One question: Who is your customer?
And one conclusion:
Your customer is not the Excel influencer.
Your customer is your boss’s boss.
Everything else flows from that.
Let me ask a very simple question.
If you’re learning Excel on social media—
who are you doing it for?
Because it’s worth being brutally honest.
The people promoting Excel tips and tricks online
are not your customer.
They’re not going to pay you.
They’re not going to promote you.
They’re not going to decide what you’re worth.
They want your clicks, your likes, your subscriptions—
and maybe for you to buy their course.
That’s the relationship.
Now compare that with the people who do decide your future.
Your boss.
And more importantly—your boss’s boss.
Those are the people who decide:
- how valuable you are
- whether you get promoted
- whether you’re trusted with bigger responsibility
So here’s the real question:
What do they care about?
They don’t care about tricks.
They don’t care about clever formulas.
They don’t care how pretty your purple square is.
They care about end-to-end outcomes.
Scale.
Reach.
Collaboration.
Consolidation.
They care about whether the whole wall gets painted.
And this is where Excel has gone badly wrong in the workplace.
Because most people are trained—very efficiently—to paint perfect little purple squares.
Sharp edges.
Neat corners.
Beautiful brushwork.
Everyone working in their own box.
But your boss’s world is not a purple square.
Their world is the entire wall.
And the fastest way to paint a wall
is not with a thousand tiny brushes.
It’s with a spray gun.
Same paint.
Same Excel.
Completely different outcome.
Now here’s the uncomfortable truth.
Social media Excel training optimises for visibility, not value.
I can show you videos with hundreds of thousands of views—
thousands of likes—
endless praise—
that simply do not work in the real world.
And when people quietly point that out in the comments,
they’re fobbed off.
Because those questions come from a different audience.
The audience within the audience.
The people who serve real managers, real finance leaders, real organisations.
And those people are asking a different question:
“Will this survive contact with my boss?”
Most of what’s taught won’t.
Which is why finance leaders end up with headaches, not solutions.
Now here’s the opportunity.
If you can make the shift
from purple square thinking
to spray-gun thinking—
if you can solve problems end-to-end,
not inside a workbook—
you become visible to the people who matter.
Your boss’s boss looks at your work and says:
“This changes everything.”
Those people are your customers.
They reward you.
They promote you.
They protect you.
So the next time you learn a new Excel trick, ask yourself:
Who is this really for?
And who is going to pay me for it?
If the answer isn’t your boss’s boss—
you’re painting another purple square.
3. 30-second summary
Here’s the truth in 30 seconds.
Social media Excel influencers are not your customer.
They want your clicks.
Your customer is your boss’s boss.
They decide your value.
They don’t care about tricks.
They care about end-to-end results.
Most Excel training teaches people
to paint perfect little purple squares.
But leadership needs the whole wall painted.
Same Excel.
Same paint.
Different thinking.
That’s the difference between being visible online
and being valuable at work.
Add comment