Being Both a Successful Consultant and Entrepreneur Means…

The keys to be a successful entrepreneur is such a loaded question. As are the keys to be a successful consultant. The world is full of subject matter experts who are out there offering their services to small businesses as they operate their own small business. A lot fall short of success.

That’s probably a better place to start. I could give you my keys to successful, but they may not work for you. Promising someone I have never even talked with, that my consulting solution is going to be successful for them, comes across as arrogant and just money hungry. I get literally 100 pitches a day via email, social media and by phone. I barely have time to look at even 10% of them and the ones I do are never the ones with all kinds of promises up front.

Being an analyst, I know that data can tell one person something and not mean anyone to someone else. I’ve worked with enough organizations to know that there is no one size fits all analytics solution. No two companies use their data in the same way. So, in my business I am very agnostic when it comes to training people how to use their data. I have my favorite, but I don’t pitch any software or application exclusively.

I also have learned that not only are data environments unique to each organization, so are the people doing the analysis. Analytics is very personal discipline.

It starts with curiosity, adds on technical skills and domain expertise and because everyone learns how to do analytics different and we are all different people, you can’t expect anyone you train to do it exactly the way you do it.

SO, I never lead my offer with any kind of guarantee. I have to get to know your data environment, you and your team’s skill sets, what technology you are using and what the expectations of senior managers are before I can have any idea if I can help you or not.

What I can promise, is that I will walk you through an assessment of your business and how it uses data. I will show you an outline for how many successful analytics programs work. I will introduce you to case studies I have come across. I will lead you through hands on exercise and group projects to get your understanding of analytics to the next level.

I often say my training is as much empowerment as it is technical training. Most people go to a technical training and come back struggling to implement the exact way of things they learned in the class room.

That’s why I focus on building an understanding of the whole analytics process, building a roadmap on how you can level up things and I mix in some technical training along the way. That’s why I have been successful both as an entrepreneur and a consultant.

When you reply back to one of those countless sales pitches someone is selling you, ask them how they are sure their solution will fit your organization. Don’t fall for the silver bullet solution, analytics is not something you can buy a software or go to a 2-day technical training and have magic results. That’s may two cents.