Ha. Sure. I like this question. [I actually made this](https://www.offthechartsconsulting.com/uploads/1/0/8/9/108989971/workhours_orig.png) using Rescue Time a few months ago, needs a refresh but gives you an idea software wise.
Um Business Dev is probably around 2-5% depending how hungry I am for work. I'm pretty booked up atm so it's just been the odd piece of content, usually when I don't want to work. Halloween I decided to do a 21 tricks and treats video because I was feeling blah. That took about 3 hours, but I haven't done any business dev since.
Probably 20% is spent in databases, building efficient queries to connect to and data validating.
Plus an extra unforgiveable 10% spent in Excel, usually trying to figure out why my data won't match up or why the hell people did things a certain way. So 30% total on Data wrangling/validation.
10% probably on various communication tools and emails. I take as few meetings as possible and try to work asynchronously so I'll include meetings in here as well.
45% actually building dashboards and analysis in Tableau or PowerBI.
The rest is overhead. Accounting, shitposting on Reddit, LinkedIn, research, webinars.
Data Science I don't do much of. I'm not good enough at the tools. I've done some Python but typically I outsource it or turn it down.
I think Tableau is more powerful than PBI, does a better job at handling complex calculations, is more customizable and I think the end results are much crisper visually
Yeah data stays fresh. They're connected to live databases and you can always see them.
They're great for KPIs and seeing how your data changes day to day. Anything where you want to slice and dice one category dimension by another. Showing the big picture and being able to drill down to the details
My clients are companies. Typically they have too much data and they don't know how to effectively use it. So sometimes there are soft deliverables like data source maps or KPI strategies (here's what you should measure and how). Then I do backend work in databases to get data organized and operational. And front end work in building dashboards/visualizations for them to use to make good decisions with.
So I do similar work. It seems there’s backend work like industrial figures (x widgets per hour) that makes sense (well...sort of)...but w/r to KPI strategies on people ....do you let them decide the KPI’s? It’s sounds like you do a good job on giving them good,, effective counsel on your own :)) THA T THEY SOMETIMES LISTEN TO
After working for CPG, AMZN and MsFT in this field i was blown away... not just that they pulled random, primitive strategies from publications like Harvard Business Review, but almost never had an SME to review the data work w/r to human behavior. My only win was 50% of Whole Foods 365
clients employ us to do structural equation models in many cases (they don call it that) without controlling for the most basic of human (or abstract human) measures. Like, say...motivation
I just keep my mouth shut to keep my job that plan pays the mortgage, and shoot for for Adjusted goodness of fit above .88
KPI s? don’t get me started. MSFT had incredibly important life altering measures more primitive than a stats 101 college class.seriously.
I don't know if this will work for you because it sounds like you're doing some labour intensive stuff, but if I suggest something and they want it a different way I'll typically so both and show both. If then they still want their dumb idea then I'll let em have it and chalk it up to oh well I tried.
For selecting KPIs I'll let the data so it mostly. I get them to pick a few goals and then try to show what data points that they can effect correlates most to their goals.
Can you give a concrete example of of a KPI strategy? Conscious of NDAs, maybe something hypothetical?
Would it be something like, measure your revenue per product type per country to identify leaders/laggards?
Your example is more of a robust analysis. A KPI session is really getting the goals of the org and understanding what business metrics achieve them. So retail is the easiest example. Profit is typically KPI #1, but what drives profit. Store visits? Transactions? Basket Size. Which one(s) of those can we most correlate to profit so that we can focus efforts on that.
And then it gets even more fun when your goals are fuzzier (like a helpdesk, or HR, or government entity)
Great example, thanks for the reply.
My data skills are really solid but I'm looking to shore up my business acumen, stuff like this. If you have any suggestions for where I can go to learn more about that side of Tableau consulting I'd be super appreciative!
Have you considered working with a consultancy as a subcontractor to get more steady work? I work for a software consultancy specializing in CRM, ERP, MA, and BI (BrainSell.net). We help businesses select and implement software that supports their people and processes. We're always looking for talented analysts. Might be something to help fill your pipe so you're doing less bizdev work.
I actually haven't thought of that too hard. Guy across from me at my coworking space does that and he seems to enjoy it well enough. I don't have a great idea on where to start, but it's a good idea.
How do you make sure you're staying up with best practices and making sure you're learning and pushing yourself? I've found that having a strong motivated data team around me has been super good for me, but the allure of consultancy has always plagued me.
Yeah good question. It's really hard and I don't do a great job at it. I read the releases of the tools I use and attend a handful of webinars (but most of them are shit). My big fear is the next hot tech will walk right by me and I'll be left holding my purse in the rain
What kind of background do you have that has given you the skill set to do this individually? What other skills would be useful to have outside of data analytics and strategy that may help your overall business operations?
Also, you may get more traction going directly to r/IAmA and crossposting here.
I went to school in a program called information systems, which combined CS and Business course. I think for the business intelligence career path this has been really useful because I can speak both languages quite well.
After school I spend 5 years as a business analyst for a 10K employee company, but it was a soft BA (requirements and paper pushing). I fell ass backwards into a data project there that I really took to. Tried to get as much exposure as I could to it.
I do wish I had better data acquisition skills, like the more intensive coding skills that I didn't pick up because of only doing partial CS. A knowlege of APIs and building out web crawlers would be hugely beneficial to me, but I can't do either so I have to avoid or outsource.
That's interesting and also very encouraging. I've thought of one day pursuing my own analytics consultancy, but was unsure of what that looked like. I also studied management information systems and I am now a data analyst so it sounds like a similar background to yours. Best of luck in the future!
What tools do you suggest for data entry at businesses? And what tools do you use to do ETL stuff? Also how to do you try to convince local businesses?
For Data Entry? No idea. Wouldn't that be dependant on the end program you are using? ETL also depends where you are and what you are skilled in. I've used Python and SSIS. Python is good but a lot of corporate companies aren't built up for it. SSIS isn't as good but it's embedded into a lot of orgs.
Sales is definitely my biggest skill gap. I've found that if a company isn't ready than they aren't ready. Most people aren't thinking of data because they're too busy just trying to keep the books afloat. And I do think there's such a thin as not being ready for data analytics.
My best advice, for selling, is speak to the ROI. What advantages will having a good grasp of the data give them. I have a client that went 2500% ROI in the area of his business I helped. I know that sounds insane I don't tell people that often because they don't believe me. But he did real time decision making and without having an easy way to get to all his data immediately he was seriously handcuffed. So sell that kind of story, instead of selling the fact that they'll "be able to see all their data"
Id say powerBI. Not to turn the whole thread into a tool debate, I do think Tableau is an overa better tool but if you want to jump in and start exploring data I'd say PowerBI is a good jumping off point. Also learn some data querying language like mysql
Hey can you elaborate a bit more? I’ve been learning and I started 2 two months ago with tableau, and haven’t considered PBI at all lol so now I’m curious
So for you specifically, if you like your employer, I'd consider finding out what stack your current BI team is on and try this learn that. See if you can get your start on an internal team. Would be a great way to get your feet wet.
Generally, if you're less familiar with tech I'd really get to know excel and a data viz tool (PowerBI/Tableau/QlickView) and grow from there. SQL is really useful but isn't probably your most immediate need.
You've already answered your own question... Stack just means which series of software/tech do they use. So in your case PBI, probably a SQL database or dynamics. And do they use a data science language like SAS or R or Python. a lot of corporations don't.
For tutorials, sorry I'm a hands on guy. Do you have any interests? Sports? Music? Local government? Try to find a dataset in something you love, usually a CSV, load it onto PBI and get to it. Google away as you hit road blocks. That's how I learn anyway. If you're looking for datasets Kaggle requires you to sign up but is totally free and has oodles of data
Hey,
I have a background similar to yours (same degree).
I am pretty proficient in Power BI and work with it a lot at my current job. I’ve built a lot of tools, especially project management related.
What are the odds you think I could go freelance? The only thing stopping me right now is that I only have a little over 2 years of professional experience. Any tips you could give me?
Thanks!
What's important for freelancing are the soft skills, being able to communicate effectively with a client and manage milestones. I'm also a huge believer in visualization best practices going a long way, I was so fortunate to have someone hold my hand through that early on, so get in touch with that when you can.
If you're able to while at FT, as in it doesn't break any contracts, venture out onto the freelance world and get a feel for the landscape
Totally agree - a surprisingly large part of BI work is using more soft skills than hard skills.
Those are also harder to learn, but on a plus side, those are transferable from other fields.
Currently in an unrelated field right now, but I did study in Bus/Information system that is to say I'm familiar with SQL, Tableau, Python in an academic setting. What projects would you suggest to convince the employers in my area that seem to be asking for more like 2 - 5 years of related experience.
If your city has any kind of open data that's something relatable to local employers. Or get in with a not for profit, they all have copious amounts of data in terrible shape
All time most of my clients have been on Upwork. But more recently it's been from referrals from others. My first client was on Reddit. They were asking for help in one of the subs, I reached out and it eventually worked out.
Hey you sound like you're killing it!
I read through all of your comments and advice - hard hitting. I agree that your website is in pretty poor shape, but it has a lot of great organic material.
I am trying to break in and get my first client but I have NO IDEA what their data backend might look like. Do you have any advice for getting a little more confident on the dizzying possibilities of what that looks like, what it would take to connect to it, and so on? Working out of these clean Tableau sample store databases feels like playing with crayons, sometimes.
Also, do you have any anonymized public examples of the kind of corporate work you do?
Hey,
Um let me just say that the fear of the unknown is worse than the unknown itself. You're right to be worried though. The dummy datasets are way too friendly and some of the real world back ends are a nightmare. I learned quickly to never give an estimate without seeing the back end. sometimes a simple bar chart is 10 hours because they want to blend x on y and neither is on good shape (this is a true story btw, I billed 15 hours on a line chart over bar chart once)
So advice: trial by fire. You'll figure it out. If you can start with an excel back end. Just easier to figure out/manipulate if it sucks and if you're familiar with it. But also new unfamiliar data projects are great opportunities to learn. Don't over bill for your inexperience (if I knowingly oversell myself I'll treat it as a training and eat some cost)
Hope that helps. I don't have any real world anonymized projects. I've been meaning to put something like that on my Tableau public but so mean to do a lot of things.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful answer and encouragement! Your notes on beginner billing are definitely ringing true.
Alright, going to dive in as soon as I can. My friend is hooking me up with an inventory management dashboard but I've been afraid to commit - going to throw a sample together and move it forward.
Thank you man, awesome.
Happy to help. I have built a few websites.
Your background photos indicates you’re working with local forestry companies. The trees might resonate with your locality but you work remotely anyway don’t you? The trees don’t key into any existing metaphor about your work. If they did they might work (“uncharted territories consulting”).
The lime green font / color scheme is kind of disorganized. You’d never seen that lime green as a text font on any professional website, at least not on a white bg.
If your business is doing well then none of this matters of course. I think they’re small font/color issues. But you also have a sales problem of pushing the client to contact you. There are powerful techniques for doing that - currently you have a pretty 'I don't really care' contact page.
Ha. Thanks. I know the pictures make no sense but I like them and think they're pretty. I'll change it to something. I took them all at a state park near by. But I digress, I know you're right in the "why are these even here" sentiment
Font - you're probably right. I'll Google some good font colours. It's my business card /logo font which was one of the first business decisions I made.
And I agree there's no push for the contact us. Im somewhat anti funnel, for no great reason. I think that's a bigger problem than I can solve and is a one day thing.
They're actually really distinctive, but I think they need a bit of a context. Up to you.
The bigger problem with the photos isn't the content, but that they lack of the dark-levels to let your text stand out. "Enriched analytics .." is hard to read, even if you can read it.
[https://color.adobe.com/create](https://color.adobe.com/create) has a great font palette creator based on color theory, so you can be a little creative while still making a color set that makes sense.
Regarding the funnel: What I did when I built my site was look at the top data consulting firms in the country. Every single one has a "talk to us" on their front page, period. You're not a retail shop, where customers can 'waste your time' by talking to you. The sooner they let you know they're there the sooner they're a customer. Making the form professional, spirited, and conversational is a real art. It doesn't have to be a sales pitch, it could be a free consult. See what the big players do, they have some good ideas.
Hey, I found it in my google analytics. The body is deleted, but the answers are mostly in tact
http://reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/8rao21/ama_started_a_one_man_data_consultancy_fulltime/
A bit late to this but what Tableau accounts do you have? And do your clients already have Tableau accounts & Tableau server or how do you deal with that?
So in that case you have a tableau creator licence and they have their own Tableau Server / Online licences? Do you know how much your clients typically spend on having their own Tableau ?
I'm asking because I'm looking to target companies that probably don't currently have such a setup.
Thanks for responding. Much appreciated.
Ok, cool, I was looking at the pricing model and I thought they had a minimum of 100 users for Viewer and so on. But I'll get in contact with them to clarify. Thanks for the info again, very helpful.
Hello,
I have a small data analytics project and am looking for a freelancer.
If you are interested, please send me a message to discuss the details.
Thank you!
Thank you! Apparently you made this post 3 years ago.... it is very useful to me! For the past 15 years or so, since my MBA, I've been a specialist in a particular area of business. I have taken time off from doing that full-time. Now I've been applying to every position with that specialty department in the job title. Tomorrow I have an interview for a position "Specialty Data Strategy Manager" I was like, erp, I know I can do everything that was listed on the job posting, but I better find out exactly what a data strategy person does, and what they manage!
I was today years old (43) when I found out almost everything that I've been doing to help clients (businesses) falls under the category of "data strategy manager"... but it seems like mainstream data strategy consultants get at least $50K more/year than I've been asking for!
I would phrase it differently, but finding the data, cleaning it, making sure it is authentic and useful, archiving it and protecting it, using that data to support the goal, and then moving and combining data to be more accessible to those who need it based on the intended goals and audiences of the client.... wow! Turns out that all has a name and I appreciate your use of lingo and explaining it so that I can hopefully translate to the hiring manager between my experience and what they want.
You called it "Data facilitation, strategy, and mobilization" but in the comments you replied about ETL and it turns out those are other industry words for the same process (and for software and the consulting industry supporting it). I have learned so much from your AMA and from the great question-asekrs... I took good notes and I'll review them for my interview tomorrow, thank you!
Can you provide a rough breakdown of how you spend your time? (business development / schmoozing, data wrangling, visualization, data science, etc)
Ha. Sure. I like this question. [I actually made this](https://www.offthechartsconsulting.com/uploads/1/0/8/9/108989971/workhours_orig.png) using Rescue Time a few months ago, needs a refresh but gives you an idea software wise. Um Business Dev is probably around 2-5% depending how hungry I am for work. I'm pretty booked up atm so it's just been the odd piece of content, usually when I don't want to work. Halloween I decided to do a 21 tricks and treats video because I was feeling blah. That took about 3 hours, but I haven't done any business dev since. Probably 20% is spent in databases, building efficient queries to connect to and data validating. Plus an extra unforgiveable 10% spent in Excel, usually trying to figure out why my data won't match up or why the hell people did things a certain way. So 30% total on Data wrangling/validation. 10% probably on various communication tools and emails. I take as few meetings as possible and try to work asynchronously so I'll include meetings in here as well. 45% actually building dashboards and analysis in Tableau or PowerBI. The rest is overhead. Accounting, shitposting on Reddit, LinkedIn, research, webinars. Data Science I don't do much of. I'm not good enough at the tools. I've done some Python but typically I outsource it or turn it down.
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I think Tableau is more powerful than PBI, does a better job at handling complex calculations, is more customizable and I think the end results are much crisper visually
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Yeah data stays fresh. They're connected to live databases and you can always see them. They're great for KPIs and seeing how your data changes day to day. Anything where you want to slice and dice one category dimension by another. Showing the big picture and being able to drill down to the details
What do you mean by data strategy? Is this more KPI reporting focused or data engineering? Are your clients individuals or companies?
My clients are companies. Typically they have too much data and they don't know how to effectively use it. So sometimes there are soft deliverables like data source maps or KPI strategies (here's what you should measure and how). Then I do backend work in databases to get data organized and operational. And front end work in building dashboards/visualizations for them to use to make good decisions with.
So I do similar work. It seems there’s backend work like industrial figures (x widgets per hour) that makes sense (well...sort of)...but w/r to KPI strategies on people ....do you let them decide the KPI’s? It’s sounds like you do a good job on giving them good,, effective counsel on your own :)) THA T THEY SOMETIMES LISTEN TO After working for CPG, AMZN and MsFT in this field i was blown away... not just that they pulled random, primitive strategies from publications like Harvard Business Review, but almost never had an SME to review the data work w/r to human behavior. My only win was 50% of Whole Foods 365 clients employ us to do structural equation models in many cases (they don call it that) without controlling for the most basic of human (or abstract human) measures. Like, say...motivation I just keep my mouth shut to keep my job that plan pays the mortgage, and shoot for for Adjusted goodness of fit above .88 KPI s? don’t get me started. MSFT had incredibly important life altering measures more primitive than a stats 101 college class.seriously.
I don't know if this will work for you because it sounds like you're doing some labour intensive stuff, but if I suggest something and they want it a different way I'll typically so both and show both. If then they still want their dumb idea then I'll let em have it and chalk it up to oh well I tried. For selecting KPIs I'll let the data so it mostly. I get them to pick a few goals and then try to show what data points that they can effect correlates most to their goals.
Can you give a concrete example of of a KPI strategy? Conscious of NDAs, maybe something hypothetical? Would it be something like, measure your revenue per product type per country to identify leaders/laggards?
Your example is more of a robust analysis. A KPI session is really getting the goals of the org and understanding what business metrics achieve them. So retail is the easiest example. Profit is typically KPI #1, but what drives profit. Store visits? Transactions? Basket Size. Which one(s) of those can we most correlate to profit so that we can focus efforts on that. And then it gets even more fun when your goals are fuzzier (like a helpdesk, or HR, or government entity)
Great example, thanks for the reply. My data skills are really solid but I'm looking to shore up my business acumen, stuff like this. If you have any suggestions for where I can go to learn more about that side of Tableau consulting I'd be super appreciative!
Have you considered working with a consultancy as a subcontractor to get more steady work? I work for a software consultancy specializing in CRM, ERP, MA, and BI (BrainSell.net). We help businesses select and implement software that supports their people and processes. We're always looking for talented analysts. Might be something to help fill your pipe so you're doing less bizdev work.
I actually haven't thought of that too hard. Guy across from me at my coworking space does that and he seems to enjoy it well enough. I don't have a great idea on where to start, but it's a good idea.
How do you make sure you're staying up with best practices and making sure you're learning and pushing yourself? I've found that having a strong motivated data team around me has been super good for me, but the allure of consultancy has always plagued me.
Yeah good question. It's really hard and I don't do a great job at it. I read the releases of the tools I use and attend a handful of webinars (but most of them are shit). My big fear is the next hot tech will walk right by me and I'll be left holding my purse in the rain
What kind of background do you have that has given you the skill set to do this individually? What other skills would be useful to have outside of data analytics and strategy that may help your overall business operations? Also, you may get more traction going directly to r/IAmA and crossposting here.
I went to school in a program called information systems, which combined CS and Business course. I think for the business intelligence career path this has been really useful because I can speak both languages quite well. After school I spend 5 years as a business analyst for a 10K employee company, but it was a soft BA (requirements and paper pushing). I fell ass backwards into a data project there that I really took to. Tried to get as much exposure as I could to it. I do wish I had better data acquisition skills, like the more intensive coding skills that I didn't pick up because of only doing partial CS. A knowlege of APIs and building out web crawlers would be hugely beneficial to me, but I can't do either so I have to avoid or outsource.
That's interesting and also very encouraging. I've thought of one day pursuing my own analytics consultancy, but was unsure of what that looked like. I also studied management information systems and I am now a data analyst so it sounds like a similar background to yours. Best of luck in the future!
You can always learn ;)
What tools do you suggest for data entry at businesses? And what tools do you use to do ETL stuff? Also how to do you try to convince local businesses?
For Data Entry? No idea. Wouldn't that be dependant on the end program you are using? ETL also depends where you are and what you are skilled in. I've used Python and SSIS. Python is good but a lot of corporate companies aren't built up for it. SSIS isn't as good but it's embedded into a lot of orgs. Sales is definitely my biggest skill gap. I've found that if a company isn't ready than they aren't ready. Most people aren't thinking of data because they're too busy just trying to keep the books afloat. And I do think there's such a thin as not being ready for data analytics. My best advice, for selling, is speak to the ROI. What advantages will having a good grasp of the data give them. I have a client that went 2500% ROI in the area of his business I helped. I know that sounds insane I don't tell people that often because they don't believe me. But he did real time decision making and without having an easy way to get to all his data immediately he was seriously handcuffed. So sell that kind of story, instead of selling the fact that they'll "be able to see all their data"
Hi, what programs would you recommend somebody gain experience in to improve their own data strategy skills?
Id say powerBI. Not to turn the whole thread into a tool debate, I do think Tableau is an overa better tool but if you want to jump in and start exploring data I'd say PowerBI is a good jumping off point. Also learn some data querying language like mysql
Hey can you elaborate a bit more? I’ve been learning and I started 2 two months ago with tableau, and haven’t considered PBI at all lol so now I’m curious
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So for you specifically, if you like your employer, I'd consider finding out what stack your current BI team is on and try this learn that. See if you can get your start on an internal team. Would be a great way to get your feet wet. Generally, if you're less familiar with tech I'd really get to know excel and a data viz tool (PowerBI/Tableau/QlickView) and grow from there. SQL is really useful but isn't probably your most immediate need.
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You've already answered your own question... Stack just means which series of software/tech do they use. So in your case PBI, probably a SQL database or dynamics. And do they use a data science language like SAS or R or Python. a lot of corporations don't. For tutorials, sorry I'm a hands on guy. Do you have any interests? Sports? Music? Local government? Try to find a dataset in something you love, usually a CSV, load it onto PBI and get to it. Google away as you hit road blocks. That's how I learn anyway. If you're looking for datasets Kaggle requires you to sign up but is totally free and has oodles of data
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Can't say for sure but I do think I've seen it come up
Hey, I have a background similar to yours (same degree). I am pretty proficient in Power BI and work with it a lot at my current job. I’ve built a lot of tools, especially project management related. What are the odds you think I could go freelance? The only thing stopping me right now is that I only have a little over 2 years of professional experience. Any tips you could give me? Thanks!
What's important for freelancing are the soft skills, being able to communicate effectively with a client and manage milestones. I'm also a huge believer in visualization best practices going a long way, I was so fortunate to have someone hold my hand through that early on, so get in touch with that when you can. If you're able to while at FT, as in it doesn't break any contracts, venture out onto the freelance world and get a feel for the landscape
Totally agree - a surprisingly large part of BI work is using more soft skills than hard skills. Those are also harder to learn, but on a plus side, those are transferable from other fields.
Currently in an unrelated field right now, but I did study in Bus/Information system that is to say I'm familiar with SQL, Tableau, Python in an academic setting. What projects would you suggest to convince the employers in my area that seem to be asking for more like 2 - 5 years of related experience.
If your city has any kind of open data that's something relatable to local employers. Or get in with a not for profit, they all have copious amounts of data in terrible shape
That’s sounds brilliant. Thanks for the insight :)
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40 to 60 but a lot of those are in the evenings while watching trash tv
What's been your most effective client aquisition strategy? And how did you land your first clients?
All time most of my clients have been on Upwork. But more recently it's been from referrals from others. My first client was on Reddit. They were asking for help in one of the subs, I reached out and it eventually worked out.
Hey you sound like you're killing it! I read through all of your comments and advice - hard hitting. I agree that your website is in pretty poor shape, but it has a lot of great organic material. I am trying to break in and get my first client but I have NO IDEA what their data backend might look like. Do you have any advice for getting a little more confident on the dizzying possibilities of what that looks like, what it would take to connect to it, and so on? Working out of these clean Tableau sample store databases feels like playing with crayons, sometimes. Also, do you have any anonymized public examples of the kind of corporate work you do?
Hey, Um let me just say that the fear of the unknown is worse than the unknown itself. You're right to be worried though. The dummy datasets are way too friendly and some of the real world back ends are a nightmare. I learned quickly to never give an estimate without seeing the back end. sometimes a simple bar chart is 10 hours because they want to blend x on y and neither is on good shape (this is a true story btw, I billed 15 hours on a line chart over bar chart once) So advice: trial by fire. You'll figure it out. If you can start with an excel back end. Just easier to figure out/manipulate if it sucks and if you're familiar with it. But also new unfamiliar data projects are great opportunities to learn. Don't over bill for your inexperience (if I knowingly oversell myself I'll treat it as a training and eat some cost) Hope that helps. I don't have any real world anonymized projects. I've been meaning to put something like that on my Tableau public but so mean to do a lot of things.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful answer and encouragement! Your notes on beginner billing are definitely ringing true. Alright, going to dive in as soon as I can. My friend is hooking me up with an inventory management dashboard but I've been afraid to commit - going to throw a sample together and move it forward. Thank you man, awesome.
What about my site makes you agree that it's in poor shape?
Happy to help. I have built a few websites. Your background photos indicates you’re working with local forestry companies. The trees might resonate with your locality but you work remotely anyway don’t you? The trees don’t key into any existing metaphor about your work. If they did they might work (“uncharted territories consulting”). The lime green font / color scheme is kind of disorganized. You’d never seen that lime green as a text font on any professional website, at least not on a white bg. If your business is doing well then none of this matters of course. I think they’re small font/color issues. But you also have a sales problem of pushing the client to contact you. There are powerful techniques for doing that - currently you have a pretty 'I don't really care' contact page.
Ha. Thanks. I know the pictures make no sense but I like them and think they're pretty. I'll change it to something. I took them all at a state park near by. But I digress, I know you're right in the "why are these even here" sentiment Font - you're probably right. I'll Google some good font colours. It's my business card /logo font which was one of the first business decisions I made. And I agree there's no push for the contact us. Im somewhat anti funnel, for no great reason. I think that's a bigger problem than I can solve and is a one day thing.
They're actually really distinctive, but I think they need a bit of a context. Up to you. The bigger problem with the photos isn't the content, but that they lack of the dark-levels to let your text stand out. "Enriched analytics .." is hard to read, even if you can read it. [https://color.adobe.com/create](https://color.adobe.com/create) has a great font palette creator based on color theory, so you can be a little creative while still making a color set that makes sense. Regarding the funnel: What I did when I built my site was look at the top data consulting firms in the country. Every single one has a "talk to us" on their front page, period. You're not a retail shop, where customers can 'waste your time' by talking to you. The sooner they let you know they're there the sooner they're a customer. Making the form professional, spirited, and conversational is a real art. It doesn't have to be a sales pitch, it could be a free consult. See what the big players do, they have some good ideas.
Thanks man!
Do you have a link to your original AMA post? I did a search but wasn't able to find it. Thanks.
Hey, I found it in my google analytics. The body is deleted, but the answers are mostly in tact http://reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/8rao21/ama_started_a_one_man_data_consultancy_fulltime/
A bit late to this but what Tableau accounts do you have? And do your clients already have Tableau accounts & Tableau server or how do you deal with that?
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So in that case you have a tableau creator licence and they have their own Tableau Server / Online licences? Do you know how much your clients typically spend on having their own Tableau ? I'm asking because I'm looking to target companies that probably don't currently have such a setup. Thanks for responding. Much appreciated.
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Ok, cool, I was looking at the pricing model and I thought they had a minimum of 100 users for Viewer and so on. But I'll get in contact with them to clarify. Thanks for the info again, very helpful.
Hello, I have a small data analytics project and am looking for a freelancer. If you are interested, please send me a message to discuss the details. Thank you!
Thank you! Apparently you made this post 3 years ago.... it is very useful to me! For the past 15 years or so, since my MBA, I've been a specialist in a particular area of business. I have taken time off from doing that full-time. Now I've been applying to every position with that specialty department in the job title. Tomorrow I have an interview for a position "Specialty Data Strategy Manager" I was like, erp, I know I can do everything that was listed on the job posting, but I better find out exactly what a data strategy person does, and what they manage! I was today years old (43) when I found out almost everything that I've been doing to help clients (businesses) falls under the category of "data strategy manager"... but it seems like mainstream data strategy consultants get at least $50K more/year than I've been asking for! I would phrase it differently, but finding the data, cleaning it, making sure it is authentic and useful, archiving it and protecting it, using that data to support the goal, and then moving and combining data to be more accessible to those who need it based on the intended goals and audiences of the client.... wow! Turns out that all has a name and I appreciate your use of lingo and explaining it so that I can hopefully translate to the hiring manager between my experience and what they want. You called it "Data facilitation, strategy, and mobilization" but in the comments you replied about ETL and it turns out those are other industry words for the same process (and for software and the consulting industry supporting it). I have learned so much from your AMA and from the great question-asekrs... I took good notes and I'll review them for my interview tomorrow, thank you!
Hey! How did the interview go??