Chart Starter Series

Tasked with making simple, clear, easy-to-understand charts and graphs but intimidated by Excel?

Excel may not be exactly user-friendly, BUT you own it and can master graph-making in it with the Chart Starter Series of tutorials.

Use the tools you have to make compelling visualizations for reports, slides, handouts, and dashboards.

The Chart Starter Series equips you with the 10 lessons you’ll most need to massively improve your graph-making skills in the shortest amount of time.

The Evergreen Data Visualization Academy has dozens and dozens of chart tutorials but I packaged together the graphs I implement most commonly with the organizations I consult with around the world.

You’ll get a quick jumpstart on charts and graphs with the Chart Starter Series.

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Gain Go-To Guru Status

I’m entering my second year with the Evergreen Data Academy. It’s a daily resource for me… if I have a data visualization question, I *know* the answer will be in the Academy. The experience and advice of fellow Academy members is invaluable as well. Learning from Stephanie and the Academy has made me *the* person that everyone in my 400+ employee company comes to for data visualization, reporting, and presentation advice… including our CEO.

– Joseph

Audiences rave about the beauty of the visuals I’ll show you how to make in these tutorials. People who take our training series get recognition, become an indispensable resource around the office, and even get promoted.

Step by step we’ll walk together through what you are even looking at when you open Excel. We’ll hold hands through making the highest impact charts and you’ll learn when to use which to tell your data story. This is content you can only find here – I don’t share these secrets in my blog or my books.

You’ll even get my Chart Chooser Cheat Sheet that most people pin to their office walls for easy reference.

And you’ll have my tried-and-true structured process for making great visuals to follow any time.

Here are my highest recommended tutorials that I’ve packaged for you in the Chart Starter Series:

How to Use Excel

If you are not familiar with Excel, go through this tutorial for a basic orientation. Learn the lingo, what the buttons do, and how to produce a graph.

Embed Legends

As much as possible, embed the legend inside the graph so that the data are directly labeled.

Customize Colors

Default colors cause confusion and make you look like you are, well, default. Let’s change that up and use colors intentionally.

The Basic Bar

Follow the simple steps of simplification and emphasis to shape up any default graph type.

Overlapping Bars

Shows how two categories compare, when those categories have some inherent connection.

Diverging stacked bars

Diverging stacked bars are the best chart type to use when your data has a natural diverging point in it – any time some of the responses are desirable and others are not.

Dot plots

Dot plots are a really flexible graph type than can be used to show change over time or comparisons among multiple groups. These are made by manipulating Excel’s default scatterplot.

Take your reports to the next level

Being a part of the Evergreen Academy has helped me and my colleagues make our reports more engaging and visually impactful. We are much more thoughtful in how we convey information and have instituted monthly meetings to discuss data viz challenges and solutions.

– Livia

Each Tutorial Includes:

  • A step-by-step video, walking you through how to make the graph
  • Written step-by-step instructions with screenshots
  • Templates of completed graphs, ready for your data
  • Worksheets of data to practice alongside the video
  • Research behind why this chart type works
  • A forum for asking questions
  • Something fun with each tutorial

You can access this knowledge and skill for $299. Watch, practice, rewind, practice again until you feel like a pro.

When you are ready for more advanced content, you can apply your Chart Starter Series payment toward full Data Visualization Academy enrollment, where we have over 50 tutorials, plus a new tutorial each month. When you join the Academy, your Chart Starter Series cost will be discounted.

Become the Office Data Ninja

Being a part of the Academy has helped me to expand my data visualization skills and ensure that the data I communicate out is aligned to the purpose of collecting the data and in a clear, usable format for those it is being communicated to.

– Chris

Chart Starter Series Data Visualization Academy
Video tutorials 10 tutorials in Excel 50+ tutorials in Excel, Tableau, and R
Worksheets and templates In each tutorial In each tutorial
Research behind the chart choice In each tutorial In each tutorial
Written step-by-step instructions In each tutorial In each tutorial
Community forum In each tutorial In each tutorial, in a private Facebook group, and in a private Slack channel
Payment One-time Renews annually
Office Hours Once a month
Help on personal work projects Any time
New tutorial every month Sometimes even two per month!

Excel is so powerful! It is the engine driving many companies. Data validation, 3D models, Trig functions – we aren’t going to use any of that!

To tame Excel into making high impact visuals, we will stay focused on specific parts of the program and ignore everything else. As intimidating as Excel might seem, this series of tutorials will give you the power.

The Chart Starter Series is perfect for people who have to present data to funders, clients, executives, or the public.

Stressing your sales meeting? We’ve got you.

Aggravated by your annual report? We can help.

Stumped by your survey software graphs? We’ll show you how to do it better.

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The technical stuff

The tutorials are based in Excel 2016 on a PC. Most menus and buttons are in a similar place on older versions of Excel on a PC and we tell you what to expect if you are using an older version. We do not provide instructions for Excel on a Mac (why do they have to be so different?) but the forum is always there for you to ask a question if you run into trouble. Upload a screenshot and we will help you navigate.

We know you’ll love our content – thousands of people do. In the event that we just aren’t working for you, you can request a refund within 24 hours of purchase by emailing uhoh@Academy.StephanieEvergreen.com.

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