James will show you how to double your income by going from a salaried permanent employee to an independent consultant. James will discuss: Differences between perm, consulting, contracting; Understanding how placement/consulting companies work; Salary vs W2 vs 1099; Certifications; Developing the needed technical and communication skills; Interviewing and resume tips; How to negotiate; Networking yourself; and the additional risks and higher expectations that go with being a consultant.
Business Intelligence is an extremely hot career. If you are a DBA or have another IT position, how can you transition to a BI role? James Serra will describe what exactly BI is, what encompasses the Microsoft BI stack, why it is so popular, and why a BI career pays so much. Then James will delve into the steps to take to become a BI expert and how he made the transition.
Un modo di collegare gli autori e i propri contenuti sul web.
Una delle rivoluzioni in atto in ambito SEO.
Qualche articolo di riferimento:
http://seoblog.giorgiotave.it/authorship-google-snippet/2319
http://seoblog.giorgiotave.it/authorship-google-snippet/2319
http://seoblog.giorgiotave.it/implementare-rel-author/2108
Bitcoin Community Forum India | http://btcwarriors.com/
Bitcoin Community Forum is a virtual money and has no physical shape. It just exists as code behind some extraordinary PCs and we are only allowed to get to it through digital wallets. There are various Bitcoin Community Forum to assemble information about this type of currency. If you have anything to share or inquire about Bitcoin, you can simply go to those forums and start a discussion.
Six Ways to Build Your Online Brand fo REALTORSDoug Devitre
In this presentation we examine Six Ways to Build Your Online Brand as a real estate professional. These methods include starting a self hosted wordpress blog, creating a Facebook fan page, Linkedin profile, YouTube channel, Slideshare account, Twitter profile and share online documents. Doug Devitre delivered this presentation live which also has links included to direct you to websites you can use.
REALTOR Associations may share this presentation by email, Facebook, Twitter, or embed into their blog.
Business Intelligence is an extremely hot career. If you are a DBA or have another IT position, how can you transition to a BI role? James Serra will describe what exactly BI is, what encompasses the Microsoft BI stack, why it is so popular, and why a BI career pays so much. Then James will delve into the steps to take to become a BI expert and how he made the transition.
Un modo di collegare gli autori e i propri contenuti sul web.
Una delle rivoluzioni in atto in ambito SEO.
Qualche articolo di riferimento:
http://seoblog.giorgiotave.it/authorship-google-snippet/2319
http://seoblog.giorgiotave.it/authorship-google-snippet/2319
http://seoblog.giorgiotave.it/implementare-rel-author/2108
Bitcoin Community Forum India | http://btcwarriors.com/
Bitcoin Community Forum is a virtual money and has no physical shape. It just exists as code behind some extraordinary PCs and we are only allowed to get to it through digital wallets. There are various Bitcoin Community Forum to assemble information about this type of currency. If you have anything to share or inquire about Bitcoin, you can simply go to those forums and start a discussion.
Six Ways to Build Your Online Brand fo REALTORSDoug Devitre
In this presentation we examine Six Ways to Build Your Online Brand as a real estate professional. These methods include starting a self hosted wordpress blog, creating a Facebook fan page, Linkedin profile, YouTube channel, Slideshare account, Twitter profile and share online documents. Doug Devitre delivered this presentation live which also has links included to direct you to websites you can use.
REALTOR Associations may share this presentation by email, Facebook, Twitter, or embed into their blog.
An evening presentation made to the Salisbury FSB on May 12th covering a variety of web marketing opportunities including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube whilst touching on location based opportunities such as Google Places, FourSquare etc
Social Media Shortcuts to More Sales, Security, and Success - National Speake...Doug Devitre
Doug Devitre delivers Social Media Shortcuts to More Sales, Security, and Success at the 2010 National Speakers Association (NSA) Annual Convention at the Orlando World Marriott Convention center.
Learn simple time-saving shortcuts for creating and delivering your message through multiple delivery systems online to book more business. These measurable activities will focus on priorities, strengths and how to delegate responsibilities to staff. By attending this session, you will learn to demonstrate the steps to create your own toolbar to list frequently used social networks, RSS feeds and online programs to save time sharing information to multiple communication delivery systems * Be able to list social media sites that track online activity to prioritize future online activities that make money * Know how to delegate social media responsibilities to staff members based on strengths and best use of time to book more business.
Targeted Inbound Marketing Strategies for Small Brands - Pubcon NOLA by David...David Christopher
A case study presented at Pubcon NOLA, exploring the most successful inbound marketing techniques used when launching a digital influencer conference. These tactics drove over 5500 visits to a new website in 60 days, enabling us to exceed conference attendance goals by 40 percent. We’ll examine how to create effective ego-bait and follow-up with social media outreach, and how to leverage the many PR and marketing benefits of positioning yourself as a topic authority. (HARO, traditional media, publishing on independent websites).
A presentation on how to use infographics to complement your public relations strategy.Dispelling myths, ROI, good and bad infographics, case studies and more. Presented by Brian Wallace, President of NowSourcing, Inc. on 9/27/12 for the Public Relations Society of America, HyperConnections Summit at Geogria Tech Research Institute. Twitter hashtag: #techprsa
A presentation delivered during the "Wiltshire - Open for Business" event on May 11th offering business opportunities, networking, information and advice
Email and Web Marketing on Steriods v2Doug Devitre
This workshop discusses what to put into an email, how specific forms of content create links to include, and how to distribute your expertise using a variety of methods online.
My talk for media140's event at Social Media Week London 2011 - discussing how IBM has embraced social technologies as a form of internal and external communication.
REALTOR Social Media and Technology Resources 2011Doug Devitre
Here are some REALTOR Social Media and Technology Resources compiled from past presentations, new statistics, and tools you can implement in your real estate business.
The role of social media and online communication in developing and growing...CraftsCouncilofIreland
A presentation from the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland on The role of social media and online communication in developing and growing your craft and design enterprise
How (and why) to Use Infographics as your Secret Marketing WeaponsNowSourcing, Inc.
A presentation all about infographics and why they are your secret weapon in your social media strategy. Dispelling myths, ROI, case studies and more.
Presented by Brian Wallace, President of NowSourcing, Inc. on 8/29/12 for the Louisville Digital Association.
live event hashtag: #IGLou
Microsoft Fabric is the next version of Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Explorer, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Power BI. It brings all of these capabilities together into a single unified analytics platform that goes from the data lake to the business user in a SaaS-like environment. Therefore, the vision of Fabric is to be a one-stop shop for all the analytical needs for every enterprise and one platform for everyone from a citizen developer to a data engineer. Fabric will cover the complete spectrum of services including data movement, data lake, data engineering, data integration and data science, observational analytics, and business intelligence. With Fabric, there is no need to stitch together different services from multiple vendors. Instead, the customer enjoys end-to-end, highly integrated, single offering that is easy to understand, onboard, create and operate.
This is a hugely important new product from Microsoft and I will simplify your understanding of it via a presentation and demo.
Agenda:
What is Microsoft Fabric?
Workspaces and capacities
OneLake
Lakehouse
Data Warehouse
ADF
Power BI / DirectLake
Resources
Data Lakehouse, Data Mesh, and Data Fabric (r2)James Serra
So many buzzwords of late: Data Lakehouse, Data Mesh, and Data Fabric. What do all these terms mean and how do they compare to a modern data warehouse? In this session I’ll cover all of them in detail and compare the pros and cons of each. They all may sound great in theory, but I'll dig into the concerns you need to be aware of before taking the plunge. I’ll also include use cases so you can see what approach will work best for your big data needs. And I'll discuss Microsoft version of the data mesh.
More Related Content
Similar to How To Make a LOT More Money as a Consultant
An evening presentation made to the Salisbury FSB on May 12th covering a variety of web marketing opportunities including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube whilst touching on location based opportunities such as Google Places, FourSquare etc
Social Media Shortcuts to More Sales, Security, and Success - National Speake...Doug Devitre
Doug Devitre delivers Social Media Shortcuts to More Sales, Security, and Success at the 2010 National Speakers Association (NSA) Annual Convention at the Orlando World Marriott Convention center.
Learn simple time-saving shortcuts for creating and delivering your message through multiple delivery systems online to book more business. These measurable activities will focus on priorities, strengths and how to delegate responsibilities to staff. By attending this session, you will learn to demonstrate the steps to create your own toolbar to list frequently used social networks, RSS feeds and online programs to save time sharing information to multiple communication delivery systems * Be able to list social media sites that track online activity to prioritize future online activities that make money * Know how to delegate social media responsibilities to staff members based on strengths and best use of time to book more business.
Targeted Inbound Marketing Strategies for Small Brands - Pubcon NOLA by David...David Christopher
A case study presented at Pubcon NOLA, exploring the most successful inbound marketing techniques used when launching a digital influencer conference. These tactics drove over 5500 visits to a new website in 60 days, enabling us to exceed conference attendance goals by 40 percent. We’ll examine how to create effective ego-bait and follow-up with social media outreach, and how to leverage the many PR and marketing benefits of positioning yourself as a topic authority. (HARO, traditional media, publishing on independent websites).
A presentation on how to use infographics to complement your public relations strategy.Dispelling myths, ROI, good and bad infographics, case studies and more. Presented by Brian Wallace, President of NowSourcing, Inc. on 9/27/12 for the Public Relations Society of America, HyperConnections Summit at Geogria Tech Research Institute. Twitter hashtag: #techprsa
A presentation delivered during the "Wiltshire - Open for Business" event on May 11th offering business opportunities, networking, information and advice
Email and Web Marketing on Steriods v2Doug Devitre
This workshop discusses what to put into an email, how specific forms of content create links to include, and how to distribute your expertise using a variety of methods online.
My talk for media140's event at Social Media Week London 2011 - discussing how IBM has embraced social technologies as a form of internal and external communication.
REALTOR Social Media and Technology Resources 2011Doug Devitre
Here are some REALTOR Social Media and Technology Resources compiled from past presentations, new statistics, and tools you can implement in your real estate business.
The role of social media and online communication in developing and growing...CraftsCouncilofIreland
A presentation from the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland on The role of social media and online communication in developing and growing your craft and design enterprise
How (and why) to Use Infographics as your Secret Marketing WeaponsNowSourcing, Inc.
A presentation all about infographics and why they are your secret weapon in your social media strategy. Dispelling myths, ROI, case studies and more.
Presented by Brian Wallace, President of NowSourcing, Inc. on 8/29/12 for the Louisville Digital Association.
live event hashtag: #IGLou
Similar to How To Make a LOT More Money as a Consultant (20)
Microsoft Fabric is the next version of Azure Data Factory, Azure Data Explorer, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Power BI. It brings all of these capabilities together into a single unified analytics platform that goes from the data lake to the business user in a SaaS-like environment. Therefore, the vision of Fabric is to be a one-stop shop for all the analytical needs for every enterprise and one platform for everyone from a citizen developer to a data engineer. Fabric will cover the complete spectrum of services including data movement, data lake, data engineering, data integration and data science, observational analytics, and business intelligence. With Fabric, there is no need to stitch together different services from multiple vendors. Instead, the customer enjoys end-to-end, highly integrated, single offering that is easy to understand, onboard, create and operate.
This is a hugely important new product from Microsoft and I will simplify your understanding of it via a presentation and demo.
Agenda:
What is Microsoft Fabric?
Workspaces and capacities
OneLake
Lakehouse
Data Warehouse
ADF
Power BI / DirectLake
Resources
Data Lakehouse, Data Mesh, and Data Fabric (r2)James Serra
So many buzzwords of late: Data Lakehouse, Data Mesh, and Data Fabric. What do all these terms mean and how do they compare to a modern data warehouse? In this session I’ll cover all of them in detail and compare the pros and cons of each. They all may sound great in theory, but I'll dig into the concerns you need to be aware of before taking the plunge. I’ll also include use cases so you can see what approach will work best for your big data needs. And I'll discuss Microsoft version of the data mesh.
Data Lakehouse, Data Mesh, and Data Fabric (r1)James Serra
So many buzzwords of late: Data Lakehouse, Data Mesh, and Data Fabric. What do all these terms mean and how do they compare to a data warehouse? In this session I’ll cover all of them in detail and compare the pros and cons of each. I’ll include use cases so you can see what approach will work best for your big data needs.
Data Warehousing Trends, Best Practices, and Future OutlookJames Serra
Over the last decade, the 3Vs of data - Volume, Velocity & Variety has grown massively. The Big Data revolution has completely changed the way companies collect, analyze & store data. Advancements in cloud-based data warehousing technologies have empowered companies to fully leverage big data without heavy investments both in terms of time and resources. But, that doesn’t mean building and managing a cloud data warehouse isn’t accompanied by any challenges. From deciding on a service provider to the design architecture, deploying a data warehouse tailored to your business needs is a strenuous undertaking. Looking to deploy a data warehouse to scale your company’s data infrastructure or still on the fence? In this presentation you will gain insights into the current Data Warehousing trends, best practices, and future outlook. Learn how to build your data warehouse with the help of real-life use-cases and discussion on commonly faced challenges. In this session you will learn:
- Choosing the best solution - Data Lake vs. Data Warehouse vs. Data Mart
- Choosing the best Data Warehouse design methodologies: Data Vault vs. Kimball vs. Inmon
- Step by step approach to building an effective data warehouse architecture
- Common reasons for the failure of data warehouse implementations and how to avoid them
Azure Synapse Analytics is Azure SQL Data Warehouse evolved: a limitless analytics service, that brings together enterprise data warehousing and Big Data analytics into a single service. It gives you the freedom to query data on your terms, using either serverless on-demand or provisioned resources, at scale. Azure Synapse brings these two worlds together with a unified experience to ingest, prepare, manage, and serve data for immediate business intelligence and machine learning needs. This is a huge deck with lots of screenshots so you can see exactly how it works.
Azure Synapse Analytics is Azure SQL Data Warehouse evolved: a limitless analytics service, that brings together enterprise data warehousing and Big Data analytics into a single service. It gives you the freedom to query data on your terms, using either serverless on-demand or provisioned resources, at scale. Azure Synapse brings these two worlds together with a unified experience to ingest, prepare, manage, and serve data for immediate business intelligence and machine learning needs. This is a huge deck with lots of screenshots so you can see exactly how it works.
The data lake has become extremely popular, but there is still confusion on how it should be used. In this presentation I will cover common big data architectures that use the data lake, the characteristics and benefits of a data lake, and how it works in conjunction with a relational data warehouse. Then I’ll go into details on using Azure Data Lake Store Gen2 as your data lake, and various typical use cases of the data lake. As a bonus I’ll talk about how to organize a data lake and discuss the various products that can be used in a modern data warehouse.
Power BI Overview, Deployment and GovernanceJames Serra
Deploying Power BI in a large enterprise is a complex task, and one that requires a lot of thought and planning. The purpose of this presentation is to help you make your Power BI deployment a success. After a quick Power BI overview, I’ll discuss deployment strategies, common usage scenarios, how to store and refresh data, prototyping options, how to share externally, and then finish with how to administer and secure Power BI. I’ll outline considerations and best practices for achieving an optimal, well-performing, enterprise level Power BI deployment.
Power BI has become a product with a ton of exciting features. This presentation will give an overview of some of them, including Power BI Desktop, Power BI service, what’s new, integration with other services, Power BI premium, and administration.
The breath and depth of Azure products that fall under the AI and ML umbrella can be difficult to follow. In this presentation I’ll first define exactly what AI, ML, and deep learning is, and then go over the various Microsoft AI and ML products and their use cases.
Want to see a high-level overview of the products in the Microsoft data platform portfolio in Azure? I’ll cover products in the categories of OLTP, OLAP, data warehouse, storage, data transport, data prep, data lake, IaaS, PaaS, SMP/MPP, NoSQL, Hadoop, open source, reporting, machine learning, and AI. It’s a lot to digest but I’ll categorize the products and discuss their use cases to help you narrow down the best products for the solution you want to build.
Embarking on building a modern data warehouse in the cloud can be an overwhelming experience due to the sheer number of products that can be used, especially when the use cases for many products overlap others. In this talk I will cover the use cases of many of the Microsoft products that you can use when building a modern data warehouse, broken down into four areas: ingest, store, prep, and model & serve. It’s a complicated story that I will try to simplify, giving blunt opinions of when to use what products and the pros/cons of each.
AI for an intelligent cloud and intelligent edge: Discover, deploy, and manag...James Serra
Discover, manage, deploy, monitor – rinse and repeat. In this session we show how Azure Machine Learning can be used to create the right AI model for your challenge and then easily customize it using your development tools while relying on Azure ML to optimize them to run in hardware accelerated environments for the cloud and the edge using FPGAs and Neural Network accelerators. We then show you how to deploy the model to highly scalable web services and nimble edge applications that Azure can manage and monitor for you. Finally, we illustrate how you can leverage the model telemetry to retrain and improve your content.
Power BI for Big Data and the New Look of Big Data SolutionsJames Serra
New features in Power BI give it enterprise tools, but that does not mean it automatically creates an enterprise solution. In this talk we will cover these new features (composite models, aggregations tables, dataflow) as well as Azure Data Lake Store Gen2, and describe the use cases and products of an individual, departmental, and enterprise big data solution. We will also talk about why a data warehouse and cubes still should be part of an enterprise solution, and how a data lake should be organized.
In three years I went from a complete unknown to a popular blogger, speaker at PASS Summit, a SQL Server MVP, and then joined Microsoft. Along the way I saw my yearly income triple. Is it because I know some secret? Is it because I am a genius? No! It is just about laying out your career path, setting goals, and doing the work.
I'll cover tips I learned over my career on everything from interviewing to building your personal brand. I'll discuss perm positions, consulting, contracting, working for Microsoft or partners, hot fields, in-demand skills, social media, networking, presenting, blogging, salary negotiating, dealing with recruiters, certifications, speaking at major conferences, resume tips, and keys to a high-paying career.
Your first step to enhancing your career will be to attend this session! Let me be your career coach!
Is the traditional data warehouse dead?James Serra
With new technologies such as Hive LLAP or Spark SQL, do I still need a data warehouse or can I just put everything in a data lake and report off of that? No! In the presentation I’ll discuss why you still need a relational data warehouse and how to use a data lake and a RDBMS data warehouse to get the best of both worlds. I will go into detail on the characteristics of a data lake and its benefits and why you still need data governance tasks in a data lake. I’ll also discuss using Hadoop as the data lake, data virtualization, and the need for OLAP in a big data solution. And I’ll put it all together by showing common big data architectures.
Differentiate Big Data vs Data Warehouse use cases for a cloud solutionJames Serra
It can be quite challenging keeping up with the frequent updates to the Microsoft products and understanding all their use cases and how all the products fit together. In this session we will differentiate the use cases for each of the Microsoft services, explaining and demonstrating what is good and what isn't, in order for you to position, design and deliver the proper adoption use cases for each with your customers. We will cover a wide range of products such as Databricks, SQL Data Warehouse, HDInsight, Azure Data Lake Analytics, Azure Data Lake Store, Blob storage, and AAS as well as high-level concepts such as when to use a data lake. We will also review the most common reference architectures (“patterns”) witnessed in customer adoption.
Databricks is a Software-as-a-Service-like experience (or Spark-as-a-service) that is a tool for curating and processing massive amounts of data and developing, training and deploying models on that data, and managing the whole workflow process throughout the project. It is for those who are comfortable with Apache Spark as it is 100% based on Spark and is extensible with support for Scala, Java, R, and Python alongside Spark SQL, GraphX, Streaming and Machine Learning Library (Mllib). It has built-in integration with many data sources, has a workflow scheduler, allows for real-time workspace collaboration, and has performance improvements over traditional Apache Spark.
Azure SQL Database Managed Instance is a new flavor of Azure SQL Database that is a game changer. It offers near-complete SQL Server compatibility and network isolation to easily lift and shift databases to Azure (you can literally backup an on-premise database and restore it into a Azure SQL Database Managed Instance). Think of it as an enhancement to Azure SQL Database that is built on the same PaaS infrastructure and maintains all it's features (i.e. active geo-replication, high availability, automatic backups, database advisor, threat detection, intelligent insights, vulnerability assessment, etc) but adds support for databases up to 35TB, VNET, SQL Agent, cross-database querying, replication, etc. So, you can migrate your databases from on-prem to Azure with very little migration effort which is a big improvement from the current Singleton or Elastic Pool flavors which can require substantial changes.
3. Agenda
Reasons to become a consultant
Reasons not to be a consultant
Why companies pay more for consultants
Differences between perm, contracting, consulting
What it is like to be a consultant
Understanding how staffing companies work
Salary vs W2 vs 1099
Social media, job boards, networking
Technical and communication skills
Resume, interviewing, negotiating
In-demand skills, certifications
Not seen any session like this, controversial, consulting companies will not likeDoubled my salary when I want from a perm to W2 contractor
Microsoft products onlyMention ran fantasy football leaguesBeen at 15 companies, longest 4 years
Giving new life to a profession that people typically shy away from as they want more stabilityPredictability – As a consultant, you always have an “end date” when you will have to start looking for another project..no downsizing, layoffsBetter experience – new job every few months. New tools, meet new people, builds resume, learn new business, know more companies, different types of job, more friends, development over maintenanceMisconceptions: they are not always experts – some stink; some large consulting companies do a bait and switchMore remote work: once they know you can do the job…save expenses, office space
Riskier only if your skills are not solid and not have high-demand skills. Need to have confidence in your skillset my working hard to learn all you canInsurance – I pay $473/month for high-deductable family ($7500/$22k/100%). Do you have spouse with insurance? Pre-existing conditions, maternity coverage, health background checkAdd: can’t handle pressure, not flexible with assignments/tasks
It’s a different bucket of money – many times a company has a budget to spend on consulting fees, but no budget for hiring a salaried person. And usually there are no rules for how the budget is spent: It could all be spent on one high-priced consultantCompanies don’t have to pay the overhead that goes with a salaried employee, such as heath insurance, taxes, vacation, training, sick-leave, retirement plans, worker comp, payroll taxes, social security taxes, unemployment taxes, etc, which can add 30%-50% of the salaryLooks better on the company statement (revenue per employee). The lower the employee headcount, the better the company looks to investorsCost of contractors is an expense for a company and therefore a tax deduction, whereas a company can’t deduct salariesYou don’t have to fit into a salary “slot”. When hiring a perm, they have to fit into a salary range so they are not making more than their boss. No such slot exists with contractors and they usually make more than all but the top executives at a companyDon’t have to train consultants like you do a perm. Consultants can hit the ground runningEasier to get rid of a contractor if they are not working out compared to a new perm hireQuick and better solutions: Consultants can be 2-3 times faster than others, with better solution, have existing frameworksAdd: Don’t have expertise on staff, they can spot unusual/non-standard things, well-connected to point you in the direction of help, have extra budget and need to spend it to have same budget next year, need consultant to promote your idea/solution, can provide you with ideas/solutions you did not think of (should this be another slide called “Why companies hire consultants”)?
After explaining, do a show of hands to see what the audience is made up ofThere are hybrids: being a perm salaried for a consulting company: Note that if you are working as a consultant for a consulting company, but are being paid a salary (NOT as a W-2 or 1099), then I am considering you a “Perm” when talking about money/benefits (not about job duties). Also note that a W-2 contractor is many times brought in to supplement a staff and therefore shares some non-pay related characteristics of a perm employee (i.e. travel, laptop, work hours, type of work, work hours flexibility).Create blog: Difference between consultant and contractor and perm (see consulting in delicious) #1Add: consultant: self promotion as a business/website, cultivating customers, set deadlines and are responsible for meeting them, develop strategic partnerships, written agreements/defined deliverables
Hire you for your skills, fire you for your personality
MCS/Hitachi vsTEKsystems/KforceStory atPenzoil and via placement company switched from perm to w2. They all say how they are like family, but once they place you never hear from them until gig is almost up. Don’t stay with one consulting company as your options are limitedWatch out for Indian recruiters..many layers and look for H1…subcontract out from large consulting firmSalaried for a true consulting company:Good if you are just starting out and need mentor and training. Allows you to try and determine what you like because of varied projects. Why would I go salaried and take a big cut in pay? They lose a lot of talent, unless they have career path to be a partner. They have you work unpaid OT, you are at the whim of what project they put you on. They should use independent consultants. All about billable hours: If you are not hitting 70% billable hours, you will be in danger of being firedLot’s of travel: consulting company does POC’s, trainingJumping ship – story of recruiters who want me to leave contract early for less payDon’t bother referring as referral fees suck unless they are good referral or you want them to work with themConsulting companies: May have taken years to build relationship with client. Average markup is 33%. Should markup be the same regardless of hourly rate?Markup depends also on client…volume basis…master services agreementLot of times recruiter have to educate client to say rates are too lowMarkup based on classification…goes down higher level jobPay rate vs bill rate….benefits, time off, visa, overhead/admin costs, float..able to pay consultants if not gotten paid by client…client can be a pain if expenses not in certain format (restrictions)…get in legal trouble, by law, if don’t pay timelyOr clients may say we can’t pay until a few months but want to keep consultantAdd slide: understanding how consulting companies work (when you join a MCS type of company on salary): see http://www.sqlchick.com/entries/2011/4/17/technology-consulting-as-an-employment-option.html. Types on firms: large, medium, boutique – highly specialized/nicheAsked Sean:Why do most consulting companies choose to hire only salaried people? It seems the “top” talent stick with contracts-only because they pay is good and switching to salary would mean a big cut in pay. Wouldn’t a mix of salaried people along with 1099 consultants (sub-contractors) make more sense? How about offering the 1099 consultants a career path to join the consulting company as a partner/VP without having to first take a pay cut to join the company? Do you lose some of your top people when they realize how much more income than can make by taking W2/1099 contracts? And being salaried and not getting paid OT, do you get a lot of complaints from your employees about that? Do you tell your employees your client bill rate, and does the difference upset them? What are the rates you charge clients? Do you have different rates for clients for the same type of work? How would you convince a highly paid independent consultant to join Pariveda? Do you expect to see client companies hire more or less consultants in the future? Anything you would like me to add to my presentation to promote consulting companies like yours? Consulting companies have a higher markup because they using the extra money to promote/build their consulting practice (marketing). Billable hoursCut of rate: Your rate plus overhead plus franchise fee plus recuiters fee (so called break even), then add profit margin
Salary benefits: Dental/Medial/LTD/STD/life, Vacation, sick, holidaysExpenses usually paid for all 3Give my experience: Perm for consulting company, 70% markup, benefits equaled $4/hr, switch to W2 got me $12/hrSalary of 90k equal to $60/hr 1099. I have heard the general rule of thumb is that a contractor’s wages should be about twice an employee’s salary for it to be worthwhilePerm: Your salary is $90k, with a 10% yearly bonus. You pay $300/m for health insurance. Your company matches up to 3% of your salary for 401k (for which you need to contribute 6% of your salary to the 401k), and you get a little company stock each year worth about $1k. So your “true” salary is around $100k.Contractor (1099): Your rate is $60/hr. Since you only get paid when you work, subtract out 80-hours for 2 weeks of vacation, 80 hours for 10 holidays, and 40 hours for sick/miscellaneous. Assume $600/m for health insurance and another $100/m for dental. Don’t forget 7.65% in self-employment tax. We will say no bench time or overtime work, and you are not paying for any training. Finally, we will say the tax deductions you get being 1099 save you $5k per year. Doing the calculations, your true salary is around $100k.Add corp-to-corp:
Corp-to-corp since some companies don’t accept 1099..liability issues, legally can be considered an employee..Shell won’t let contracts go longer than 2 years (must leave for a month). Microsoft got sued by contractors who said they were really employees and demanded benefits
blogging, twitter, LinkedInReasons to blog: learn, document for future use, better job security, more people find you, raise your brand, sql server mvp, fun, prove to employees/clients I know my stuff (credibility), improve my writing skills, "street cred", using twitter to get hits (twitterfeed), follow and follow back and retweet, if you want learn something, teach it (great way when I don't know enough about a topic); helps as a consultant when I can use my blog as a solution to a customers problem, love to share75% of jobs are obtained thru personal contactsLinkedIn – connect with everyone in your field to find out what they are doing and when they are hiring. Plus they follow youBlogging: WordPress, feedburner, syndication, all in one SEO pack add-in, use twitter to indicate new posts. When from zero to 2000 visits a day.I get 15-20 unsolicited calls/emails a week from recruiters
ABL: LinkedIn groups, Videos, read blogs, write a blog, books, daily emails, conferences, other peopleHard Skills: Technical ability, troubleshooting, resourceful, specializationSoft skills: Communication (writing, email, speaking, telephone), time management, honest but tactful/diplomatic, trustworthinessAdd slide: tips for success: be available to your customers, have a clear well-defined scope, be professional, never fudge an invoice, be descriptive on your invoice, admit mistakes, organization – time/finances, promote your brand – become a known commodity, objectivity in recommendations
Interview even if not looking for job: meet new people, find out what technology is in demand, make contacts, improve your interview skillsMost recruiters have no idea about technology. They don’t make money unless you agreeBest negotiation stance is after you interview with the client and they want to hire you. Staffing company does not want to disappoint the client. Also, the staffing company can reduce their markup instead of going back to the client to ask for more.
BI is “Gathering of data from multiple sources to present it in a way that allows executives to make better business decisions”Big data (Hadoop), BI, self-service BI, mobile BI, cloud BI, MS PDW, high ROI, data miningTremendous return on investment (ROI). One of my projects dealt with spend analytics, and the resulting scorecard, which gave executives at the company a way to analyze data that they never had before, saved the company 1% the first year. Big deal, 1% you say? Well, the company spends $200 million per year. So they saved $2 million, with estimates they might be able to save up to 10% ($20 million a year). Makes it easy to justify paying a high hourly rate to a consultantPeople skills – tell story of recruiter who said after 2 minutes, “thanks God, you have a personality!”Try to determine what the next hot skill will be
In closing: start your own consulting company, but need a salesmanShould I mention salaries?at this point in MS BI I think that the more independents out there demanding more $ ... raises all BI boatsthe market would get the message... that and maybe they would learn that u don't want people in India making your BI choices!I think that IT is changing big companies need to realize it to keep good talent and there will be more telecommutingRates for senior BI: perm Salary 90k – 110K (min: 70, max 120, more if management), hourly $70 - $90 (low: 60, high:100), consulting companies charge $120 - $200+. See TDWI survey. Pragmatic Works: $150/hr, Paul Randal: $325/hr, Microsoft $250-300, Brent Ozar xx, me: 95, garrett: 85Houston/TX rates a bit lower. Rates a bit lower for DBA, and then a bit lower than that for developerMany companies are cutting full-timers and hiring consultants insteadJob market is great. 1% unemployment for MS BI stack. Many companies have not hired in last 3 years, now need projects done now and done fast…hire consultantsIf you are new to field, find a mentor. Start small and build.