they use spreadsheets a lot for their admin,
for their budgeting, for their cash flow.
And basically they just put, oh, this is the amount of money I have spent in the past.
This is the amount of money I am projecting to spend next week.
(16:03):
And they do that. They do all those basic things.
And you know, in the spreadsheets where just draw down on a spreadsheet and
then, especially if you put formulas and then you just copy all those formulas
for you, there's some little,
little tricks that you could do in spreadsheet that could make you gain time.
And I find a lot of people do this.
(16:24):
So how does SharePoint help them for those simple tasks?
Or are we just talking about people that have big corporations?
No, no, no, not at all. Talking about everybody. I'm talking about one person
businesses. I'm a one person business right now.
And I use SharePoint. My intranet is on SharePoint.
(16:45):
Any and everything that I need from anywhere to get whatever I need for my business,
it's on SharePoint. That's where I go.
So it's not just for one person business or the five people,
micro businesses that you mentioned or the big organizations.
All of them, as long as they have an ability to use a spreadsheet and they have
deployed that ability by using a spreadsheet, they can use SharePoint.
(17:07):
So to your point about these number crunches, here's how I see this.
If you are doing finances, then you, I assume, would be in something like QuickBooks, right?
Because QuickBooks just does it for you. And QuickBooks is also pretty affordable.
So I imagine the finance team, if they're looking for a collaborative environment
(17:29):
where all of the invoices go and all of the numbers go inside of the system,
I imagine that's where they work in.
However, when it's time for you to do whatever QuickBooks can't do for you,
like I talked about with Netflix, you need to export.
Export that information out of QuickBooks and then do your number crunching
in the spreadsheet there because the data is clean, it's accurate,
(17:52):
and it's coming from that one source of information.
In this five-person business, are we saying that the finance person has this
one spreadsheet that runs everything?
If they are, which I know that's very, very possible.
If they are, I would highly encourage you not even to move to SharePoint.
I would highly encourage you to move to a finance system that will take care
(18:13):
of getting rid of that human error, period.
We want to get rid of the human and error. QuickBooks is a tool, again, no affiliation.
Although, you know what? I probably need to get affiliated with QuickBooks and
Netflix if I'm going to be using these examples.
I think so. So QuickBooks and any other financing tool that you like,
that you have found and used that you like, I'd imagine you'd want to use that.
(18:35):
And then if you see that that tool can't do what you needed to do,
it's not crunching some numbers, it's not bringing up certain graphs that you
want, Pull that information out, export your clean data, and then run your calculations
and all that other stuff.
I think that if you are sitting at a company doing the finances and entering
(18:56):
that money directly into the spreadsheets, you're opening yourself up for a human error.
Unless you're like me. Me. And even if you, you know what?
Not like if you're like me, because I what I would do is if I have a project,
I'll have a site on my SharePoint site for that project.
And a portion of that site will have my numbers. So as I work and do some development,
(19:19):
I'll record it inside of there.
So I'm doing that. But I will put it in QuickBooks and invoice the person from
QuickBooks. folks, it's just me.
The numbers are extremely simple. It's pretty hard to get something jacked up.
If you're in a situation like that, by all means, just, you know,
I personally wouldn't recommend you use a spreadsheet, but go ahead and use
(19:40):
the spreadsheet because what are we working with?
We're working with people who want to get the job done. They want to do a good job.
That's it. So if you know that you're the type of person who's going to knock
out the thing that you need to do for the mission, to support the company,
then yes, spin up your spreadsheet and go do it. But if you are a finance person.
Managing, you know, the finances for this five person company,
(20:02):
I would think it's in your best interest to use a tool that just,
you know, does that for you.
So what I'm hearing is the SharePoint is not a replacement of spreadsheet.
So for number crunchers, am I hearing correctly that they will still need their
spreadsheets with their finance tools?
Like you mentioned, like there's a There's a lot of tools like QuickBooks out there.
(20:26):
So for a number cruncher, maybe for an accountant, a bookkeeper,
they will still need their spreadsheet.
So now while we're on that, how does SharePoint help an accountant, for example?
And I am interested in that personally, and I want to believe some people will
be too because I am an accountant.
(20:48):
So how does SharePoint help?
An account at all. It doesn't help at all. Well, so here's the thing.
I have used SharePoint to do budget tasks or projects for an organization.
Here's an example. They have to run a budget every year. They have to do budget drills.
(21:10):
They have to set up the budget before, you know, this is the government I'm
talking about. Uh, they got to, uh, do a lot of budget tasks.
The information starts inside of a spreadsheet. That's where that's where the money starts.
But then I get it. I tell them, hey, export it. And let's let's start from here.
(21:30):
I take that data and I put it inside of a SharePoint list.
The reason I'm doing that is so that I can make it easy for me to now create
charts off of that SharePoint list.
So all of my data just sits there and we connect something like Power BI because
it's another tool in Microsoft Suite. or you can use Excel connected to the data and show charts.
(21:52):
I don't know the specifics of what an accountant does on a daily basis because
I've never worked very closely with an accountant.
But if what an accountant is doing is entering numbers inside of a spreadsheet
so that they can then do analysis on those numbers, I would recommend that you
start by putting the numbers inside of SharePoint.
(22:13):
That's where you would. That's why I recommend that you start because Because it's collaborative.
You know what I mean? If you're not going to be doing this thing for the rest
of the time of this business, when you hire someone, you're not passing them off to a spreadsheet.
You're passing them off to a site, a site that has a table, which is a list,
with all this information.
So if they feel like they are better at crunching numbers than you are,
(22:35):
they export that information.
You have one source of truth, which is the SharePoint list. They export it out
of there, and then they start to run their charts, run their numbers.
Because I'm seeing something that you're not seeing.
You could at the same time, you and your wisdom with your accounting skills
and all of that, you can pull the same information out into a spreadsheet and
(22:55):
run all of the charts that you, you know, you want to, you want to do on your own.
The one source of truth is the SharePoint list, which is to me more reliable than a spreadsheet.
But again, this is for me, this is coming from me, not.
Working directly with accountants, but budget information, budget drills,
(23:16):
budget tasks, all of that.
I've fixed those situations for a lot of organizations. Matter of fact,
here, hold on. Let me tell you one specific example.
The last organization that I helped, I came to them and they were doing,
again, it's a budget drill, right?
What they do is they need to set a baseline for the upcoming budgets.
(23:37):
So they'll say to the folks who, I guess, No, they'll be a program manager.
The program manager will put the information inside of the spreadsheet and say,
hey, this is my baseline budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This is what I want to do.
These programs is what I want to enhance. So I need to procure these things.
I want to buy this, buy that.
Here's how much money is going to cost me and what it's going to cost me over
(23:59):
the next few fiscal years. is. They put that in a spreadsheet,
they send it to the budget folks who oversee it, and then those budget folks
put all those spreadsheets together and start to provide charts to the higher ups.
I eliminated this whole, put the thing inside of a spreadsheet,
and then we will copy and paste into our master spreadsheet.
Instead, I made it so those folks who need to put in all of their requests,
(24:23):
they do it through a form.
They do it through a process, which is what we talked about when we were talking about with Netflix.
So now nobody's sending a bunch of spreadsheets. They're going to a tool.
They're putting the information in, how much money they need,
all this other stuff, hit and submit.
And then the people who manage the budget, they get it all at once.
It's not a thing. They don't have to do no copying and pasting.
(24:45):
So in that situation, that's where you would have, you know,
we got the larger organization.
So that's where we eliminate those spreadsheets. That's why I said,
in your case, if you're just doing it for a micro business, I still believe
even in a five-person business, you want that single source of truth that everybody can access.
And we start there and then you pull information off of it to do your number crunch.
(25:11):
So I hear one reason why you should stop imputing data in spreadsheet is to remove errors.
Human error, yep. Because SharePoint is more collaborative.
Yep. And, you know, Timon, we said we're going to say five reasons.
So what are the three other reasons why people should do this?
(25:35):
We just talked about the errors. We talked about collaboration.
Let's talk about the other three.
Okay, so there's version control, right? Here's a cool thing about SharePoint.
Once you log into the Microsoft 365 suite, Microsoft knows who you are.
So they'll see your name, your email address, who's your manager,
(25:56):
all this other stuff. It knows who you are.
If you are using a spreadsheet and you go and put in five lines of information
and somebody else goes and puts in five lines of information.
Cool, we got the information, but I don't know who did it.
You know what I mean? I don't know who put those lines in. They're just putting
a bunch of information in there.
So every row inside of a spreadsheet is just that. It's just a row.
(26:21):
Every row inside of SharePoint is a record.
So if you go put in a row of information inside of SharePoint,
I know because, again, you logged into the Microsoft 365 suite to do this. I know who you are.
I know when you did it. I know the last time you edited it. And I know who was
the person who last edited it.
All of that information comes standard out of the box with SharePoint.
(26:44):
So I don't need to collect your name and all that other stuff.
SharePoint is already collecting it for me. so because again
you are you're logged into the 365 suite sharepoint
knows who you are and we track that
information at the row level every single row
is a record and if that's not enough then when i right click on this row of
(27:07):
information i can see a version history so i can see who's been doing what on
that record you know i mean so the the benefit is that you know uh uh there's
It's profile information.
Every row inside of a spread inside of a list is a record.
So how, I don't even know how you would define that, but, uh,
yeah, so we have, we have three now.
(27:28):
So there's, but I may have missed some, we have version control.
I'm taking some notes here, collaboration and then human error removal of errors.
So are we missing any other reason? Yes. So.
Scalability, right? Let's say that you have multiple programs.
(27:49):
Let's say you got multiple programs that you're running and there's different
sets of data for these programs, but it's all similar.
So HR is inside of HR.
They have multiple programs that they do and they have the same information
being collected for each.
But what they do is they use a different spreadsheet sheet for each one.
(28:10):
When you use SharePoint, one of the most powerful things you have is views.
Views, all a view is, is just a different way to view your information.
So it's the same information, you're just viewing it differently.
So let's go to this HR example, right?
Let's say the HR person has two programs.
And in these two programs that they run, maybe it's like, what is recruiting?
(28:34):
So they're doing recruiting. They go to events and they do recruiting.
And every year they do recruiting, but every year that they do this recruiting,
they use a new spreadsheet.
So by year three, year four, you're now with your multiple spreadsheets.
And this is the way your business is growing, which is not a way I would recommend. in.
(28:55):
If instead you have a tool that you actually created inside of SharePoint that
collects this recruiting and recruitment information, and all you do is just
tag the information with what year it is, like what fiscal year it is.
Let's say it's fiscal year 24.
Then we do another set of information, fiscal year 25, another set fiscal year 26.
(29:15):
You're scaling way better than
multiple spreadsheets because you now have your data inside of a system.
And let's go back to what I said before. You know what I mean? It's clean data.
So if I say to myself, if the boss comes in, a new boss comes in and they go, yeah, where's um...
Where's the recruitment data for FY23? You're going to go looking for a spreadsheet.
(29:36):
But if the boss says, where's the recruitment data for FY23?
And you've done it in SharePoint, you just go to SharePoint,
filter for the FY23 stuff and export it.
Or filter for FY23 and send your boss a link.
That link will actually go directly to the FY23 information.
This is the way you want to deal with your data. This is scalable because you're using a tool.
(29:59):
You're You're using a system that, you know, over time you can keep upgrading it.
You can keep making it better, but all your data is sitting inside of there
and you can do whatever you want with it.
You can do absolutely anything you want with it.
And if someone comes in and they say, hey, again, back to the accountant,
this example, I am really good with Excel and spinning up charts and doing some great analysis.
(30:22):
You're missing X, Y, and Z in your business. business, I bet you I can pull
up some charts that you don't even know about because you have some blind spots in your business.
You go, okay, with this contractor that we're working with that says that they
could do all of these cool things with charts, go get them the FY23 information.
Export it, and let them go do what they got to do and bring it back to us. There you go.
(30:45):
Versus if you were managing this information in a spreadsheet, what are you going to do?
You're going to make a copy of your spreadsheet, send them a copy of the FY23
spreadsheet that you you made.
And I'm very against this because once you make one copy of your data,
we have now made our data dirty.
You know what I'm saying? And once you make a copy, you've now put your data
(31:06):
in two different places and now we have problems.
So scalability is the other thing.
You run a system and you're able to scale this system and grow your business.
So, and then I put clean data too, because I hear clean data from a lot from your discussion.
Absolutely. And I like the example where, you know, I never viewed copying an
(31:28):
Excel file as making it dirty. I never viewed it that way.
Well, so you've never gotten a spreadsheet that was called like V1 2.22 or something?
So am I putting a new version on it? Of course I have. You know, updated.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Afternoon of June 10, 2024.
(31:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We eliminate all of that because, again,
the data inside of the system will tell us what we need to know about it.
When it was created, who last touched it, all this other stuff.
The system will tell us that.
But the spreadsheet and you making copies and you.
Here's a quick example that I always use. I create a spreadsheet and I want
(32:12):
to share it with my folks. Let's say it's a micro business and it's five people
in this business and I create this spreadsheet.
When I attach this spreadsheet to my email and I send it out to the other four
people in the organization, from the time that I hit send, I have now made four
extra copies of that data, period.
It's in mailbox one, mailbox two, three, and four.
(32:35):
Those are four copies. And then I have my copy, which is, quote,
the original copy. So now we have five copies of this data right there.
You're asking for trouble.
So people have stepped it up. They say, you know what? I know about SharePoint
or Dropbox or Google Drive.
I'm going to take one spreadsheet and put it inside of that central location
and then just tell everybody to go there. I ain't against that.
(32:58):
That's cool. That works.
But SharePoint is a more powerful version of that because no matter what,
you still are working with a spreadsheet and you still have human error going
on inside of that spreadsheet. You're just doing it in the web now in one central location.
If you've listened or watched to this point, hopefully you are learning in one way or the other.
(33:21):
And I have a favor to ask from you. Why don't you like the episode and subscribe to the channel?
What this does, it helps us to continue to bring the podcast to you and to others as well.
It also helps to continue to get the podcast to people that would benefit from it.
(33:44):
Thanks very much. Yeah, I like that because I do that as well.
No, I put my expressions in.
Look, I want to make sure. I'm saying this.
I'm saying this with my chest, but I want to make sure that everybody knows
I am the most down-to-earth, easy-to-work-with person.
(34:05):
I'm never going to judge you. You know what I'm saying? And here's why.
Because I don't know anything about cars. And when I go into a car dealership
or I go to get my car fixed or whatever, if that person is talking to me in
languages that's going over my head, I'm immediately like, man.
And I don't even feel comfortable here.
You got to talk to me like a person. You know what I'm saying?
And I'm extremely good at that. I am knee deep in tech.
(34:27):
I love technology, but I love people more. Like people are just way more fun to me.
You know what I'm saying? So if I talk to you about technology,
which is on a regular basis is what I do. I talk to people about technology.
I'm going to speak to you like we're friends, like we're just regular people.
I'm very good at making the technology not sound all crazy because I know I
don't like when people talk to me crazy about something I don't like.
(34:48):
I mean, something I don't understand, like cars.
Right. You know what I mean? I'm talking about technology. So is there a high,
you know, capabilities with this SharePoint? What's the relationship?
How do we bring a high into all this?
So if you're familiar with Copilot, you know Copilot is, that's Microsoft.
(35:11):
Yeah. You know what I mean? I love it. I love using it. That's what I'm talking
about. So now what I've seen, what I've seen on the horizon looks...
Good. But as much as I love me some SharePoint and I'm a Microsoft supporter,
I don't speak deeply about a thing until I have touched it.
(35:32):
I have used it enough times and I've passed it off to customers, gotten some feedback.
And then I start to speak intelligently about the thing.
As of right now, what I've seen looks good, but I haven't touched it yet and
used it. And we tell let me give you an example.
So if you have a project coming up, you would probably create a project plan.
And a project plan involves multiple documents and all this other stuff that
(35:56):
you got to track to run your project.
But I personally tell you, you can create a website in SharePoint and run your
project plan from there.
Big, big, big believer in creating a website and putting everything,
any and everything on that site for your project, put it there. Yeah.
So right now, if I showed you how to do that, you would you would do it yourself.
(36:19):
What I've seen with AI is you could do this.
Hey, create a site for me for this project. I have this, that and third coming up.
I'm going to need to track this and I'm going to need to track this.
And I'm working with these people and they need to know X, Y and Z. Go.
And then it'll spin up the site for you. When I get my hands on that.
(36:41):
Then I'm going to be going crazy because I can't wait to tell business owners,
project managers, program managers, whatever, what they could do inside of this
Microsoft 365 suite with SharePoint.
It's going to blow their mind. I guarantee it's going to be beautiful.
So that's where AI is going with Copilot inside of the 365 suite.
(37:02):
The other stuff that I've seen, it looks good, but again, I got to touch it
and I got to use it, give it to customers, hear their feedback,
back and then I'll really start talking about it.
The way I use it now, though, let's say that you're an accountant, right?
I would go and learn a little bit about you from chat GBT and see how I can
incorporate SharePoint.
I'd say things like, hey, so tell me what an accountant does on a daily basis.
(37:25):
Then I'll be like, if an accountant was to create a spreadsheet,
what would they put inside his spreadsheet?
Then I'll say, all right, well, if an accountant is running their own business
and they're offering accountant services, what are they offering?
What are they doing? And once I start to find out what your process looks like
and how you're using spreadsheets, my wheels start to turn and I'm like,
oh, so hey, if I was to use this in SharePoint.
(37:50):
How would they correlate? Do you see this as a thing that I can actually do?
And it'll be like, well, accountants do this, so you want to think about this, this, and this.
And then I'll be like, oh, that's how I can help accountants with SharePoint.
That's how I use SharePoint right now.
And for a lot of, I mean, how I use AI right now and for a lot of marketing
(38:11):
too. So if I want to just quickly get spun up on how someone is tracking a spreadsheet
in their business or in their environment, I'll ask AI about it because,
you know, I'm learning industries.
I have my specific industries that I know a lot about, but I'm learning other
industries. And that's super fun to me to learn about different things people are doing.
Yeah. So anyway, I like the fact that SharePoint, I like the collaboration feature.
(38:37):
Feature, like you can, you can, um, easily collaborate.
You can easily, even if you have a team of five, um, as supposed to just,
um, send in spreadsheets in an email or putting it on Google drive or one drive,
uh, I getting, you know, I like that.
(38:57):
I like the fact that you could use it for version control, which is a big deal.
Because sometimes you don't even know, oh, what was the last one we worked on?
And, you know, you don't.
So, and then you talked about clean data. And I think the most important to me is even error-free.
Like, you want things that are not prone to error.
(39:18):
I have seen organizations that lost a lot of money.
I don't want to quantify it, but a lot because of error in spreadsheets.
You know, when you use spreadsheets to develop models and all that and all that,
and then there's a tiny bit of error and it just messes things up.
I know you work with businesses, you work with professionals.
(39:39):
Are you able to give us like some examples of how SharePoint,
maybe somebody you have worked with before that was using spreadsheets and then
you educated them to use SharePoint and the transition and how that ultimately
helped them with the bottom line, which is the revenue or profit.
(40:00):
Are you able to give us one or two examples?
I know, you know, why protecting the business, just to give us some context
into how that has helped business people.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So one of the first examples I like to give is,
one of the frequent examples is, a couple years ago, a friend of mine,
long-term friend of mine, was starting a business. business and we're just chatting
(40:24):
about regular stuff that we always chat about.
And then he brings up this business and he, I could hear the stress in his voice
when he talks about the spreadsheets that he has. Right.
I'm like, bro, what, what, what, um, what's your business? Like, what do you do?
Because this was, I didn't even, I didn't even know he was doing this.
Cause we, we were, we're friends from the army.
And every few months we talk and catch up with a whole bunch of stuff.
This was one of them times where he was catching up and he was telling me about his business.
(40:48):
So what he does, the business that he does is like van pools.
So they have soldiers sign up to...
Uh, be the, like, I I'm using the wrong term, but it's like,
they're, they're the main driver of a van.
And what they do is that they make that van into a, uh, instead of a carpool, they call it a van pool.
(41:10):
So that soldier will go pick up other soldiers and take them to where they need
to go so that every soldier ain't running around driving cars or they don't need a car.
The soldier just, there's one, one main soldier that is in charge of the van.
They drive the van and then they pick up other soldiers and take them where
they need to go. Right? Right. So.
This business required.
(41:30):
Managing all your vehicles and managing all those soldiers.
There was some more going on there, but let's just say you have two sets of
data. You have all your soldiers and you have all your vehicles.
They were running these things. They were managing this information on multiple
spreadsheets, trying to put all of the soldier in their details in one spreadsheet,
put all the vehicles and their details on another spreadsheet or another tab. I can't remember.
(41:54):
And then they had to keep track of what was that of the insurance information for each vehicle.
They had to keep track of the the soldiers details, all of this. Right.
So here's what I did. I put this stuff all in SharePoint and I gave them a Web site.
I gave them a intranet basically on this intranet. Look at what you could do now.
(42:15):
First, you go to the to the main page and you click a button that says I gave
it a name by accident. Vehicle and driver management system.
So the VDMS is what they call it now. You know, the military loved their acronyms.
So I accidentally, they now call it the VDMS, but I originally called it the
Vehicle and Driver Management System.
(42:37):
So you go on the page, you click on the VDMS. When you get there,
you now have another page to where you can see either all of the soldier's information,
click a button to do that, or you see all your vehicle information,
click a button to do that.
So if you click on vehicle, you'll get to what looks like a spreadsheet,
but it's a list. It's a SharePoint list.
And you see pictures of the vehicles. You see the vehicle information.
(43:01):
You see a link that allows you to click and see the soldiers that are attached
to this vehicle. You have the ability to click and see the insurance paperwork
that they could attach to.
Remember, I said each world's a record.
They could attach the insurance information, even the registration.
We made a column for registration and SharePoint offers automation out of the box.
(43:26):
So we put the registration column there and you put a date in there and then
out of the box, I turned it on and I said, remind, send an email to this person
or these people 60 days before this date.
Because when they're two months out from the registration, they got to prepare
to do the registration to renew the registration for the vehicle.
(43:47):
So all things that you cannot do with with a spreadsheet.
They have a system now that they use and it has everything all interconnected
as opposed to now managing spreadsheets.
I got some good write-ups from them, some feedback talking about how I changed
their life because that's what I'm there for.
I want to change the way you do business by making it easier for you to do the
(44:08):
things that you already know how to do.
So now if they want to graduate out of SharePoint, let's say SharePoint has
done everything it could for them, but they're ready for like a different solution.
You know what they could do when it's time to go, export their clean data.
When they get to the new system, they just import all their historical data,
their clean historical data, put it inside of there, and they're ready to go.
(44:32):
You know what I'm saying? They can work with another developer or they can move
up into different pieces of the 365 suite.
SharePoint, to me, is just the starting place.
But you can move up in the suite to power apps, which allows you to build complex
business apps apps, you know, there's data.
This is a whole thing. I'm not going to go down that road. Just know that,
(44:53):
you know what I'm saying? SharePoint is the starting point.
When you export data out of SharePoint, does it come, like, what form do you have it in, that file?
I can go CSV, so Common Separated Values, or I can go straight into Excel,
or I can export into Power BI.
Oh, okay. So, Timon, I was just thinking now, um.
(45:18):
If somebody was listening now and thinking, well, I don't know,
and they want to, you know, we've been talking about this and they want to just
see the difference for themselves.
And we already said that it could go to YouTube. They could,
there's a lot of free resources on YouTube.
We all know, but is there a specific site or that you could point people to
(45:39):
that could give them kind of like, let them get their interest,
like maybe free things they could just use to learn first to see if they're even interested.
Interested to speak to you more about this?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, I mean, I do workshops all the time.
So if you connect with me on LinkedIn, you'll see me promoting a workshop.
It's like, it's inevitable.
(45:59):
Now I used to do them twice a month. I've slowed that down because I was kind
of generating a little bit too much interest and it's only me right now.
So probably the best way literally for me to see if you would benefit from SharePoint
is to just book a call with me.
That's it. It's as simple as that. Get on my calendar.
(46:19):
I will give you a half hour of my time and tell you if, like you could come
on and ask me, hey, can SharePoint do that?
Yeah, it probably can. You know what I'm saying? And here's what I would recommend you do.
So yeah, just get on my calendar. We'll have a conversation and I will give
you a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
A kindness tea for you. Your next big win or small win, it doesn't really matter.
(46:43):
A win is a win. could be hidden in form of an uncomfortable question or an unwelcome task.
I recently asked a business person to perform a task, but I presume because
it's not part of their routine task, they didn't lean in.
Unknown to them, I could see what would lead their business to their next desired target.
(47:08):
Level. But because they didn't lean in, they lost the opportunity.
Unlock kindness by leaning in, just leaning, be curious about that uncomfortable
question or task that somebody is asking of you.
Ola, I want to make sure that people know exactly where to go to get a hold of me.
Now, I wanted to get a custom URL that makes it easy to remember,
(47:31):
but I'm going to give you my shortest this URL.
So it's bio, like B-I-O, bio.site slash S-P-H-D.
And S-P-H-D just stands for the SharePoint help desk.
So remember, bio.site slash S-P-H-D. And bio.site is just like a link tree.
(47:52):
So all my links are going to be there. One more time, bio.site slash S-P-H-D.
Here's another thing to to remember the best way to think about it
again if you use spreadsheets for
a thing i can probably help you that's it
i know that's mad general and super wide but it's the truth i like the way you
(48:14):
put that that's puts it in perspective if you use spreadsheet for your thing
term and it can probably help you you can probably help me in sermon i use spreadsheets
a lot i would love to help you.
And I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what SharePoint can do three.
It's three major things that you have to remember about SharePoint.
SharePoint has sites, SharePoint has lists and SharePoint has libraries.
(48:39):
Those are the three major things that SharePoint can do for you.
And the portion that I've been talking about the most here today is the list.
I have not even covered what it could do with documents, and I have not covered
what it can do with sites.
I spoke about it a little bit when I talked about my friend who got the vanpool.
But SharePoint sites, SharePoint document libraries, we haven't even covered
(49:02):
that. We've only been talking about the list.
Reason being is because that's my favorite part about SharePoint.
And to be fair, that's, I think that's the most common, like people build lists.
You know, I don't even want to
tell you the number of lists I have in my business. Um, so that's common.
Yeah. So, so that's a fair point to, to, to start with.
So Tamar, we have a tradition on this show and, um, I always like to ask my
(49:26):
guests, uh, what they would like to learn next.
I tell you what, Ola, to be completely honest, which I mean,
I've been being honest the whole time.
I don't even I don't know why I picked up that saying, but we all we all have.
Yeah, I keep saying that. And I'm like, bro, I'm already telling the truth.
All right. So this is going to sound weird, but it's to learn more about in
(49:50):
this specific instance. It's to learn more about you.
So and I don't mean you as a person in general. I mean, Ola,
like before we were talking, when I was learning about your name and you said it's Ola.
Hola you know i'm saying i'm still trying to practice it but that
type of stuff is super interesting to me you know i'm saying like i'm
like i said i'm uh i have a saying i always uh put out
there which is people over technology so like i'm way into the person and the
(50:15):
more i get to know about you the more it fills my cup up like i'm all into that
but then uh what makes it twofold is that the more i learn about you and how
you work and you know how you feel about things and how you see the world and all this other stuff,
I can make better technology recommendations to you. That's just how it is.
Period. If you go to the gym, you're going to get faster if you have a personal trainer, right?
(50:39):
But if that personal trainer you are connecting with on a regular basis and
they know more about you and how you work and all this other stuff,
they'll be even better to work with because y'all are building a real relationship
and they know how you operate.
They know what machines you do better on. They know where your weak points are,
where your strong points. They can see you outside looking in.
So that's what I try to be.
(51:00):
I don't compete with other IT people. You know what I'm saying?
I'm in my own world trying to learn about people and then recommend technology.
You know what I'm saying?
I like that. People who are technology.
That is so good to hear because even my staff in my business,
sometimes I'm trying to bring a new thing and they are afraid that technology
(51:24):
is going to take away their jobs.
And I try to educate them. Technology is going to make your jobs difficult.
Easier. So I like when you say people, but technology.
Yeah, absolutely. That would just calm people. And I agree with that.
It's absolutely the way to go.
People, when you understand people, then you can know how to help them. Yes.
(51:46):
That's me. I'm not, I'm not good at, at blindly selling.
I mean, I can, you know, maybe, you know what I'm saying?
I could, I could tell you in general, something is good. Like if you watch my
LinkedIn feed, I talk all day, every day about SharePoint and how I can help you.
But when I'm writing, I am speaking to, I'm like in my head,
I'm talking to people who I've known, I've helped before and specifically done a thing for them.
(52:09):
So I speak in that way. It's hard for me to say, even though I'll say,
if you use a spreadsheet, I can probably help you.
I throw in probably because I think a good salesperson would say,
if you use spreadsheets, I can help you.
I throw in probably because I'm like, maybe I can't.
Said and i'm gonna be honest about that so i'm
working on that i'm working on it but uh maybe you could
(52:30):
let's have a conversation first well thank
you so much them and it's been so so i've
enjoyed every bit of this yeah thank you you know spring for i i have learned
so much and i i am looking forward to you helping me is that i'm using spreadsheets
i i'm just interested i want to see how SharePoint works and what it can do better.
(52:54):
I have learned from today's conversation, you know, be better.
I would like to, I like experimenting a lot. So that's the next thing I'm going to be doing.
I'm exploring that with you to see how, you know, SharePoint can be used better in my business.
Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, not a problem.
Real quick, Before we hang up, I just want to say that I am that guy that will
(53:19):
say people over technology all the time.
So I don't want anybody to feel, you know, I'm going to point out your bad technology.
But if we link up, don't feel like I'm going to be, you know,
judging you and making you feel some type of way. Like, I want to get to know
you and I want to help you out. So don't be afraid.
I don't bite. You know what I'm saying? Beautiful.
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