 Hello, I'm your host Alex Friedberg and this is the Alex the analyst show. Thank you so much for joining me today I am bringing on a very special guest. It is John over at how to get an analytics job on YouTube I am interviewing him on some really good topics and those topics include things like Starting an analytics come consulting company how he got clients how he networked his pricing We also talk about doing freelancing on Fiverr and Upwork and a little bit about the tools that he uses as You know an analytics professional doing consulting business as well as running his own business And so is a very good interview in my opinion, and I hope you enjoy it without further ado Let's get right into the interview I just want to kind of get an introduction of kind of who you are So why don't you share a little bit about yourself and then we'll start going from there? Of course. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on so absolutely This is a great opportunity to kind of reach your audience and it sounds like they've got some questions about consulting So super excited to talk about that. So a quick little rundown of who I am So my name is John David, and I'm the founder of a consulting agency called Silverton analytics I also have nine courses published online, and I also teach At High Point University in Greensboro College I teach Excel at High Point University and a case studies in physics analytics at Greensboro College Which is kind of cool because I get to combine my students with my consulting clients and they get to work on actual real projects I think that pretty much sums it up Awesome. Yeah, and and you know your YouTube channel is very good and you're always bringing on guests and I was a guest of yours That's true. What was it like three four months ago? It's one of the best performing videos. What's that? It's one of the best performing videos so the zero to a hundred thousand people right that topic, right? Yeah, I mean who doesn't love a good success story really and and that was I had a lot of fun making that I had always Planned to bring you on It's just our schedules are so different so right super honored to have you on here I'm gonna get started with the questions of if that's all right Absolutely So the very first question I want to ask is, you know, how did you get into analytics? You know, was that always your plan or it just kind of happened? You know because I think a lot of people start in other careers and then somehow Find their way into analytics and so I'd love to hear a little bit more about About how you actually got into this field So I guess let me start this kind of topic or conversation around I think around 25 There was like an existential crisis that I had so I Started undergrad and I was kind of like in this daydream of like being really immature and I didn't work very hard I wasn't very focused then I got out of undergrad and I worked and I sold insurance 100% commission door-to-door for three years and that just That was a come-to-Jesus moment so to speak. I was just like I Am miserable. I was living at home. I was making hardly any money Then I finally landed like my white whale of a client and then overnight they just Went with another provider. So that was man I was like six years ago and then what I did was I took three months off because I had some passive revenue coming in from the insurance I had sold already and I started doing some analysis and I found out that Analytics analytics data, you know data science all of that was just this hugely emerging space the future and And it just so happened that two blocks away from where I was living at the time UNCG had just started in the NBA with a concentration analytics so then I applied got accepted and then I had two years to kind of Kind of turn my whole life around So you kind of took a big leap forward or kind of a shot in the dark Almost because it was a new program and you didn't really have an analytics background, but you still went for the masters You still went for the masters, even though you weren't sure if that was for you, I guess Well, I knew that I needed to develop a skill and I probably could have done that much cheaper if I would have done kind of like the online learning route, but that's It's kind of risky because you know, you might find a course that is Not very good. You also don't have the mentorship or the community aspect that you do at the university setting, right? So I would say the NBA Basically gave me the space to kind of collect myself and then the time and the energy to focus on on building a skill So that was kind of how I I turned that out And I would say the most valuable experience that I had during that NBA was I had three internships Wow, two of which were flaming dumpster fires Which I'm actually that those are the most probably the two most valuable experiences I had During my master's program because it gave me a very quick feedback. So these were three months, you know work projects that I realized I hate this. I can't work this. I don't like this person. I don't like this company culture I don't like working for a big company. So that gave me a lot of feedback to where that last semester I actually went with a much smaller company. So I went I was interning at a 12 billion dollar company And then actually applied for a much smaller company and even this is kind of wild They were looking for someone who didn't have very much experience or skills Basically, I was at mba applying for like a sophomore or junior level Position in undergrad, right? But what I did was I showed up with that to that interview saying, hey, look You need to do a line review I can implement tableau and we can scale this to your entire company. So within that last three months I've built out the analytics infrastructure For my first client. So I turned that internship into my first client and this that was four years ago And I'm still managing that that system today. That's awesome So, you know, I've talked about kind of a big company versus a small company based on your story Are you saying you would recommend a smaller company to get started? Was was it more beneficial? I think that I you have to It's probably really valuable to you because you have three kids. We have a wife That just seems existentially just boring to me like I like I I want New novel things So like working as an analyst in one of these big companies you kind of be doing the same thing for a number of years I mean, you might have some fires to put out here and there but like you're pretty set to where With this smaller company I was working directly with the president of the company And I got to define and carve out the work that I wanted to do. So I basically had influence over the decision maker Yeah, no, I totally get that. Um, and I had a very similar experience and then I I completely agree with you I think you have a little bit more Little bit more influence a little bit more say and things and it's It can be definitely be a good feeling and you learn a ton at small companies because They give you a lot more tasks and a lot more Um A lot more leeway on the kind of work you do. It's not as set and narrow. It's kind of a little bit more broad So that is awesome. Um, and you mentioned that you had a unit an MBA It sounds like you had a very interesting experience with the internships You know something that a lot of people ask me is, you know, what kind of degree should I get? Should I go get a master's degree? Do I need the master's degree? Uh In your experience, would you say that your MBA was extremely beneficial or you kind of wish you had gone a different route with your education? Hmm That's a really tough call because I feel like the classes I took on analytics Did not really provide me any skills. Like I did not come out of those I think I took four or five like Topics or classes on analytics or kind of data science And it's taught by an academic who's far removed from the field And what their teaching might be like 20 to 30 years outdated So like I I don't think that In terms of hard skills that really was a home run Although that being said, I did learn the business vernacular. I learned About, you know, I mean the MBA program we focused on marketing and technology and supply chain and all the various difference So it was a good education And I went to UNCG. So it was relatively cheap. It was a $24,000 MBA So I don't have that name brand recognition of like a harvard or stanford That being said If you're going the south consulting route, you don't really need an MBA I don't think a client has ever asked me Where I went to school or even if I had it, they're just concerned. Can you do this or can you not? Right. So my portfolio speaks volumes volumes volumes louder than Any accolade that being said if you want to go to the big company route, I think it does matter Yeah, yeah, I I I definitely Can understand that viewpoint. I think the larger companies definitely look at the education A little bit closer because they want people who kind of as have those proven smarts You know, they have the education from the name brand school. And so That's, you know, extremely interesting and and pulling that into your business You now own your own business your own consulting company I would love if you would go a little bit more into that You know, you started it yourself You you run it And and you bring in your own clients, which just seems, you know It's very different than a traditional what I would consider a traditional data analyst job But I know that there's a large Demand not maybe not as much demand, but um, there's a lot of people wanting to do what you're doing And they want to know how to get into that business Um and and everything that pertains to that. So could you walk through a little bit about Your consulting and business kind of how you started it How you get clients and the kind of work that you do with your clients Okay So the way that I started it, well, I kind of gave you a highlight reel Of I turned my last internship into my first consulting client and I've been paid on retainers since then for the past four years So at least have a base level of income, which is it's not a lot and this could be a whole another topic too of I started as an intern and now i'm negotiating up from like $10 an hour So like going from 10 to where I charge 175 an hour now, right? I for that specific client I do not charge nearly that rate. It's it's hard to make that leap right, um, so yeah, I started with that one client and For about two months. I worked from my kitchen Got super lonely and then I moved to a co-working space in downtown greensboro And I worked there probably for three to six months And what the benefit of working at one of these co-working spaces that I was surrounded by entrepreneur's And I was also the only person that was kind of an analytics expert. Although at that time I was like not I didn't even know what etl was, you know, I was like very green But I had the sales skills to like kind of convince people Um, what happened after maybe three to six months of working there? I ran into a guy who was a fractional cx. Oh, do you know what that means? No So gary fly was a former business partner. He's actually now one of my clients. It's funny That relationship didn't pay out until like our partnership dissolved and then he took over the presidency of a pretty large company in greensboro Now i'm consulting for them So, uh cx. Oh is he's basically hired as a c-suite executive. So either cmo co See anything but cfo. So he's not a finance guy So he'll come in if a company's struggling and basically You can kind of think of it like flipping a house Like you buy a foreclosed house fix it up and then sell it So he would be kind of the person fixing up the company and then he would come out interesting, okay, so That one relationship opened up my network like an incredible amount and what actually happened was Him he introduced me to ryan forrest. He was one of my closest friends And he's actually like a we do a lot of work together. He he runs this marketing agency called fun guy marketing the three of us actually Rolled up an llp. So limit liability partnership and for about two years We were kind of sourcing just that network and coming in and bringing clients. So The number one way that I find clients is through referrals just through being known as the analytics expert in greensboro, which I mean, it's 350,000 people. I think in greensboro. So it's i'm kind of a big fish in a little pond Right So that would be the number one way. Yeah, you would say you would say you kind of found a niche in your area Exactly and you it's mostly networking. It sounds like um, I also got into public speaking. So there was a nonprofit before covet hit that was um, they were doing these Thursday gatherings so it was called venture cafe and you would come in and talk about a specific topic and I would I went maybe I started going there every week just to kind of network, but then I started getting into Talking about analytics and different aspects and then I would bring clients in that way And I also started getting got into kind of doing seminars as well So within my co-working space One of their revenue models that they kind of experimented with and was having the experts that were there Do like hour-long seminars on their area of expertise and it turns out that the cfo relatively large waste disposal company showed up to my seminar to learn tableau And then went home Tried to implement some of the things was like, I don't have time for this. I'm just going to hire him So now I've worked with that client for probably a year year and a half now That's awesome. So it really is I mean just kind of putting yourself out there Going to events networking getting to know people and then, you know, it may not pay off immediately But it did pay off I guess for because my question is because if I were to start doing this today If I were to, you know, say, hey, I'm going to start a competing company against you call it, you know, Alex And it's the exact same business, right? And I'm trying to get, you know, I come to your area I'm trying to get your clients I would find it extremely hard To enter that market. I couldn't imagine how I would enter that market without knowing people How would I go about meeting people like that? I mean yours was a little bit different It was a different time, you know, you had the that you kind of put yourself out with seminars and with all these things You know, I'm a nobody nobody wants to hear Alex talk They you know, I might meet him on like LinkedIn or something is, you know, how would I go about meeting people to grow a business in consulting? Oh, man, that's a tough question, especially right now Yeah, so like now there's like this new online conference thing, which I think is a really strange concept um One way that you might actually want to try to approach this so you're thinking of it kind of like Getting established in a local smaller market Right I think that may not be the right approach Okay, um, I think that so so ryan forrest actually just mentioned. He's the cfo or cmo of that company There runs his own marketing agency. He is now starting his own youtube channel talking about his area of expertise so I think that concept of Teaching you got to figure out. Okay. What's my niche? So he's his thing is using google analytics to drive more sales So what he did was he kind of empathized with his client or his potential client that he might bring in through youtube kind of come up with a list run them through like, um Tube buddy or some type of um SEO tool to figure out are people actually searching for this and then put the content out there So basically it's you you would get them Teach them the basics then they'd realize. Oh, this is much more complex than I wanted or thought it was I don't want to do this. I'm just going to hire this person who's taught me these skills So I think that's one strategy to really get yourself established um, because I I don't know if I have any good advice of like Now that we're in lockdown like how do you organically meet people? I don't know if that that You know, maybe in a year and a half or whenever, you know 2050 whenever this stops In an almost sounds like it's it's almost sounds to me like instead of the traditional networking You're almost becoming somewhat of a teacher someone who people can trust And then when they come to you Then you're like, hey, you know, I have this I can work for you I can help you with this or just being through teaching them They might want you to work for them instead of the traditional going in person shaking hands Um, you know, all of that stuff that typically goes along with networking Right. It's like bringing it back to kind of the sales marketing thing It's the difference between cold calling and cold outreach like hey, you've never met me, but I want to charge 175 to fix your analytics. They're gonna be like, here you versus Oh here, I can help you. I can help you with this one aspect And then they come in and if they get value out of it, you've kind of created some goodwill And I mean, I don't want to sound overly Machiavellian, but If you build up enough of that goodwill you can eventually eventually cash in on it, right? Well, you know, I mean you have to make a living somehow No one's no one's sitting at home, you know listening to this and being like man That guy's over here trying to make money. I don't like it everyone You know, we got to respect the grind that you know You are putting a lot of time at up front time because you could be doing all these trainings and nobody could buy your services And you are just helping people and in the end, you know Sometimes that's all you get out of it and maybe later on down the road Somebody signs up or wants your services. So, you know, it's not always a guaranteed thing And that's actually that is one aspect that I was kind of interested in because I have a paycheck I get a paycheck every two weeks, right? And I have a budget based around that that paycheck. It's very consistent. I know exactly what I'm going to make, right? How are those paychecks different? You know, how how is the salary coming in different than when you have a traditional nine to five job? Oh, it's extremely volatile, but I will say this Because I think kind of you're talking about the paycheck But what I'm kind of hearing underneath the surface there Is this concept of security so income security, right? So I would say that on the front end if you're If you're kind of at point one, I want my next opportunity You could go the employee route and you have that guarantee But that being said you leave a lot of earning potential on the table You could go the consulting route, which is very high risk on the front end But you can make a multiple more If you can get kind of that critical mass developed to where kind of what I what I tell people is It's it's kind of flip flop short term. I would say Being an employee is a secure bet That being said you have one revenue source. So if your job goes out of or if your business goes out of Out of work or it's like if it goes under that's gone to where where I'm at now I have probably six different revenues like pretty solid revenue sources So if I lose one of those clients, which that actually happened with COVID. I lost Two pretty solid consulting engagements. That being said, like I'm actually making more money now than I was before the lockdown Because my online course sales have just skyro. I've had 160,000 people take my courses so far this year Wow, so that that has been a massive just I'd say multiplier there So you kind of get to a point where you have it's almost like being polyamorous too Like you have multiple people who have paid you money. It's like being on this versus polyamorous Where like those relationships might have might come back to where like that cfo from that company Had that project and then six months down the road. They're gonna say, oh Well, we actually could mine this data or do or visualize this So as the years go on you have a growing pool of people who who you've done good work for you've executed They trust you and they've already spent money on you. I think that's a pretty big one too So like just getting someone to already say yes, it's easier to get them to say yes again But it's you're kind of like building the stable of potential revenue sources So now it's funny because like I have I have more consulting work than I can realistically get to right now Because I'm teaching two courses and running the podcast Which is it's interesting to see because I'm what I'm stressed about is that I I don't want to say no Because I don't want to hurt that relationship because it it might lead to even more work Yeah, and that's everything you said is just gold. I mean I I try I try to Think about that because you know, I thought about it. I'm like, you know, I'm a smart guy I could go into consulting. I just I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do But I could figure it out, right But realistically, I mean You and I are we're different because I have a family of three I have I have response. I you know, I have not not that you don't have responsibilities I have obligations to my family and I can't I don't really have the opportunity right now financially to take a risk, especially during, you know, code and everything that's going on um, and so you know To me consulting would be very scary and very scary for my family. I think that that level of um Unknown with that paycheck like you were saying that sense of security would be very big for me You know, I Do you You know, you don't have to talk about it, but do you have a family? Do you have a girlfriend? Do you have something that you know that you would kind of compare with my three kids um Or are you kind of like more on your own where you have the time to to do all the consulting and all these other revenue streams as you said I would say I'm aggressively single right now aggressively now now when you say aggressively single. What does that mean? I got to know um You know, I was talking with my friend about uh this of like, you know how you get into a new relationship You kind of have like this honeymoon phase. Yes. Yeah, I feel that way towards like my business right now Which I don't know if that's healthy or weird But like now I've just monetized on youtube. I just got a sponsorship deal And I'm like I've created this this life for myself And it's like very fulfilling. I feel like also the teaching is actually really meaningful because I get to like actually impact young people's lives And like yeah, for sure. It's like ego fulfillment of like I'm the professor. I'm smart listen to me I'm molding you but right I'm I'm in a really good place to where like I don't know if I have Time or bandwidth for another like a Like a serious committed relationship, right to where like I mean I I do date casually, but like I'm not looking currently for like you know I actually had to turn a girl down recently on that met on bumble who was looking for like well I want to have kids soon or I want I want a commitment Hey, slow down Hey, look, I'm bringing in a lot of money right now. Say Right, right. So that's that's where I'm at and I and I realized that Well, I'm 31 so like if um, I may have kids a little bit later If I do decide to go down that route, um, which are the pros and cons of that But you're right. I am privileged in a certain aspect based on the past decisions. I've made because like I was editing videos until like 10 p.m. On saturday night, you know, like I I maybe should have a little bit better of a work-life balance, but I feel like I'm just There's so much opportunity On the table. I feel like I owe my past self Like look you sacrificed for four years now like barely holding on and now there's all this opportunity coming into your life You owe it to yourself to make sure that you capitalize on it. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean and and I think that is a really good um Really good way to put it because uh, you know I know what it's like to be flat broke and and it's hard for me to turn down things too And so, you know, I could imagine, you know, once you start going down the path There will be things that you have to Sacrifice in order to make a relationship kids, etc work And so, you know, I totally get that and it definitely sounds like if somebody wants to get into this field They really need to consider You know, do they want to go if they want to do the consulting do they have do they have family? Do they have responsibilities? You know, do they have kids things like that before they start really diving into it because it is a large time commitment up front I'm sure Okay, I do want to caveat this though So if you already are working in or so the the traditional advice is that I should not have started my consulting agency Essentially knowing nothing and having no Three experiences as an intern like you shouldn't know that's And I I'm like lucky and then I'm hard headed not to not listen to people when they're telling me what to do Which is also I'm unlucky because I don't listen when people tell me what to do sometimes I think that if you are maybe 10 years into your career as an analyst and you have a lot of people in your network Who could be potential clients? And you have a kid and you have a family and you I think this is the kicker though If you have capital if you have money to invest in building a website and building out a maybe high marketing person building out a marketing campaign You The what I essentially what I put in over the past three to four years was sweat equity So I was yeah, I had zero income stability I mean, I did you actually go further into debt, you know, I don't think American Express is the best creditor to take out good tip But I full that being said I've paid down like a massive chunk of it over the last few months So it's paid off But if you have if you have some like money stashed away that you can invest You could approach this from a much I guess less all in I basically what I did was I burned the bridges like I don't know what general that was but You know, they got their army to the the other continent and they burned all their bridges So they had no option to go back. So I just pushed forward and It was a huge gamble and it's I mean, it's it's paid off like I'm I'm I'm here now Um, you know, I mean definitely like, you know, I could be like where you're at where I have, you know, a family and kids and stuff, but I think that I'm pretty happy and I feel pretty fulfilled right now. Yeah So I think it paid off But yeah, I don't want I don't want the audience to get the takeaway that You have to be single and you have to be like insanely driven to start consulting because I don't think that's true You can actually kind of split it too. Like you could start Um, actually, I know somebody Who works for a major bank that was one of the founding I guess architects of their analytics infrastructure He scaled back to working two days a week and consulting three So there are other paths. I cannot tell you what that that's like because that's not like my lived Personal experience. I don't know viscerally like what that entails because I it's funny that my my podcast is how to get an English job I've never had one Yeah, yeah, no, that's a I'm glad you said that because I was not trying to say you have to choose kids in a family Or consulting I wasn't trying to say that but I'm glad you said it because I could Listening to myself play that back. I may have alluded to that. I was not trying to mean that But yeah, that's that's a great point. Um In something you mentioned a little bit earlier was work-life balance. Uh, you know, my work-life balance is I don't have one because I'm I stay up till about 1 a.m Every night doing work that I should have done during the day And I wake up at 6 o'clock to help with the kids. I mean, it's it's it's terrible But it's it's more family integrated with my work because of cove it and everything that's going on So it's a little bit different because but you're in a different situation You know, you're mostly but business focused. How does your work-life balance work with just the business side of things and everything that you do? Um, I will say this I am very very unbalanced right now and Because I'm probably going on three or four weeks of working like seven seven days a week um, I Part of that is this is my it's it's funny because like right now I'm in a position where I don't have to work so my my passive revenue sources from All my courses so have nine courses across linkedin lynda And you to me I have I've had 160,000 people sign up. So I don't really Have to work right now But what's weird is that now i'm working harder than ever because it's like well, I had a sponsorship come out Yeah, I you know, we just monetized. Let's how far can we Like can can I develop this, you know? Well, another thing i'm doing too is I pitched high point universities of building my own learning platform So I've already sold that course. I'm going to be teaching this case studies and business analytics using this software that uh Or platform that I have to develop myself. I have to do that by january. So I basically just I don't know You keep adding you keep adding things Right, so maybe six months from now. I will have completely had a crash and I'm like, you know what? I'm in a mini retirement. I'm not doing any work Right Hopefully i'm not going to burn out because it almost feels like a car battery that's like charging itself to where Like yeah, there are things that kind of drain my battery, but like We we're doing this really cool thing with the greensboro college students where We're actually using my data To and my money to come out with like ad campaigns. So I actually just I helped they they wrote a first iteration of a Subscribe to our youtube channel script We studied the youtube analytics the audience tab to pick out. All right. Who should we target? Who's the demographic and we built out like a data driven buyer persona? So the students actually like got to create that And I have spent so much time just like Cutting that and editing that and now it just it was like christmas morning. We hit the play button on the Google ads last night. So today is the first day that I get to see the results Right, and we've already seen a huge uptick in awesome and subscribers. So it's I mean that that's like I literally felt like a little giddy kid being like, oh What's what what it's saying to bring me today? Right, right? Yeah, awesome. Um, I want to trans maybe not not completely transition topics, but um, go to the kind of this separate question which is A lot of people don't want to go out there and just start their own business But they want to kind of dip their toe into the consulting into freelance work And there are some websites that you can do that two of the most popular being fiver and up work I personally have zero experience with these And I've told people that I'm like look that's not my thing I don't I don't know about this But I was hoping maybe you would since you're kind of more in that domain That I am do you have any experience with those um websites and would you recommend them to people? Um, yes, I do actually have a video on my channel about my success case of I I have successfully used upward to source a client. So as a client that was out I'm in Greensboro, North Carolina. They're out in san francisco And they do some type of medical sales device So I essentially they I I post I responded to their job posting and said here's my portfolio I can take this data and I can build out it was survey data and they basically wanted um, basically like a data app where I would Pivot the data put it into A Licorate scale and then we could filter on male female what what position were they in in the hospital Blah blah blah blah and they could use that to mine You know, how many 150 survey responses to build out marketing copy. So that that Was maybe a year and a half ago. I just had her reach out six months ago or I guess right before COVID hit for another project. So I would say absolutely up work is a great way to find work and And I don't know if this is unfair And consider it but they do have this new feature. So when I first signed up Anybody and everybody could post But now there's an option to toggle on us only or Everyone in the entire world. So I think what happened was Back three or four years ago people From india or maybe some other country were just super underbidding everyone from the us And at first the people were looking to get their projects finished like oh, we won But then there was like a there's time difference. There was probably communication issues English The second language. So now there's an option to just bid on or just accept applications from us only I don't I don't know if you're specific youtube demographic. So if you guys Sorry audience if you don't fall within that, um, it's a little bit tougher on ump work But if you do fall in the us, definitely go check that out That's really interesting now Was it very lucrative were you earning a lot of money would you know, is that like full-time job? Money that you're we're talking about is it just like side hustle a little bit of money here and there Oh, yeah, it was it was basically like just a consulting engagement So we we agreed to a set price and then I worked on it for like a week But I mean it was very lucrative in that week, you know, I mean I brought in A few thousand dollars off of just a little bit of work Um, but what you could do if you wanted to is you could like really focus Actually one of our podcast guests on the how to get an English podcast I think he is like a superstar status on up work. And I think he's made over a hundred thousand dollars on it Wow, that's awesome. And then is that over the course of like a year two years three years? Um, you know, I I can't speak To the specifics on that. This is like a conversation. I had like a year ago when he came on the podcast But I know that I mean he's made he's got like a He's got a whole agency with like subconscious or employees and they're doing a bunch of work So that might be a little bit different because his bandwidth Like he can just say, hey, I found this new this new project You know Susie go work on this and then he's just kind of the middleman But um, I know that if you can get enough projects and what's cool about it is there's the the rating system So if you if you get a project with someone and he leave a good review and a five star rating That's going to help you get your next job Right. So it kind of comes back to that same concept of like starting your own consulting agency Getting over that first critical mass or that first bump is the hardest part But then once you get there you actually have I think more security and a higher income But it's like there's there's kind of that like no man's gap where you are like Should should I be doing this? Should I just take the safe route? Right and then because because you know, I took a really high risk Kind of approaching my career the way I did I could have just I mean, I guess worst-case scenarios that I would have filed bankruptcy and my credit would have been written for five years Where I don't know if that's like a I don't know if that's like a rich person's mentality I don't know if I'm like Donald Trump here being like, oh, yeah bankruptcy fine Perfectly normal everyone's doing it Right. Like yeah, like I'm all in. Oh the the game wouldn't pay off. Yeah Awesome, um, you know with all the work that you do, you know, it's Something that I'm really interested in is, you know, are you using the same tools that I'm using because I feel like The tools that I'm using are I'm using a lot of ETL tools A lot of sequel, um, you know, I'm starting to get into cloud platforms You know we use Tableau Power BI those kind of things those staples, you know in the consulting era or arena What tools are you like primarily using? And could you I guess give a little bit about how you use those tools for your actual work? Okay, so this is probably gonna surprise you because I am not very technically savvy like I I do not believe that You make you you make youtube you have youtube videos you create courses You have a podcast. I mean look at look at your setup. By the way, you're better than I am Oh this setup I mean, you're glowing. I mean look at what I got going on in here It's night and day. See I feel like you're much more technical savvy than I am No, well, I don't even know how to code in sequel I might know how to copy and paste a couple things But yeah, so like essentially what I do is I I am stronger on the sales side less so on the technical acumen side So if I do need to like bring in a data scientist, I can subcontract that work. So like for example I I've got a new client proposal on the on my desk right now where the client is working with some CRM so customer relationship management tool and we need to automate that So I'm just going to subcontract that out. So I mean I can My strong suit is that I can close deals and then I can You know, I actually had this conversation with my students yesterday about like we were talking about case study and one of the math one of the students is a math major And just took this to kind of like round out their their senior year And he went like super into like the mathematics. He was like We were looking at total sales and deal size across industry and he was like, well, if we did this calculation Blah blah blah blah and and I was like look a CEO is not going to care like about your math They're going they're going on basically what I tell people if I'm being a little cutesy here is I make picture books for very influential adults Like this box is bigger than this box So we should do this I mean, it's like And the thing is like it's um, I'm watching this this show designated survivor and it's like I think I'm pretty good at the technical game Yeah, yeah, you know like um, he was he was like talking about this response and a press meeting or something and the um, the head of press or whatever was like Look you're going in your professor tone. Just give them very basic simple answers And then that that's how you handle that and then so there is a caveat to that in that If I'm telling a ceo or cmo like this is the recommendation I have or here's the analysis They're like, well, this doesn't look quite right Then you go in and you show them the math or you go in and show them the data So I totally am not answering your questions. The tools that I use are excellent tableau Also power bi too Okay, okay, so well, you know what you said is super interesting now. I mean it's more decision maker stuff Rather than the super technical Getting into consulting, you know, it is a business you have to have that business side Whereas I don't need to have that business side as much so I get much more into the technicals Rather than the business aspect that you have to do in order to be successful Um, so you mentioned excel have low power bi So you're more on the visual the visual side of things Yeah, so when I first started at like the first six months after my MBA I branded myself as a data visualization specialist Sure, then I realized that's too narrow and now I kind of brand myself as an analytics expert Which is um a little a little vague and a little questionable. Maybe I don't know how to code Expert can mean a lot of things right, yeah I mean, but um I think a lot of people are really interested in that because I think I would say a lot of people have the misconception That a data analyst does a lot of visualizations which which we do. I'm not saying we don't But it's a lot heavier on the technical side of cleaning the data etl stuff to get the data in Getting it set up for the visualizations and then the visualizations are maybe 10 15 sometimes 20% of your job It sounds like yours is a lot more when you're actually doing technical stuff. It's at the business side It's a lot heavier on the visualization side of thing. Right exactly. Yeah So essentially what I do is I build interactive dashboards and so I'm working with companies 150 million or less So they're not they're not huge companies where there's kind of like legacy systems and there's like this whole nested Like, you know, you had the original system and this was tacked on and this was and these don't communicate You've got to have one of those architects. Yeah, I don't have that. It's like, oh We want to look at our google analytics data, which is pretty much collected perfectly unless they didn't set up one of the tracking things right, which You know And that's definitely a critique I've had on my courses is that I don't have enough dirty data that I should I'm a little off base with data analysts to where I guess I kind of I kind of see myself as a business analyst, but really what you could see me as as a management consultant with a little bit of Technical analytics acumen. Yeah, I could totally see that because you know, I work with the messiest data you ever seen in your life and A lot of my job is cleaning that up and doing a lot of that work where You know, you're getting clean data and I'm extremely jealous because that sounds like a dream come true Right, but you get to use that data to make impactful business decisions for a company Yeah, it really is I wouldn't say I would not say that what you're doing is like Data analyst it definitely is analytics, right? But so, you know, there it's it's just a different path of analytics You can go the more technical Route or the little bit more business side of things Right, which, you know, you got to keep your options open. Maybe you want to do both And find some niche in there That they're really capitalized on but you know, it's not just If I'm a data analyst, I could go and do what you do, you know Yeah, so I think that's like coming back to the do I regret my MBA or not? I did learn a lot about Business from kind of the corporate jargon perspective. Although you could argue like this is like my third or fourth business like I I know new business You know, like like these these like huge companies like they don't understand youtube What's fascinating to me is that I have made my niche Off the failures of tableau and power bi to market on youtube So the way that my channel is blown up is that Two years ago tableau put out a new desktop specialist certification. I simply made a review Of that certification my experience passing it and then that blew up got picked up by search algorithm the search algorithm And now I've made a bunch of videos on that and now I've capitalized on this kind of I don't know What do you call that like digital real estate? Sure. So now I'm making money off of explaining I've done the same concept with Power bi just came out with the exam da 100. So I've done the same concept only this time I've executed a whole lot more effectively on it, right You you you've learned how to play the system a little bit better You're a little bit more prepared And so this time around you're doing a little bit better. Yeah, I'm a little bit more effective at leaching There you go. That's a good way No, I mean it's wide open. I don't think it's like unethical or predatory in any way It's just fascinating to me that these big companies Have these bills like I don't know million dollar budgets and they're not Putting content on on youtube Although maybe it's just a shifting marketplace in that people on youtube want to hear from you know, you and I Who are this is my experience. So real people. I think I mean, you know data bricks and Tableau and summit they do have their own youtube channels and I've watched their videos They're they're not very personal. They're very much They're very much. Here's what a dashboard is and it's very boring. I've watched them and I hated it I went and took a Udemy course because I like hearing someone talk of like Like a real person. Um, they kind of have that personal touch. That's just that's just me so, uh another something else, uh, you know that you kind of touched on was You know courses and trainings and and all of these things that you know That you're able to capitalize and make and make money off of I would love to Um, hear a little bit of more about your trainings, you know, what you Teach in them, um as well as where do you think the best places to learn are especially for people who are just starting out You know, is it you to me? Coursera at x you'd ask you there's just so many options I would say I think linkedin learning is probably if you're brand new Because linkedin does two things. Well, actually it does a lot of things So I've got five courses on linkedin and they actually they flew me out. This is an awesome Maybe I've told you this so I'm sorry if I bored you but the audience. I'm interested. I'm here Uh, they so I I there's a startup called maidcraft. That's from one of the former, um, marking I guess higher ups for linda because linda got bought by linkedin. So they're kind of the same platform. He started a Startup boy. That's redundant. He founded a startup that Does constant creation? So I got flown out to santa barbara to record in their studio So those five courses and what was amazing to me is that my product manager or like my production manager Had worked with like Oprah Winfrey and like some of these big name brand people And I was I was pretty shocked at the The like the quality of the content. So like they're sitting down with you to Script this out and I think what linkedin does which is I think the future of education is It's entertaining and it's educational and it's banned at the same time, right There's also a secondary benefit that I think is hugely valuable Is that when you pass one of the linkedin learning courses that badge goes on your page And it's backed by linkedin. So I think that it hits like not only are you learning skills, but you're also broadcasting Right. Absolutely Those are the bane of my existence. I got to be honest though because I've taken like I've taken some of these and I'm like, I know this skill. I use this in my job Why can't I pass this course or I can't pass this badge? Uh, and and that's just my personal experience Wait, what do you what do you mean? So I think we're talking about two different things So when you just like watch the lectures, right, give you a badge There's no see we're talking about something different because they there are skill badges that you can go on your profile Go to the bottom You have like I I can advertise that I know t-sql and then I can go and I can take like this mini test And then it gives me a badge on my profile as well Oh So maybe yeah But I would say that from like an economic signaling theory perspective Those those tests signal much stronger than just oh well You could have just like hit play and then gone off to the kitchen and cooked and then oh I'm done with my LinkedIn learning time to put it on But I I do think like the way that I've structured my greensboro college case studies and business analytics course Um this month. I think that these badges are kind of a good way to fill the gaps So I have two courses on power bi And then also an analytics introduction So within the first month they took those got those badges Then what we're doing is we're also having a student practicum and then a tableau portfolio So you can show that you actually know how to use tableau. You've applied it to a real use case Power bi doesn't really have a great Public server or a public way to to broadcast what you've done or build out like free dashboards That's where I think those badges can kind of show that Oh, well, you know data visualization and you know it across two different platforms. Wow, that's awesome You know for everyone watching, um I'm going to put the links to his courses and his channel and everything in the description So everything that he's talking about that's going to be down below if you want to check that out I personally have not used a ton of LinkedIn Learning I use mostly you to me in Coursera I have so many people ask me. What do I think of LinkedIn learning? And I'm like like to be honest. I just don't have much experience in it So for those people who are curious, you know, check out his videos because I'm sure you know, they're going to be really good And I had no idea that they flew you out to make those videos. What how do I get on this train? What do I go? What do I sign up because I'm trying to fly out somewhere So, uh, I think what you should probably get in a course creation game. I got it. I have to I need to Yeah, we talked about this like six months to a year ago. We have and I don't see any results I'm of I just I'm saying that with love as your friend and I'm holding you accountable Give me give me one more year and then I'll get to it Okay, so it's very suspiciously similar to what I heard a year ago. I'll say that next year too But uh, I mean honestly though LinkedIn learning is a really interesting platform I do recommend people just check it out because that is where I am inexperienced in and I am always telling people If I don't know it go check it out yourself. Um, because it might be perfect for you Um, is there any other skills that you find that linkedin learning is really good at because so far I've heard Mostly tableau power bi. Was there anything else data analytics related that you thought was good on that platform as well? Well, I know they have like a whole data science library Oh, I can't speak to Actually, I can't speak to one of um My podcast guest Michael Glarnick Is a fantastic data scientist like he well, he's also got a blog that's getting like 150 000 views a month And he's getting more offers for consulting work that he could ever take on but I know that um, He recorded through maidcraft and has published up there. He also teaches online at stanford So I so if you want to learn kind of I think he's Getting into python and some more like advanced data science stuff, but I know that He is he's he's really sharp. So maybe you go check out some Michael Glarnick's courses. Okay, I'll put those courses below as well I'm gonna find them. I'll put them below. I have no idea. I've never seen these in my life But it's it's worth checking out if people are interested in checking that out I want them to have the resources to find that so uh, that'll be in the description as well. Um I I mean, I am so thankful that you got to come to the I've learned so much Honestly, I just did not know Much about the consulting world, you know the business aspect of things that is just is nothing. I've ever looked into and so You know, if people aren't learning anything I surely learned And so I am so thankful for you coming on here. I really really do appreciate it Awesome. Well, thanks. Thanks for having me on. I mean, I think that uh, this is a great opportunity. I appreciate it I know you've been you've been killing it with the interviews lately I mean, you just it's it's channel after channel after channel. You just you're so popular these days It's hard to get a hold of you. I know I don't feel like I have I need a pr person, you know Like someone set these meetings for me. Why am I doing other work? Yeah, that's that's that's your next level. That's that's where you gotta take it Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much. Um before you go something that we do at the end of every Alex the analyst show Is I give them a keyword In order for them to type in the uh in the discussion below Just to show that they watched the very end Uh, and and and so far I have It has been highly vegetable based So we've done things like uh, my wife chose carrots when she was on last week. We've done eggplant. We've done. Oh gosh Uh, jalapenos jalapenos Is there what and I'm just I'm leaving this one up to you But if it repeats, I'll let you know is what vegetable and it doesn't have to be for any reason at all It'd be just completely random. What would you say they type in the chat below? So that they prove that they made it to the end. They're they're dedicated. They're gonna be successful all of those things Asparagus, I don't know how to spell that us. Hey, they got to google it man. Don't don't don't give it to him. We don't we don't You know, this is uh, this is a tough a tough game. We're playing here. That's true. Yeah, that that that one just came to mind So type in asparagus. There you go All right, but for real type in asparagus below because I know that When I because I and there inevitably are tons of people who who watch all the way through because they find value in the content and and they like You know listening and learning and so for those people I always know who they are and there's a very specific person who always finishes and so I look forward to seeing those Uh In the discussion in the chat below With that being said I mean, that's it. Thank you for for everything. You've been awesome I look forward to seeing your channel grow and and continue seeing your the awesome content that you're putting out Yeah, thank you. You're always fun to talk to you. I appreciate you having me on Yeah, thank you so much. All right. Well, thank you everybody for joining today Uh, if you haven't already be sure to like and subscribe go check out john's channel as well And I will see you in the next show and goodbye