How to be a Consultant

My Friend Chris Pehura www.pehura.com has sent me this great piece of advice of how to be aconsultant. I could not agree more with him.


There is definitely a local presence requirement for IT services and consulting. May it be in the same state, or the same area of the city. Trends I've noticed - inclusive rate - no one wants to see the word travel - BPM and BRE are merging, and BRE is very dominant now (not the same as BRE from 20 years ago - very very different) - workflow automation (press a button, everything is done) - outsourcing to rural areas or other countries - TDQ and SQA are staying here at home, and IT market seems to be shifting to that - BA and Architect jobs are staying here - Project manager roles are provided by client employees, not consultants - seeing the word stategic used quite a bit Curious about your elevator pitch. Mine is very consultant oriented - "Realigning your workflows and leveraging your software assets to meet your changing needs of business. Reduced costs for IT products by 1.2 million. Delivered IT solutions that brought in 3 million. Leg work for a consulting firm brought in 1.4 million. And attracted a partner for a company with access to a 1 million dollar market. I pull this off using my diverse background in marketing, software development and business analysis with management." Found that numbers work very well when leaving them either in voice mails or emails. One investor I talked to Thursday said that a lot of his people want to see micro-steps of how they will get an ROI for services provided to them. Case studies focusing on very specific events may be useful. 1/2 page to a page at most. Situation - the problem Action - what was done to address the problem Result - what happened after the problem was minimized/solved For me, I talk to as many people a day as I can. And keep following up with them. Found that three times is usually enough. I phone them, then email them, wait 4-7 days and do it again. Do that three times for each contact. Usually get at least 4 people with very privileged information. I get about 10 phone interviews a week (they don't know I'm local.) And 4 face to face. And for the Canadian stereotype, the further south you go, the more it becomes an issue. Found no such problem in the northern border states. Though there is always that one jackass that needs to take a shot at you in some way. Found you're a target when you have an accent that is "unamerican". No matter where you go here. Look up some stuff www.topechelon.com www.recruitersonline.com 100 guerrilla marketing tactics Investors in tech Canadian consulates world wide www.wit.org They should lead you to other stuff. The main problem I had when I was in Winnipeg what the local presence I needed to establish in other areas. To do this, I focused on consultants and companies that could use me as a sole provider for services they had no expertise for. But this is no substitute for being local to the people who'll be your customers. One guy told me to pick a city, live there for two months and network like crazy. Hope these help.

Data Modeling

I just Picked up the flloowing Data Modeling Book for Our Current Projects

1.0 The Data Model Resource Book- Volume 1 and 2.
2.0 The Agile Data base Techniques.


As I go ove the books I will present my Thoughts and findings.

Reverse Enginneering Undocumented Systems

I am looing for Information Regarding Reverse Engineering Undocumented Database projects.
Any annd All pointers will be appreciated. I will summerize the findings.