Zero 2 Excel Guru: Course Description

Zero 2 Excel Guru will take someone who has none to some Excel skills
(suitable for beginner to somewhat advanced Excel ability) and will have you
doing Advanced VBA / Macros programming within 6 weeks! You will be
transformed.
No Excel course has ever been produced like this. This course is purely for
Analytical Professionals or aspiring Professionals like Analysts, Accountants,
Project Management Professionals, PMOs, Management Consultants etc. who
work in Financial Services, Pharmaceuticals, Energy, Retail, Government
sectors etc. such as those aiming to become better Professionals.
The course consists of Video Lessons created and delivered by myself. I have
been using Excel as a professional for over 10 years so ignore unnecessary
topics that other courses teach and I focus on only the most important topics
that a professional needs to succeed.
Accompanying the lessons will be many Excel workbooks for you to work with
that will help you completely grasp the skills.
Over 6 weeks, spending a minimum of 2-4 hours a week you will learn ONLY
the most important Excel skills that will make you a highly sought after
professional. Using this in conjunction with the Selling You course will rapidly
set you up for a six figure salary.
When you purchase the course, you will get instant access to Week 0 (Prerequisites) and Week 1, then every week you will be given access to a new
module. This weekly delivery of lessons is to prevent overwhelm.
While the course is designed to be completed in 6 weeks with at least 2 -4
hours a week time investment, the benefit of having it online is that you can
study it at your own pace. Life, work and other commitments mean you wont
always be able to learn at my recommended pace. But once purchased, you
have the content for life.
Lets have a look at what is involved in each module.
Sohail Anwar
1

Module 0: Prerequisites
This is immediately available when you sign up for the course. Then every 7 days you get a new
module
This is a Prerequisites module and will get complete beginners comfortable with Excel and to an
Intermediate level of understanding.

Name

Navigating around
Excel

Entering
Information

Navigating
without the
Mouse

Basic Formatting

Dragging &
Autofill

Copy & Paste

Clearing cells

Inserting &
Deleting

Date Basics

10
11
12

Introduction to
Formulas
Introduction to
Formulas: Part 2
Introduction to
Formulas:
Autosum

Description

Getting familiar with an Excel workbook

What are Worksheets
What are cells
How to save a workbook
What can we enter in to Excel
The main data types
Use Excel as you want - To do lists
How to move around the worksheet without a
mouse
How to select cells without the mouse

Highlighting cell colour

Fonts: bold, italics, underline & type
Merging cells
Indenting & aligning cell fonts (Left, mid, right)
Putting a border around cells
Why and how to drag the contents of cell
Incrementing series or Autofill
Basics of copying and pasting
Keyboard shortcuts
Paste special
Format painter
Selecting all sheet cells
Clearing types (cells, contents, formats)
Removing space between cells, columns and rows
Inserting space between cells, columns and rows
What is a Date in Excel
Different date formats
Serial numbers
What are formulas?
The most basic formula: an addition
Functions: Excel's built in Formulas
Explaining how functions (formulas) work

The convenience of Autosum

Sum, Average, Max, Count functions of Autosum

Video
Length
(minutes)
2.17

2.58

2.53

4.19

4.14

4.52

2.26
3.36
4.12
1.51
4.22
2.25

13

More on
Worksheets

14

More Borders

15

Printing
considerations

16

Conditional
Formatting

17

Charts

18

Autofilter

19

21

Sorting Data
Introduction to
Text Data
Named Ranges

22

Data Validation

20

Creating, deleting, moving & copying worksheets

Working with worksheet tabs
Hiding/Unhiding worksheets
Grouping & ungrouping sheets
Good practice with borders
Making tables look visually better
Different border types
Drawing borders
Gridlines
Print preview
Setting the print area
Good practice to setting up for printing
Making titles appear on all pages
How to use conditional formatting
Icon sets
Heat maps
RAG (Red Amber Green) Status
Using Formulas to do conditional formatting
The 3 kinds of charts most useful for professionals
Formatting chart basics
Adding data to charts
What is an autofilter and when do we use it
Setting the filter criteria
Sorting data by text and numerical values
Removing duplicates
Text to columns
Benefits of naming ranges
Placing restrictions on cells
Creating lists
Customising error messages

6.36

4.51

6.31

8.32

9.43
6.04
2.16
3.57
2.42
5.27

Module 1: 80:20 Excel Part 1

I discuss the 80:20 phenomenon and how it applies to professionals who need to learn Excel. Then I
cover some absolutely fundamental aspects of Excel and teach why and how to structure your data
correctly.
After the introductory material we delve in to Finding Information from data which is where the
journey of being a great Excel Professional really begins. In order to do value adding problem
solving, you first need to have complete command over how you find data. I cover everything from
Lookups to the advanced Array formulas. We will build on this in subsequent Modules.
Following that topic, I cover Treating Information with rules to make it do what you want it to do.
We will learn the best methods of building logic to manipulate your data for analysis. These concepts
will be significantly developed in the subsequent modules.

2
3

Name

The 80:20
principle
Introduction to
Excel for
professionals
Performance of
Excel

Description

Long boring lists

Long boring lists:

Monthly Data

Locking down
cells

Finding
Information:
VLOOKUP

Finding
Information:
INDEX & MATCH
Finding
Information: Limit
formulas

Getting Advanced
10 with Lookup
formulas
Finding
Information:
11
putting it all
together

12

Rule building with

IF

Getting familiar with an Excel workbook

What are Worksheets
What are cells
How to save a workbook
What can we enter in to Excel
The main data types
Use Excel as you want - To do lists
Why Excel files can get slow
Considerations for speed
Why we need to maintain our data in a certain
format
What bad data storing looks like
The elements of better data storing
A first look at Project focused data
Good practice for making retaining data
chronologically (monthly)
Visual inspection of data via Autofilters and
sorting
Custom sorting lists for more useful inspection of
data
Absolute and relative referencing
Keyboard shortcut for toggling through
Breakdown of the VLOOKUP
Defining ranges with VLOOKUP
IFERROR to clean
Why the COLUMN formula is so useful with
VLOOKUP
Thinking in a grid format
INDEX and MATCH are best friends
When to use INDEX/MATCH or VLOOKUP
MIN/MAX formulas for finding extremes
SMALL/LARGE for finding by rank
Using INDEX and MATCH to make this useful
Limitations of VLOOKUP & MATCH/INDEX and how
to get around
Finding multiple criteria with a helper column
Finding multiple criteria with an ARRAY formula
Making the long boring list more accessible with
an information page
Using Data Validation, named ranges and
INDIRECT
Using advanced lookup techniques
Treating information with rules through building
logic
Thinking like a Tree (PowerPoint)
Deconstructing the IF formula
4

Video
Length
(minutes
9.14

7.59
4.37

7.12

11.39

6.13

19.46

20.20

14.48

15.40

17.50

13.38

More advanced
13
logic building

Different ways to tackle a complex logic problem

Using VLOOKUP as a rule builder
Greater nesting levels with IF
Logic with CHOOSE and MATCH

17.37

Module 2: 80:20 Excel Part 2

At this point your skills will be very advanced but for many professionals manipulating text
information is crucial. This module will teach you EVERYTHING you need to know in order to do that.
The last lesson is an incredibly powerful one that combines lookup, logic and text to develop a
resourcing model, something that I used in previous roles.
Summarisation is the end game for much of the work you will do as a professional, all eyes will be
here. So I spend a significant amount of time on this topic! Where I bring together everything we
have learned and build on it even further. At the end of this module, we delve even further in to
Array Formulas and I break down how to approach tricky situations when summarising

Name

Description

Video
Length
(minutes

Working with
Text

Merging cells and vertical alignment

Line breaks in your text
The consequences of merging cells and data loss

5.33

Text Functions:
PROPER, TRIM &
CLEAN

Cleansing external text data with CLEAN

Removing extra spaces with TRIM
Fixing capitalisation of words with PROPER

5.31

Finding the length of characters with LEN

Using SEARCH to pinpoint the location of certain
characters
Nested SEARCH to find second instances

7.18

Text Functions:
LEN & SEARCH

Text Functions:
LEFT, MID,
RIGHT

Video Length: 2.23

Introduction to LEFT, RIGHT and MID for text
manipulation

2.23

Text functions:
Advanced Text
analysis by
building
formulas

Using LEN & SEARCH with LEFT, RIGHT and MID

Using 'helper columns' to build advanced text
formulas
Find and Replace to assist with text manipulation

19.56

Text functions:
Creating email
addresses with
SUBSTITUTE and
&

Text functions:
Creating
character and
word count
limits

Advanced Text,
Logic and
Lookups:
Creating a
resourcing
model

10

Introduction to
summarising

Counting

The benefits of the SUBSTITUTE Function

Creating a Cumulative Text formula to generate an
email distribution list

6.17

Using data validation to create limits on entering

characters in a cell
Using SUBSTITUTE, LEN and Data Validation to
create a word count limit

6.43

A detailed example using Text formulas, Lookups

and conditional counting to create a resourcing
budget model
The need to establish assumptions and
requirements before starting

29.06

The final of the 4 components of Excel productivity

Why we summarise and the two aspects to focus
on

2.32

COUNT and COUNTA for basic counting on

numbers and text
Introducing conditional counting with the COUNTIF
formula
Multiple conditions with the COUNTIFS formula
Using COUNTIF to analyse duplicate values in a list
Conditional summing or summing by logic with
SUMIF and SUMIFS
Introducing SUMPRODUCT as an alternative to
SUMIFS
Using SUMPRODUCT in conjunction with formulas
to create a powerful filter
When to use SUMIF(S) and when to use
SUMPRODUCT

11

Summing

12

SUBTOTAL
function

13

Analysis
walkthrough
with summing
and counting

13.52

14.01

What is the SUBTOTAL function and why we might

want to include it in our outputs?
Taking Autofilters to another level with SUBTOTAL
Having a pastevalues chart set up and pasting
autofiltered & subtotalled data

4.48

A one of analysis piece involving SUMIFS, COUNTIF

and sorting

5.58

14

What are Pivot

tables and why
they are
overrated

15

16

Advanced list
analysis:
understanding
Array formulas

Advanced
Modelling with
Array formula
lookups

17

Dashboard and
reporting
practice for
professionals

18

Advanced
Conditional
formatting:
Using formulas

19

Advanced
Conditional
formatting:
Beyond
Highlighting

Pivot tables are basically summing and counting

data with filtering capability
Pivot tables can be useful for very quick and dirty
analysis
Challenges with formatting and why they aren't
great for final report outputs
Why you should be aware of Pivot Tables

14.48

A detailed breakdown how the advanced Array

formulas work
Thinking in a 3rd dimension to understand how a
cell refers to multiple cells
Multiple occurrences of a value in one list: one of
the most useful ARRAY formulas

11.58

Multiple occurrences within multiple occurrences

to create more sophisticated list models
Turning a one off analysis into a project data
model for dynamic reporting
Automation without VBA

10.00

What you need to consider about your audience

before doing anything
The importance of simplicity and minimalism
The need to construct a narrative for your report /
dashboard
key considerations for formatting
Data or project size and how it affects qualitative
and quantitative decisions

12.52

Why conditional formatting formulas are like the IF

statement
Using more sophisticated formulas in your
conditional formatting to enhance your models
Why you should build complex formulas outside of
the conditional formatting window
Array formulas and conditional formatting

21.12

Creating dynamic borders to automatically

enhance the visual aspect of your summarising

11.27

Module 3: VBA Fast-track

This lesson is a career game-changer as you will learn VBA and Macros with my very unique
experienced based approach focusing on a handful of key themes. You will be effortless
programming in a shockingly quick time frame. My teaching is so efficient that I dont even allow you
to learn unnecessary and confusing jargon which all other courses teach you first. This approach
slows down the amount of time before you actually learn something useful and you can risk getting
burned out before you have even learned something amazing.
7

In the second half, I focus on introducing you to Macros and the best way to take advantage of
Macros in your work.

1
2
3

4
5
6
7
8
9

Name
Cells and
Ranges
Copy and Paste
Controlling
fonts and
colouring cells
Multiple lines,
clearing and
column widths
Building Logic
with IF
Building Logic
with Select Case
The importance
of Loops
Introduction to
Automation
Loops and
selecting ranges

Description

Controlling Cells
2 ways to put data into Cells
Put data into a bunch (Range) of Cells
Copy and Paste

Controlling fonts
Colouring cells

4.36

Writing VBA on multiple lines

Clearing cells
Column widths

6.53

Building logic in VBA with the IF statement

4.22

A simpler way to build logic with VBA

Programming conditional formatting
What is a loop and why is it so important
Controlling with loops

Loops and logic are the foundation of automation

Using Range and Cells together to select cells in coordinate fashion

Why we need to understand manoeuvring in a
worksheet
How the Macro recorder and common sense will
make you a VBA expert!
Understanding the difference between constants
and variables

10

Manoeuvring
and Macros

Constants and
Variables
The MOST
important line
12
in VBA you need
to know!
11

Putting together
everything so
13 far to
demonstrate
Automation
Macro file
formats
Developer tab
15 and Macro
Security
Modules,
16 macros and
relative
14

Video
Length
(minutes

Counting rows and understanding how far to

manoeuvre
Combining with a loop for some intelligent control
A real world problem to automate using loops,
logic and manoeuvring
Breaking the problem down in stages and building
the steps toward the solution
Using END IF with IF for better clarity on tricky IF
statements
What you need to know about the difference
between .xlsx and .xlsm file formats

3.17
2.31

6.42
7.52
6.25
2.57

5.11

2.42

5.24

16.18

3.11

Accessing the developer tab

Understanding Macro security settings

3.49

Sheet code vs module code

Revisiting macros with a new spin

9.49

references

A first look at
17
Buttons

18

Charting driven
by Macros

Why Macros
can go wrong
19
and what to do
about it

20

Handling Errors
and Sheet issues

What can go wrong with the chart macro

How to adjust and compensate the recorded code

Common sense errors vs writing (syntax) errors

Ignoring errors
Trapping errors to deal with them
Why a sheet name is different from a worksheet
name and how this affects your code
Using Exit sub to leave an error trap
Using loops, logic, macro recording and charting to
solve a real problem
The usefulness of debug.print and the immediate
window
The benefits of indenting in your code to make it
readable
Breakpoints to help debugging code
Moving cells in VBA vs moving cells in formulas
Bringing data validation in to add some
interactivity
Skipping and repeating parts of the code as you
step through it
Putting the finishing touches on the design with
macro recorded code
Lazy error handling for quick fixing
Using With and End with for some economy in our
coding
Tweaking Macro recorded code to control
Autofilters
Copying only the viewable (Used) Range
Using Offset and Resize to decide how much we
want to copy
The two ways to control formulas with VBA
Using Loops plus formulas for Analysis (Finding and
Summarising)

21

Dynamic
Charting: Part 1

22

Dynamic
Charting: Part 2

23

Dynamic
Charting: Part 3

24 End with

25

Controlling
Autofilters

26

Controlling
Formulas

Understanding how relative referencing affects the

recorded code
Custom keyboard shortcuts
Looking at Active-X button
Writing button code to trigger another macro
Recording and tweaking chart macros
What to remember about coding in worksheets vs
modules
Using loops and data validation for dynamic
charting

4.12

10.08

5.58

12.38

16.35

13.14

9.01
7.49

20.20

14.45

Module 4: Gathering Data

Your VBA skills will dramatically improve here as I start to make you an automation expert and all
while you learn one of the most important topics of gathering information from people. A skill that
will make you invaluable to your bosses and teams if you get it right. Note, not only do you get
technical skills but I share best practices from a professional perspective when it comes to asking
others for information and that insight is from my years of working, making mistakes and learning
the hard way. It will make all the difference.
Then your Automation skills will really deepen as we look at some powerful techniques to speed up
our work dramatically and we delve even more in to one of the foundations of VBA automation:
Loops. By the end of this lesson you will be an expert at automation and you will be able to
confidently speed up your work and since this is one of the most coveted analytical skills, you will be
in a position to command a much higher salary.

Name

Introduction

Description

Creating an
Input Sheet
Template

Mass producing
Input Sheets 1:
Set the scene
Mass producing
Input Sheets 2:
Worksheet
Variables
Mass producing
Input Sheets 3:
Autofilter
revisited and
Pastespecial
Mass producing
Input Sheets 4:
Manipulating
filter criteria

Understanding the reporting cycle

What is gathering information and how should
we approach it
Using data validation, conditional formatting and
good data practice to approach information
gathering
Deciding what we should ask for and leave out
when requesting data

Video
Length
(minutes
17:18

22:45

Break down the process of creating input sheets

into steps so we can plan our automation
Moving and copying worksheets and creating
new workbooks

Making a Worksheet in to a variable

5:12

Control data manipulation with Autofilter and

Usedrange (with offset and resize) code
Using Pastespecial instead of Paste with Copy

15:25

Getting creative with data extraction through

manipulating Autofilter criteria
Using 'Dateadd' and formatting code to gain
control of filtering dates

10:40

10

6:54

Mass producing
Input Sheets 5
Creating a
unique list to
prepare for
looping
Mass producing
Input Sheets 6
Instantly
creating 25
unique input
Excel files
Collating Data
from Input
Sheets 1 Starting
the new process

Collating Data
from Input
10 Sheets 2 Open
up one file and
copy data

Removing duplicates with VBA to create a

unique list
The importance of clearing what you have
copied with VBA from your clipboard

6:34

Looping through our unique list and creating an

Excel file per entry in the list

9:05

Break down the process of collating data once

we have received all our separate Excel files

5:45

VBA to open workbooks and understanding file

paths
Controlling at the Workbook level by creating a
Workbook variable
The benefits of turning off Excels alert messages
Applying Usedrange for more accurate data
copying

17:05

6:03

Introduction to
11 the DO WHILE
LOOP

A powerful new type of loop based on

condition(s) being met

Collating Data
from Input
Sheets 3 Looping
12
through all files
in a folder and
copying data

Constructing filepaths and using the wildcard *

operator to refer to all files
Using the Dir (Directory) command to find files in
a folder
Creative ways to deal with complex multiple
loop logic

Collating Data
from Input
Sheets 4 Setting
13 up new data
before we bring
into our long
boring list
Collating Data
from Input
Sheets 5 Looking
14 up latest data
MANUALLY into
our long boring
list

More Autofilters and Usedrange to prepare our

dataset for collation

Keeping it simple and manually writing

VLOOKUPS to bring our data in as a simple
option

11

17:22

11:41

4:12

Collating Data
from Input
Sheets 6 Looking
15 up latest data
AUTOMATICALLY
into our long
boring list
Collating Data
from Input
16
Sheets 7 Putting
it all together

Using FOR Loops and DO WHILE Loops together

to look up and collate information logically

13:00

Put together everything and press one button to

save over an hour of time!

6:20

Module 5: PowerPoint Automation

You will learn everything you need about visual automation such manipulating shapes (great for
advanced reporting) and controlling PowerPoint from Excel, this is the skill that separates the great
from the average Excel Gurus and will make you a superstar professional who is able to produce
lots of work very quickly. In the hands of professionals who know how to sell this skill, I call it a six
figure skill.

Name

Description

Why
PowerPoint?

Introduction
to the Object
Model
Programming
in
PowerPoint
1: Basics

Video
Length
(minutes

Why do we need to go to the effort of learning to

control PowerPoint over other Microsoft
applications
What do we need to control in PowerPoint from
Excel

4:31

How Excel and PowerPoint are constructed and

why we need to understand this

7:38

Getting comfortable with PowerPoint's VBA

environment
The importance of dimensioning and variables in
PowerPoint VBA
How to add multiple slides to a PowerPoint
presentation

8:12

Programming
in
PowerPoint
1: Shapes

Programming a shape onto a slide

The importance of naming shapes
Conditionally colouring shapes on a slide based
on the shape type

14.22

Programming
in
PowerPoint
1: Tables

Creating a table in PowerPoint, populating it with

information and some basic formatting

14:19

12

Opening
PowerPoint
from Excel

Pasting an
Excel range
as an Image
in
PowerPoint

Translating
Excel data
into a table
in
PowerPoint 1

Translating
Excel data
into a table
in
PowerPoint
2: Multiple
Slides

10

Drawing
Shapes in
Excel

11

Translating
Excel data
into Shapes
in
PowerPoint

Why we need to set a reference from Excel to

PowerPoint before we can do anything
The standard lines of code that will make Excel
control PowerPoint
Drawing shapes and tables in PowerPoint from
Excel

9:57

Why this is the preferred method of translating

any information from Excel to PowerPoint
The basic coding involved and the drawbacks of
this method

8:58

Transferring Excel data into a PowerPoint table

for a visually better output
Code to check how many columns have been
occupied
Two dimensional loops for more economic coding
Combing SELECT CASE with the IF statement for
handling very specific logical outcomes
Formatting the table by building up VBA code
step by step
Why using CHOOSE in VBA is key to looping
mastery!

29:48

What measures we need to take when our data

will need a table spanning multiple slides
Building multiple layers of loops to create the
logic required for this task

22:51

Principles of shapes and positioning on the Excel

grid
Using mathematics and geometry plus logic to
accurately position our shapes
Creating a milestone chart

19:16

Translate Excel data from our long boring list into

a visual PowerPoint diagram
Add labels to the diamond shapes in our plot

19:57

13

Week 6: The Solutions Vault

Week 6 is amazing, I share with you some of the best Excel solutions I have built in my career,
carefully chosen, these are templates, reports and solutions that have played a huge role in me
earning over 6 figures, so I am giving them to you to learn, steal and call your own. Take the credit.
You have my permission. Frankly this week is the worth the price of the course many times over and
I recommend even VBA experts to sign up just to get hold of these.

Name

Description

Resource
Analysis:
Good
practice for
managing
data

Dynamic
Charts

Charting
Actual vs
Forecast

Segmenting
for deeper
MI

Meaningful
Resource
Analysis

Interesting
MI
Aesthetics,
automating
folders and
PDF files

Automate
the creation
of a
PowerPoint
slide deck

Video
Length
(minutes

When to relax my rules of long boring lists small, self-contained data for a defined period of
time
NETWORKDAYS to calculate working days in a
period
Auditing your formulas to understand them and
fix any issues
How conditional formatting lets you build
business rules

15:25

Getting useful MI from our data

Automating a chart without VBA: Setting up a
dynamic chart with a scroll bar control and INDEX
formula

15:36

Getting creative with charting series to

distinguish actual and forecast data

7:33

Breaking down our summary into segments

Stacked Column chart: when its acceptable
Why good MI depends on understanding the
needs of senior people

6:41

Profiling resource data for meaningful analysis

The importance of cleansing your data

8:55

Interesting visual way of tracking RAG

movements
How a shape can contain formula values
Merging cells with VBA
Using VBA to create folder structures
Creating a loop to make Dashboards by division
and saving as PDF files
Extending our PowerPoint code to create a
complete slide deck
An extensive look at scaling images to fit
correctly on a PowerPoint slide
The benefit of date and timestamping file names

14

21:02

12:22

when auto saving

Combining
PowerPoint
with
Information
Gathering

Automating
the
production
of a Project
Summary
front page in
PowerPoint

Gather project information from Stakeholders

with a PowerPoint export built in
The convenience of embedding a PowerPoint
template into Excel

10:35

Break down a complex front page into sections

and automate one section at a time
A third way to control PowerPoint from Excel
How to link Excel charts to PowerPoint
Using conditional formatting as a column alert
Automation of a milestone chart
Using a conditional formula to decipher when to
merge cells

18.05

15