Spreadsheets - And Why You Can't Survive Without Them

Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets - Get Acquainted Quickly

The Story

My career began in 1999. I was hired as the 12th employee in a company where I would spend nearly 12 years of my life. I graduated high school in the early 90s, having taken a typewriter class and computers class that was mostly about using DOS (the first "user friendly" personal computer program). And in 1999, that was the extent of my knowledge about computers and software. 

On the 2nd day of my new job, the CFO asked me to email him a summary of my sales calls. I opened up a Word Perfect document and meticulously typed columns and rows and filled them with the accurate numbers and then, with the help of a calculator, I added each item and manually wrote the sums of my columns. Then, I emailed my CFO back, as requested, telling him I would bring the report to his desk. I printed the document and carried it over to his desk, having done my best to deliver A+ work. 

Brent, our CFO, was incredibly kind, gracious and patient. He asked, "Don't you know how to use a spreadsheet?" I replied somewhat confused, "Yes. I just gave it to you." He then asked, "Don't you know how to send an email attachment?" I said, "What's an attachment?" And my training began. It amazes me that I wasn't let go in that moment, but with a little coaching he and I worked together and I later joined the executive team in that company where Brent and I worked side by side with the the President to grow our little business to over 800 employees. 

The Lesson

Part of owning a business is finding the passion to begin learning again. This article is written for those of you that find yourself where I found myself in 1999 - a little lost as it relates to using a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet ship has not set sail, and you can learn some important spreadsheet basics to help you proceed. 

The entrepreneur's spreadsheet is somewhat of a crystal ball. It tells us the past and predicts the future. It archives our very best thinking, it documents our assumptions and, with the use of some simple formulations, it allows us to precisely forecast sales, costs, products, profitability and more. 

I have several complex spreadsheets that I look at and update multiple times every single day. I have a product pricing and margin predictor that I have built over several years to forecast every conceivable expense associated with the products I sell. I have a marketing spreadsheet documents every marketing campaign I have ever run, with cost and profit formulations that help me learn to avoid future mistakes. I have a spreadsheet that tracks all of my social media posts, all of my emails and all of my website content updates to zero in on what worked and what didn't work. 

When a new month begins, a game plan for that month is developed based on previous years. Before planning April of 2025, I will look at March, February and January 2025 to see trends about what is working and what isn't working. Then I will look at my archives in April 2024, 2023, 2022 to make sure that I avoid the mistakes made in those years and I focus on past successes. 

A spreadsheet is so much more than a one-time-use document. When done correctly, it is a living, breathing part of your business that you refer to regularly to measure performance, success, failures and to look to the past so that you can more wisely look to the future. We work with many entrepreneurs in their 30s, 40s. 50s and even 60+ that never had to use spreadsheets. Our classes are designed with them in mind. 

4 Essential Spreadsheets

There are 4 spreadsheets that you must have as you begin your business or begin work on improving your business:

1. Product profitability spreadsheet
2. Business pro forma/profitability spreadsheet
3. Email campaign tracking spreadsheet
4. Marketing performance spreadsheet

Of course, there are a great many other spreadsheets that you will develop for 1-time or sporadic irregular use once you become comfortable using Excel or Sheets, but these 4 should be reviewed daily to track your improvements and your struggles. Archiving the past is the very best way to minimize failure in the future. Your business's past, when documented in a helpful and accurate way, is your business's crystal ball. 

The Fulton365 team can assist with training and development of any of these spreadsheets and more customized options as well. Contact us and let's build effective spreadsheets and dashboards for you today. 

Enjoy the journey,

Paul Fulton