8 Years Of Data Consulting - 7 Of The Best Lessons I Have Learned While Consulting
I have been consulting for nearly a decade now. As you can imagine, I have made many mistakes and spent lots of money and time trying to land new clients, test out new services, and continue to improve my business.
As they say, you learn more from your mistakes, so I wanted to cover some of the lessons I have picked up over the last eight years.
So let’s dive in.
1. Being Technical Is Not Enough
This might seem like the most obvious lesson, yet I see businesses and other consultants make this mistake constantly. They assume making a good enough product or being top talent will automatically get them clients and/or customers.
It won’t.
For example, the CEO of Palantir once treated it as “a point of pride that the tech was good enough to sell itself.” Karp once said publicly the only way he’d hire a sales team was if he were forced to by investors, or if he were “hit by a bus.” - LA Times.
Then somewhere around 2019, regardless of what Palantir said, they started hiring people for sales.
Whether you rely on sales, marketing, or a combination of the two, there are very few exceptions.
You could be the best engineer, analyst, or data scientist, but if no one knows you exist, you don’t. It’s that simple.
I learned this lesson very quickly after the very first project I took on because my first client came to me through another consultant. I was able to make an extra $60k in my very first year. But as soon as that project ended, guess what–I no longer had any side income. I had expected the consulting would continue and now I had to sit and wonder.
“How do I land more clients?”
That’s when Seattle Data Guy was truly born.
I then spent the next few years testing out various platforms, blogging styles, etc.
I learned a lot about what doesn’t work and what does.
I learned what type of content my target persona wants to read.
First people need to know you exist then they need to trust you.
2. Charging By Hour Will Hit a Wall
When you first start consulting, you’ll likely charge an hourly rate, and personally, I believe you should. After all:
You don’t really know what people value.
You don’t really know what to charge.
In turn, charging by the hour is a safe way to ensure you don’t overpromise and underdeliver.
However, eventually, you’ll want to charge for the project's value for a couple of reasons.
It motivates your client to be more on top of the project.
I once had a project drag out because I charged hourly and the client was distracted by multiple other projects. In turn, they only responded to my questions and inquiries when they had time. This project could have taken two months instead it took four.
It increases the amount you can earn.
The largest challenge any small independent consultant faces is they are often trapped by the hours they work. If you want to make more, you can only really increase your hourly rate. But eventually, most companies run into an issue where paying a certain hourly rate might seem to high. But when you reframe it as the cost for the whole project that’s fine. Why? Because then they aren’t thinking about your time but instead the actual value of the project.
Now the next challenge will be to figure out what the value of a project is.
Here are at least a few pillars you can use to determine the value of a project.
Speed
Cost
Expertise
Quality
Risk reduction
Experience
Tangible outcomes
3. Focus On One Thing and Make It Better
It can be tempting to try to improve everything in your business all at once.
Your marketing.
Your hiring.
Your sales.
More than likely, you can only focus on one or two things at a time and really try to improve it.
For example, perhaps you want to get more engagement on your LinkedIn posts. One great way to do this is to start testing out posts on LinkedIn and analyze the outcome (engagement, who engages, types of engagement, etc).
Then find the top 20%-30% of content and rehash it. Improve it.
If you see a type of “Hook” do well, see if you can rephrase it to also do well.
Maybe keep the same hook but change the body or the image. You’d be surprised how well some of these pieces do. In this way, you’re building up a set of dozens if not hundreds of posts.
Another area you might want to focus on is increasing your minimum project size. Perhaps you’re currently at 20k on average but you’d like to get to 40k.
How would you do that?
You’ll likely need to change a few key areas:
Change who you’re targeting as customers
Change what service or product you’re offering (make it more valuable)
Change your pitch
So even a small goal can require you to change and test multiple aspects of your business. So don’t worry about targeting three different metrics. Instead, focus on one key area for a quarter or two, really improve it, and then keep it up for the long term.
But you won’t know until you start testing out your new pricing(this assumes of course, that you have enough prospects to change/test your pricing).
4. Information Is Cheap, Execution Is Everything
Deep down, many technical people believe their knowledge gives them value. In fact, the other day I had someone boast about how many different SQL date functions they had memorized and how they believed people who didn’t memorize them were lesser.
Information is cheap.
It’s everywhere.
And with ChatGPT, it’s become even cheaper.
But I think Kent Beck is correct when he says:
Now it comes down to execution and guess what, that’s hard.
Why?
Execution takes discipline
Execution requires knowing what not to do
Execution requires nuance
Execution requires human buy-in
Execution requires consistency
So don’t feel like you have to protect all your knowledge. Set up free webinars and write articles with your unique perspective.
That’s what will help you get in front of people who need you to solve their problems.
5. Don’t chase money chase problems
One reason you might decide to consult is because you assume you can make more money than you would by working full-time.
Which is true.
But the paradox of money is the more you chase it, the farther it seems to go.
Chasing money can make you come off as desperate, it can put you into a downward spiral, and it can distract you from the actual goal.
Solving problems.
If you’re stuck and don’t know what problems to solve, here is what you should do instead:
Set up calls with possible customers, with the only intention being to understand their problems. Don’t sell to them. Don’t do this once or twice. Do this 20, 30, 50x.
Write out the problems you think you could best solve.
Create content around it on LinkedIn and your blog and see how people respond
Help people on LinkedIn or a user group/Slack channel.
Chasing problems and helping people is a far more effective way of increasing your income vs. chasing money.
6. Get Unblocked Fast
One of the habits I have seen some FTEs have is when they get blocked or need to finalize a step, they wait until a PM or manager reaches out to them to get it resolved.
“Oh, I was blocked because of someone being on vacation or unclear instructions so I didn’t do anything”
Or..
“I figured we could solve it in our meeting in two days”
The problem is being blocked for two days can quickly become two weeks. Thats why you need to get unblocked fast.
And you can’t always unblock yourself, especially as an external consultant.
So you need to get unblocked fast. One great way to do so is to set up a meeting with everyone needed to make a decision.
I don’t have the exact number, but 60-70% of blocked issues I have dealt with have been resolved by a quick huddle. Sending emails back and forth is sometimes too slow, and getting everyone on a call that is required to make a decision can help push things along. Honestly, I have been on so many calls where the person blocked will be like, “Ohhhh, that’s what you meant.”
Also, as part of the “getting unblocked thought”. You need to see around corners as a consultant.
You don’t have a lot of control. It doesn’t mean you have the right to get blocked by unforeseen issues. For example, I once was on a project where we were working with multiple teams, and I spent some of my time and energy understanding schedules and when people would be on vacation. That way I knew if we were coming up on a choke point, we could get what we needed from a person before they went on a two-week vacation.
You’ll notice that both getting unblocked fast and charing a price that makes people focus on your project ensure the project ends successfully. Part of these lessons are just tools to make sure you run a project smoothly(because most projects don’t). So be different, so you’re worth the premium.
7. Quality Is Better Than Hacks
When it comes to marketing, you’ll see plenty of people say “You have to use x amount of hashtags” or “Make sure you make your first LinkedIn sentence 6 words long.”
The truth is that quality content will always win in the long run.
So yes, you can complain about algorithms and in groups of social media creators but there are so many people that are beating the algorithms. They don’t make content to appease it but instead make content that people want to listen to or read.
Quality writing, videos, and lessons will always beat a finicky algorithm.
Also, sometimes just because you get a lot of likes doesn’t mean you’re getting likes from possible clients.
So don’t get distracted by the wrong metrics.
What Lessons Will You Learn?
As I get closer to a decade of consulting, I am sure I’ll continue to learn even more lessons, and perhaps some of the points above will need to be revisited or there may be even further nuance. But that is part of growing in any field or discipline. At each stage, the lessons that got you from A to B might not get you to C or D.
Your goal is to constantly improve and find new skills and methods to get to the next level.
Don’t keep fighting the same level bosses!
Thanks as always for reading!
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8 Years Of Data Consulting - 9 Of The Best Lessons I Have Learned While Consulting(Video Version)
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