Scaling a Power BI Side Hustle - Ep. 511

If you’ve ever wondered whether your Power BI side work can become something bigger than a few one-off projects, this episode is the gut check. Mike and Tommy unpack the messy middle between freelance experimentation and a real consulting practice, with practical advice on packaging your services, protecting your time, and building something that can scale beyond pure hustle.

News & Announcements

No news this episode — Mike and Tommy keep the focus on the main conversation around building and scaling a consulting side hustle.

Main Discussion

Topic: Scaling a Power BI side hustle into a sustainable consulting practice

This conversation is less about hype and more about operating reality. Mike and Tommy frame the side hustle question the right way: not as “how do I get more random gigs?” but as “how do I turn my skills into a repeatable offer people will actually pay for without burning myself out?”

• A side hustle only scales when it stops being completely custom. If every engagement is a one-off snowflake, you are just selling your nights and weekends. The shift is to start packaging common Power BI problems into services, assessments, or accelerators that are easier to scope and deliver.

• Your bottleneck is usually time, not demand. Many practitioners can find occasional work, but that is different from building something dependable. The real challenge is deciding what work to say yes to, how much effort it truly takes, and whether the engagement helps build toward a larger business model.

• Credibility matters before scale does. A side hustle grows faster when prospects can quickly understand what you do and why you are good at it. Case studies, clear positioning, and visible expertise in the Power BI community do more heavy lifting than vague “I can help with data” messaging.

• The best offers solve a specific business pain. Rather than marketing yourself as a generic Power BI expert, the smarter play is to narrow in on high-value problems: report modernization, semantic model cleanup, governance guidance, executive dashboards, or Fabric adoption support. Specificity makes sales conversations shorter and pricing easier.

• Process is what keeps the hustle from becoming chaos. Even a small consulting practice needs lightweight systems for intake, scoping, delivery, and follow-up. If you treat every client like an improvisation exercise, the work may keep coming but the business will stay fragile.

• There is a difference between extra income and a real business. Mike and Tommy lean into the idea that scaling means making decisions about repeatability, pricing, and long-term direction. At some point you are not just doing side work anymore — you are designing an operating model.

• Community visibility compounds over time. Podcasting, blogging, posting examples, speaking, and sharing useful ideas all create trust before a buyer ever reaches out. In the Power BI space especially, being discoverable and credible can do more for pipeline than aggressive selling.

• Growth should not wreck the life you were trying to improve. One of the most practical takeaways is that “more work” is not automatically success. A healthy side hustle should create options, leverage, and learning — not just a second full-time job glued onto the first one.

Looking Forward

If you are serious about growing your Power BI side hustle, pick one repeatable offer this month, define the outcome it delivers, and tighten your process before chasing more clients.

Episode Transcript

0:04 Explicit measures. Pump it up. Be it high. Tommy and Mike lighting up the sky. Dance to the day to laugh in the mix. Fabric and A. I get your fix. Explicit measures. Drop the beat now. Pumpkins. Feel the crowd. Explicit measures. Good morning. Welcome back to the Explicit Measures podcast with Tommy and Mike. Hello everyone and how is it going? going? Good morning, Mike. How you doing?

0:34 Good morning, Mike. How you doing? I’m doing well. Thank you very much, Tommy. We are doing a quick recorded episode. We are in the month of March now and there’s just a lot going on. Tommy and I are traveling a lot. People are in and out of the office. So, we’ve had to record a couple episodes. There’s going to be a couple weeks here of just some recorded episodes. So, just be aware. This is a pre-recorded episode. If you are a member and you are subscribed to our YouTube channel, you can get this episode as soon as we record it. So, we will have it up on the on the channel. You’ll see it early and you can watch a couple of these episodes earlier than you normally would. So, if you like to have the early information,

1:05 you like to have the early information, please go ahead and subscribe, become a member, and you can see these episodes as they come out. Okay, Tommy, what are we talking about today? I don’t think we’re going to do any news. It’s future here at this point. We really don’t know what’s happening. but what’s our topic? We got we well you but what’s our topic? We got we well it’s almost March’s we’re know it’s almost March’s we’re going to call it March mailbag mania because we were me and Mike were looking at the mailbags that you guys have been submitting and keep them coming and we are amazed at how much people are submitting but also the call the diversity of topics and questions that

1:36 diversity of topics and questions that people are asking. So nothing is too far out of the reach unless you’re asking how do you do this in DAX which not really a good podcast episode. episode. Yeah that’s more of like a showand tell thing. Yeah, that’s more of a show and tell some people do that. They’re like, I have a model. If it doesn’t work, I’m like, all right, you saw that on the podcast. Sorry. Yeah, but this one is good. This is We’re talking about PowerBI is a side hustle, Mike. Interesting. So, do you want do you want me to get into my mailbag voice? Yeah, let’s do the mailbag voice. Good., take it away.

2:06 , take it away. All right, here we go. This is from Jacob. And thank you, Jacob, very much. So, I’ve been working full-time in my full-time role as a PowerBI developer for about four years now after about five years before that as a financial analyst. I just moved into a BI manager role with a pay bump. But even at a decent salary compared to industry standards standards, it’s tough to make it out here with a stay-at-home spouse with three kids. Did I submit this?

2:37 with three kids. Did I submit this? Tell me this is like both of us. Yeah. Pretty much everyone I know does some freelancing on the side. I started a PowerBI consulting late in 2023. 2023. The few clients I’ve been able to work with have proven this to be fruitful to put my extra energy. My question is what are your recommendations as a family man and owners of consulting companies in this space when it comes to marketing your services and scaling your business

3:07 your services and scaling your business overall? I like to continue targeting small to midsize businesses, but it can be hard to spend a lot of time selling with a family and full-time work responsibilities. Thanks, Jacob. This is a great question. Yeah. Yeah. Tommy and I actually have on the side just talked a lot about this., Tom, you weren’t really doing a side hustle when you decided to go out and do initially. Yeah. So, about a year I was doing it. doing it. Yeah. But it was you were at a company and it was working out okay. Okay. But

3:37 and it was working out okay. Okay. But it was just kind like when when is the right time to jump? And to be honest, I’ve seen a lot of other Microsoft MVPs and maybe you’ve seen some people too, Tommy, that have been in like the corporate world or working on working as a part of a consulting firm and then they decided to go out on their own and do their own thing as well. So, this is a I think a really good question. Do you want to give me my initial reactions, Tommy, or do you want me to I love your initial reactions. So, I’m going to answer the question directly., do you have any recommendations as men or owners of companies, men, women, owners of

4:08 companies, men, women, owners of consulting companies in this space and when it comes to marketing your services and scaling your business overall? I think well, you’re on this podcast because this is part of my marketing efforts about what I do as a consultant and what Tommy does as a consultant. So,, one of the things I’ll just throw out there is giving out free information commands a domain for you in the space of,, what you’re talking about. You’ve got solutions that deliver value to people and you have to

4:39 deliver value to people and you have to start having a very, you have to cast a really wide net. And Tommy, I think we talked about this too when we started. One of my concerns for you was you you have to spend time marketing and getting net new clients because you may have a couple small business clients that just have you on as retainer, which is great., having one or two longunning clients is great to have having you support them, but you need this constant flow of like net new work. And so, And so, in doing consulting since 2019 and two years before that, working for another

5:09 years before that, working for another consulting firm. So, I’ve been doing consulting since 2017 now. Geez, that’s almost like that’s nine years now. That’s quite time. So, consulting for nine years now. My observation is you need a really wide salesunnel. You need to be able to cast a really wide net of what you do and how you’re good at it. So, I would argue a portion of your day should always be producing content that’s free they can give away, giving out things that are insightful, useful to people, and so

5:40 insightful, useful to people, and so they understand and recognize your brand. Most of my sales calls now start with a phrase and even from Microsoft employees and you may get this too Tommy on some of your calls as well when I mention that I’m Mike Carlo from PowerBI tips like oh PowerBI tips explicit measures you’re the podcast guy like yes yes I am and that’s where the mic comes from. So from. So right right part of that brand is they recognize me and I don’t have to come in and sell what I’m doing. It’s more about people reaching out and say I have problems I’ve heard you discuss or talk about

6:10 I’ve heard you discuss or talk about them. Help me build them. help me get this my solution. So, I think that’s where I am at right now. What do you What’s your reaction to that, Tommy? No, I I think this is a this is a really good point because there’s two distinctions I think I want to make right off the bat here. First, you and I do this full-time. We are consultants for life. Like, that’s not a side hustle. It’s just the hustle for us. Yep. Correct. Now, and that’s a important distinction, especially for Jacob. The side hustle was started as a side hustle. Yes. kind

6:41 was started as a side hustle. Yes. kind was started as a side hustle. Yes. thing. And for me personally, when I of thing. And for me personally, when I started, it was because I w I would go to conferences, I would speak, people go, “Oh, can you help out with this?” Like, “Well, you have to talk to my company.” And more importantly, my wife, I would speak, I would go, I I speak in Atlanta, I spoke in Wales. And my wife would go, “Do you get paid for there?” I go, “No.” She said, “Why don’t I get paid for that?” And this became a a continuing conversation with her and then you too where for me this is really something

7:12 where for me this is really something for me that I’ve seen as a distinction when it comes to okay what does that mean for the future? How much do I actually want to devote to that? Now I agree with you completely here. I think right off the bat I think if you’re side hustling can you live off referrals? Yeah. And there’s an important distinction here, I think, just on the referral side. You and I do this podcast. We started this podcast. Yes. Is it great from a funnel? Sure. But I think you and I would still do this even if no one came

7:44 would still do this even if no one came in or no one cared that we did this as consultants. I started the podcast when I was FTE, when I was full-time. off the bat though, like what do you need to actually start that marketing? And it’s tough. Like this is not an easy thing. You’re not in a business where we’re selling potatoes and someone can see the product, buy the product, and you move on. Like, someone has to trust you. And this is to your point, this is exactly what I learned. This is 100% that I’ve learned the last six months, I think, where I’ve had my aha moment where referrals are a great

8:15 aha moment where referrals are a great bonus that if you get them, but you cannot survive off of that. And I started this round table thing. I’m actually working with a company now who allows me to work with CTO’s and do a

8:26 allows me to work with CTO’s and do a round table to speak to it. I think you see this too and I I would be surprised if Jacob or others who are doing this as a side hustle don’t see it. People are not coming to you directly for your solution. They’re coming to you because you have the vision to get where they want to get to. Sure. Sure. And that’s where I’m realizing more and more where I can say I do all these services, but a lot of people do services. It gets to a point though where my messaging and where and I’m talking to someone new is about, hey,

8:58 talking to someone new is about, hey, whatever vision that you have, I can help you get there. Like,, I’ve done this. I’ve done this before. I can build you a lakehouse, but so can a ton of other people. And I think this is important distinction here. I like where you’re you’re taking this, Tommy. It’s a lot about and again this is just general sales I think in in in in yeah general here is just identifying one thing that I’m I feel like I’m really good at is understanding what people need listening to what they’re saying

9:28 saying and then be able to say look I heard you I heard you say this was a problem I heard you say this is the part around friction and then coming back into that and saying a response to that is well here’s how you need to think about solving this and here’s where other companies have gotten themselves wrapped around the axle. Here’s where they gotten tripped up. Here’s where things are hard. So, for my opinion,, a lot of what you build on that referral side is you have to have a rapport somewhere that’s easy

9:58 to have a rapport somewhere that’s easy to discover. So, a lot of what we do is I do a lot of LinkedIn stuff. We do a lot of stuff on the podcast. We we throw out hundreds of short videos, short clips of content that are about like what Tommy and I are talking about. And hopefully one of those little short clips land on someone’s desk and say, “Oh, they’re talking about something. It’s interesting. I didn’t really think about how AI was going to integrate into into fabric or whatever.” Or, “I didn’t think about governance in this way or I didn’t think about the challenges I’m having with Excel.” So, for me, it’s a

10:28 having with Excel.” So, for me, it’s a lot about I you have to have this very willingness to help people and have a huge amount of empathy for doing the same thing over and over again, right? you identify identify very clear business problems and jump on that. one example is optimizing your semantic models, right? For for Excel users, maybe that might be a good example for you to like jump into. Look, how do we do this? Well, do you have any blogs about it? Have you built any solutions that make this easier to use? Have you done some cost analysis on CU

10:59 done some cost analysis on CU subscriptions? Is there is there patterns you’re finding in this that’s making it really easy to do? And I find those conversations one builds domain expertise around what something but if someone is struggling with that same problem one they can learn from you and two sometimes they just don’t have time to solve it and that’s when they want to come to you and say hey can you help me solve or build out this problem there and there Mike as you talk about that though too I I don’t know if you feel this but there’s a bigger picture or a bigger story what Jacob’s saying to me that I hear all the time because

11:31 me that I hear all the time because there’s this tipping point in our industry for a lot of people who are FTE where if you just do power behind fabric even I was a business intelligence director and like Jacob at the time I my wife wasn’t working I had three kids and like listen we are not we I would call myself pretty simplistic but it’s like yeah you’re you’re doing all the normal budget things you’re like I wonder gets easier when you’re 50 and you realize though too there is a

12:02 you realize though too there is a threshold of what people can make in this industry just doing this alone. And this was the reason why I started doing the side hustle and why I decided to make the choice going full-time more. Yeah. Yeah. And I will say this, I do this full-time. I absolutely love every second of this consulting gig. I even made the choice if I was making 10% less than I was at FTE, I would still do this. From my life point of view, the value of that Yeah. Yeah. Well, grand balance is gone. but

12:34 balance is gone. but about the ability for you to work from home. home. Yeah. Yeah. You can set your own schedule. Like if you enjoy work hard, you can if you don’t need to work hard, you don’t need but with with all your own responsibility now, right? But the consideration though was when I was the director role, I had to ask myself and I think Jacob too. Okay, I got this role. What’s the role about that next? like where because unfortunately we live in a world now where from a when you’re looking at your pay when you’re looking at the industry

13:04 at the industry something that I say and I’m going to keep saying we have ill-defined roles which probably makes the payment not reflect I think the value there people are finding this tipping point on I got to do something else like I I got to figure out something else interesting and do you when you talk to people let me ask you this when you talk to other people and your clients and even other MVPs when you look at the story of people, do you see them struggling with this where it’s like, okay, what’s next for

13:35 where it’s like, okay, what’s next for me? Like where what’s the pinnacle of what I can get to in the BI space? I I’m going to maybe go a little bit wider than that conversation and go a bit more general as to do you ever feel like you’re tapping out in your career? maybe not necessarily the individual like BI stack itself. itself. So I guess let me explain a bit what I So I guess let me explain a bit what there. mean there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you are in a position and you’re you’re looking for another increase or another role or another position. I

14:05 another role or another position. I think there’s only two ways that this really works, right? Someone either moves on and then there’s a vacancy supplied. So you’re able to slide into that next position. You typically go through like an interview process. You got to figure out what’s going on there. But sometimes what happens is I’m a director and I want to go to a VP level or I am a manager looking for director level something to help have more say with what we’re doing. Right? I think organizations are looking for more capable people to pull up that chain. Once you’ve proven yourself

14:35 that chain. Once you’ve proven yourself as a manager and there’s an opening and you can pull someone into that next level role, sometimes you don’t get the role and sometimes someone else gets slotted in. And in those situations, you have to decide, am I willing to wait? Like, how long is this person going to be here? Is this like someone who’s coming in for like a year or two that we think, or is this someone who’s going to last 10 years? And are you willing to wait and stay in the world that you’re in without going to the next level? So, sometimes I think there’s this idea of do you are you is your goals is your

15:07 do you are you is your goals is your direction aligning with the company’s direction for you as well? And is that going to continue to push you forward in the expectations you have with your career? career? Well, I think it’s even funnier too because because it’s you think about the the industry, right? Or our careers. One job that did not take up or a title that I thought was going to be much more prevalent nowadays is the chief data officer, which is still not a thing, right? right? Yeah. It’s the CTO or CIO that’s usually

15:39 Yeah. It’s the CTO or CIO that’s usually holding the business intelligence realms. And you realize and something I realized too was there is a gap there is a cap there’s a ceiling if you work in the data world if you’re FTE more often than not. Would you agree with that? You’re given a look where I feel like you may Yeah. May maybe yeah because even if a place has a director of BI this is also not a universal thing I was lucky enough where they created that role they saw the need

16:10 they created that role they saw the need of it of it go to a bunch of other places go to a bunch of other companies they don’t have think about they don’t have that even a director of business intelligence yeah right where and that’s you could call low maturity but that that is what it is but that would fall I yes I agree with you but I also think that falls a bit more into the enterprise IT side of things a little bit as well that that’s underneath that that arm. So I think that director of BI or director of business intelligent, director of tooling, whatever, whatever you want to

16:41 tooling, whatever, whatever you want to call it, would live a bit more on the IT side. And then you could argue maybe there’s aspects of this that are the reporting and the semantic models. Maybe

16:50 reporting and the semantic models. Maybe that lives more on the business side, but now with fabric, we have a whole bunch of data engineering and data movement exercises, which traditionally that was owned by IT, right? So it’s a it’s an interesting dichotomy there that’s balance. How do you balance this? I think the I think the tooling itself right I think I think the tooling of fabric and PowerBI has fundamentally shifted how companies need to think about this role and because it’s taking business users who are not given much access giving them more capability with

17:22 access giving them more capability with tools and it’s also giving it traditional roles and allowing them to be more exposed to the business side. Right. So there’s actually a lot of blending of roles back and forth because the tooling is so intertwined between data engineering and reporting. I think the concept here I want to go a bit more through though is are you at a place where you’re outgrowing your company? company? Okay, let’s go into that. This is a concept I’ve talked with Tommy a little bit about of have you outgrown the company you’re in? Some signs of

17:53 the company you’re in? Some signs of this are you see a better way of doing something, better management for models, being able to align on like a lakehouse with tables, centralizing your data, but your company says we’re not ready to take the risk to let you go use fabric. We’re not ready to take the risk of doing adding a premium per user licensing. So sometimes you can see the writing on the wall where you are pushing the organization to adopt new parts of fabric and PowerBI and the

18:24 parts of fabric and PowerBI and the organization physically isn’t ready to get there. Right? Hey Tommy, you really know you need to establish a center of excellence around business intelligence. What does that look like? You outline what it should be. You outline the people you need. It’s a federated process. You go through the Microsoft documentation. I think this will work. Let’s let’s invest in this. And the company basically says, “We’re not ready yet or no for now.” And I think at that point in time, you you have a decision to make. Have you just outgrown your company? And is it time for you to look

18:54 company? And is it time for you to look for another organization who’s actually looking for someone to run their center of excellence? Okay. So, I agree up until a point of what you’re saying here because outgrowing your company and finding a different when you said that to me, it was about jumping to consulting., so if anyone from my old company is listening, the guy above me is the reason is the person at fault for the left. the left. I know Tommy, I’m putting all the blame. No, but I

19:24 I’m putting all the blame. No, but I think there’s outgrowing and just not being not being the right fit because to me Yeah. Yeah. So I think outgrowing is your own talent level. You may have a company who’s pushing back, but you may have all like the technology in place. when I was at my old place. Well, I was I don’t want to put myself in No, no, but I’m just saying like I’m just talking generally, Tom. Like, not your career, but we just Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other people have seen the same thing, right? They’ve gotten to a place in the in the career the the the structure, the

19:56 in the career the the the structure, the the politicalness of the company just restricted what you’re allowed to do and what you’re not allowed to do. And if you want to have the ability to do more, you have to find an alignment between what you’re interested in and skills. So this is I’ll point blank tell you you I’ve been out of my corporate enterprise world for nine plus years now and so I can directly say I was really good at program management. I did a lot of program management working with teams integrating with other teams having lots of meetings being very clear about like

20:26 of meetings being very clear about like what we wanted how we were going to build things just being very diplomatic around like the negotiation of like how software gets run out rolled out in a company. Okay. All that to be said, I was ready to do more PowerBI. I thought PowerBI is the way to go. I wanted to invest more time there. I thought that was a better opportunity to me career-wise long term. Well, instead of letting me go down that route and continue to hone my skills in the PowerBI space, I started getting shoehorned more into this, we need you’re a good PM. We want to push you more towards program

20:56 to push you more towards program management and give you more stuff to manage. So, it was it was physically taking me away from something that I was getting passionate about and I didn’t really feel like that was fitting. And so, then I started looking for other opportunities. Again, back to my point, right? I in the area that I was interested in, which was software development, cloud development, PowerBI, all that stuff. That was what interested me. And I wanted to continue to work and hone the skills there because I felt like this is going to be a good long-term career. And my family, particularly my parents, were

21:27 family, particularly my parents, were nervous around when I said, “Look, I’m leaving corporate America. I’m going to go out and do consulting for a bit.” And what I found when I joined a consulting firm was there’s a whole machine around sales and marketing and and going out and and hunting for leads. So, if you’re on your own, if you’re smaller and you don’t have a team of people running the sales leads for you, I quickly found that consulting goes in waves. It It’s like

21:57 consulting goes in waves. It It’s like feast or famine. Feast or famine. Yeah. Yep. I talked to you this about this a little bit too, Tommy, and I think I I think you think you felt it. felt it. You felt it, too. There’s a period of time where it’s like, I have so much work to do. I can’t keep up. I almost could use a second person. I have the coffer full. And then there’s the other side of this which is I’m getting just enough to get by and maybe even it’s a little bit tight. So you actually have to save up or have a nest egg a little bit to say we got to hang on to some extra cash

22:28 hang on to some extra cash in order to weather some of these very thin months of not a lot of work or and those are the months where you just are heavily ramping up the sales. So it feels like this it’s this rubber band effect, effect, right? I don’t have a lot of work. I really ramp up the sales side, right? Then I get a lot of work and then I can’t do as much sales. So there’s always this feeling of like, do we have a full pipeline of new work to come in? And again, if you’re on your own, back to what Jacob is saying here, right? It’s difficult to do all the sales work and all the actual work at

23:00 sales work and all the actual work at the same time. 100%. Regardless if you’re side if it’s a side hustle, if you’re full-time. Correct. Correct. By the way, can I can I just speak to something you said that I my favorite thing about consulting? you said a lot of meetings and I realized I remember used to be when I first started the consulting I was pretty stressed because every meeting I had like you’re the lead guy like everyone’s looking to you for the agenda what you’re going to do the talk through it. Sure. Sure. And then I remember just telling my wife like it’s I got four meetings today and these meetings weigh heavily on me because you want them to go right

23:31 on me because you want them to go right and you’re planning everything. Sure. And then I was an I was still consulting but I was an assistant on it and I wasn’t the lead person talking and I just sat there for an hour and I realized, oh wow, I hate this. I much rather be the the lead person. Yeah. So when you sit there for 45 minutes, you go, I’m wasting my time. There’s nothing worse than that. But you’re billing. Yeah. Yeah. Billing. You are billing. You have to remind yourself of that. But yeah, yeah, let’s talk I want to talk about here

24:01 let’s talk I want to talk about here specifically to Jacob if you could remember this too that tipping point for you when you were FTE and you said I want to I I’m considering doing this independently. So whether you were consulting and doing the side hustle on the doing the side hustle for me I I was FTE and there was no conflict of something my my company was made aware of aware of where I was like I I want to look into this for me Mike it was a it was it was a salary thing it was an

24:32 was it was a salary thing it was an income thing but it was something I was interested in. So, I want to ask you about gauging success on doing a side hustle because this is very important here because obviously you and I we’re tr this is our full-time. So, it’s a it’s a lot different on how you would say how would you target or measure success here. But for someone like Jacob or I think a lot of people who listen to us, I I would love to know how many people also do this on the side. How are they measuring success? Because it’s not

25:02 they measuring success? Because it’s not it’s not just the income. It is not just the extra salary coming in that I think is the that’s going to be to your success. For me, it was a benefit. I really enjoyed the projects. But I

25:14 really enjoyed the projects. But I realized very quickly just like Jacob, even if I had the work, I’m devoting now 15 hours maybe,, extra a week on top of my normal requirements. Yes. Yes. And I have three young kids and a wife who,, likes to talk to me somehow still after all this time. So you can’t just gauge it on the time that you’re working here. So how do you actually look at the whole landscape here as a side hustle and say I am being successful when

25:47 Yeah. I I’ll maybe I’ll answer this slightly different Tommy what you’re thinking about here. I feel like when I’m learn I love learning. I absolutely love it. I think it’s so interesting. I really enjoy the the chase of the knowledge, the chase of the information, putting things together. I also really like creating things that are new, creating things that have never been done before, figuring out pro solutions to problems. I enjoy that that sweet spot between this is too hard, I can’t figure it out, but it’s just hard enough that I’m like it pushes me more to like deliver the results on things.

26:17 results on things. So that space is really I like that space a lot., so I think for me one of the gauges of success is am I learning and exposing myself to things I normally wouldn’t in a normal job. When I look at people that I’ve talked to or come from a particular,, line of business or a full-time employee, you are narrow in what your thinking is. You only know what. You only solve the business problems that have been presented to you. So one of my gauges of success is am I getting

26:47 of my gauges of success is am I getting a variety of problems I’m solving? I like data in the fact that data can be it’s everywhere. Data isn’t in a specific area. It’s not like I only can do manufacturing because in you do manufacturing because in I can’t only do steel manufacturing know I can’t only do steel manufacturing because that’s what I know. The terms are maybe different there but manufacturing distribution centers health it is industry agnostic. Yeah. financial like everything’s the same and if and the terms may change by

27:17 same and if and the terms may change by industry but at the end of the day I still need to connect to some data source land some tables build out kind source land some tables build out like a bronze silver gold medallion of like a bronze silver gold medallion architecture drop it in a semantic model and stick it into reports. So the insights across an industry are different, but the principle is basically the same. Full load, incremental loads, data pipelines, lakehouses. It doesn’t really matter what you’re what industry you’re in. It’s doing a lot of the similar things. So I think that’s what I’ve really gleaned on to is just being able I like

27:48 gleaned on to is just being able I like the variety. And I feel like I didn’t really get good at consulting or my knowledge or being an expert in the area until I started doing consulting. You work much harder. you work much faster and there’s a lot more variety of problems you need to fix and solve and so you really do need to have opinions about how to solve multiple problems different ways depending on the needs of the business you’re walking into. So that would be another one gauge of success. Another one I would just say it’s,, this is a shallow one, I

28:20 it’s,, this is a shallow one, I guess. If I don’t make dollars, it don’t make sense, right? I It really comes down to me is like, is is my time I’ve talked to you this one as well, really early on, Tommy, is everything I do tries to be able to impact two or three things at the same time. So, one thing that we’re doing now with the podcast is Tommy and I do the podcast. That’s one point of touch. the podcast immediately turns into YouTube shorts and other media content. That’s the second point of contact. And now we’ve added the third point of contact, which is now I’ve automated blog posts

28:52 which is now I’ve automated blog posts based on our YouTube video that summarizes content that we’re doing with a full transcript and everything else. So, we’re actually building domain knowledge around what Tommy and I are doing on the podcast through a website. So, this is by one act of recording a video, I get three areas of influence based on that one piece of content. So for me again another gauge of success is am I able to spend time and getting fairly paid for it and the time and effort I’m spending in am I doing

29:22 effort I’m spending in am I doing something that is multiplying my efforts as opposed to just doing one single thing. Does that make sense what I’m describing there? It does. It does. It makes sense for a full-time. So let’s let’s be honest right now it’s the middle of the day morning. You and I have consulting weekend. Make time for this. But again, when I think about someone who’s doing this as a side hustle, I remember I one of my first clients I had when I had did the side gig was training. Well, I can’t do training after hours. And I remember I felt like I felt like I was cheating on my company because like

29:52 was cheating on my company because like I would get messages like hey, can you take a look at this? Like so there’s a constraint. There’s a lot more constraints to say is this worth it? Right? Like and everything you said of course I agree with. But a lot of people don’t have the luxury of that. And more importantly, I think whether you’re someone who’s looking to do a side hustle, looking to do this on the side or looking to grow your side hustle, to me, Mike, me, Mike, you speak to it, but I I would say that I don’t know how much that reverberates

30:23 I don’t know how much that reverberates or or resonates with someone where it’s like, well, I have the I have constraints. I have a lot more constraints because I have to do a lot of this out of off off hours. I have to also deal with so not my normal work hours. Correct. Correct. Right. I can’t do this all this morning. You can’t do that. You have to get you’re gonna get and doing things. You have your primary responsibility. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. You have your primary responsibility is your first job. And honestly, honestly, one of the big things that I made a decision if at any point

30:54 decision if at any point the side thing became at the expense of my full-time, I was either going to stop the side hustle or do that full-time because I didn’t I that was important to me. me. Yeah. Well, there’s also a really big conflict of interest here because Yeah. Yeah. Yeah., you work for a main company and the only time you can negotiate this is let’s say you’re onboarding to a new company, right? You can say, “I’m onboarding to a new company. I have an existing consulting firm. I’m going to have clients that I’m going to continue to service or service through them, but

31:25 to service or service through them, but they were pre-existing to when I showed up to your company.” One thing here that’s also very clear to me is this is also an approach I’ve taken with my whole career which is anytime a company is willing to pay for your knowledge to learn something you conference go learn some training go take some education I have my MBA I have a half a masters in data science all these things were paid for by companies that I didn’t pay for so I’ve got an copious amount of extra education and certificates because

31:55 education and certificates because someone else paid for them because it it made me a better employee of that company. It made me more loyal to them for that period of time. And to that effect, that was good for them. But now I take that knowledge with me wherever I go. go. Right? Right? And so I do think there’s you have to be very careful about this. And so one of the things I’m just going to really clearly call out here in the question it says says what are your recommendations? And then he asks specifically to marketing your services and scaling your business.

32:25 your services and scaling your business. If you’re in a place where you’re using your companies, your existing companies, anything, anything at all, subscription, computer, mouses, whatever, you are at risk of violating your contract with your existing companies. And that that is the mouth that feeds you. Do not in any way disrupt that. Right? So that’s that’s something I would say is you cannot have a hard boundary. If you are actively selling your services as a side hustle, come call me, I’m ready to consult, and you’re still working another job, I think you got to clear it

32:55 another job, I think you got to clear it with your original job. I think you’re you’re you’re dancing a very dangerous line there between the side hustle and the actual job. And as an employer, right, let’s say I have people on my company. As an employer of people, I want you focusing every effort that you’re doing like home, family, whatever else things you got to do, and then my business. I don’t want you splitting my business, your business, and then everything else, too. So, as an employer, I can speak very closely like I don’t want people doing that for me. So, I think you’re paying for 40 hours. I expect 40

33:26 paying for 40 hours. I expect 40 40 hours of dedicated work while we’re working on things together. Like, that’s that’s my expectation as hiring the employee. employee. Yeah. Yeah. If you are picking up side hustles or other things or doing side projects, great. Don’t do them on my computers. Don’t do them in the work that I’ I’ve

33:39 Don’t do them in the work that I’ I’ve paid for. Like, I’m paying you for the things that I’m teaching you and learning you. That’s where that stuff needs to stay. This is an important note. I think this is a this is where the buck stops for me where I completely agree with you. I wrote a contract up with my company saying I’m going to do consulting on the side or I would like to this is what it would take and I and I especially said to at the expense of the company yada yada feel free but I said I’m also going to market it right because I did not want my company some or someone from my job on LinkedIn to say Tom was doing consulting I thought

34:10 say Tom was doing consulting I thought he works at CompTIA and say that thing so I wanted to be aware to my boss and something that was signed signed I made sure it was signed to I’m going to do marketing. I’m going to do things to promote my side hustle. This in no way. And if you ever feel have the slightest,, inkling that this is taking away from my job, you need to let me know thing. Let me that was very important. Yeah. I’m gonna I want to I love that point, Tom. I think that’s a great point there. I also want to throw down this whole idea of like the blog teaching

34:42 whole idea of like the blog teaching as you’re learning. So, one of the things I found that to be extremely useful was I stepped into a really good situation. PowerBI came out in 2015. In 2016, I started writing my first blog posts around how to help people learn PowerBI. I wasn’t intending to build a consulting firm. That wasn’t my intention at all. All I was trying to do is just trying to learn about the program. And I figured if I’m learning about it, someone else may also want to learn about it as well. I also forget and Tommy I think you and

35:12 I also forget and Tommy I think you and I both do this quite often is we forget how often there are new people coming into PowerBI just now it’s been out for 10 years your company just gave you access people are there’s always new people coming to the space so constantly there’s like this new new way of doing things and the way that I learned things how to do them 10 years ago when I started using PowerBI to where they’re at now way different there’s a lot more tooling now there’s a lot other options to consider so I think if you’re talking about marketing and sales. I think there’s actually you

35:43 sales. I think there’s actually you don’t necessarily directly market, but I would also recommend here. Build a blog. Go figure out how to do something. And I don’t recommend I’ve done lots of blogs. Don’t use WordPress. Yeah, I would say the same. You look at my blog now. What happened to it again? It got it got you got scammed again. Got So, I’m done with all that. I just do GitHub pages. Go figure it out. Go get yourself,, if you’re a person who’s doing this on your side, go get a GitHub GitHub co-pilot license, the $20 a month one,

36:14 co-pilot license, the $20 a month one, you can talk directly to GitHub. You can say, “Make me a GitHub pages.” That’s a blog site using some technology, and it will just make you a beautiful looking blog and it’s actually fairly low weight. So, our my entire blog now is built like pages. I give it content and the the the bot now rebuilds my website whenever I need a new page or blog or something like that which is awesome but in doing this which is again back to my strategy here back marketing your services just start having a brand. You need a

36:44 start having a brand. You need a personal brand around all of this. You can have a company have a company name but if you lean on your personal brand the company wherever you go can be wherever you need to be. And you can make the argument too that I think it’s You don’t even need a website., I think it’s important. It’s like I It’s It’s one of those like gotta have, but is it going to actually help your business? business? I don’t think so. The website’s minimal. People will look it up. People go find it. it. Maybe. Maybe. Or they go to your like your page like

37:14 Or they go to your like your page like where you are. Like if you’re on Yeah. Yeah. Twitter or Facebook or,, whatever the the social media thing is or LinkedIn about you and you got to put your stuff on your page, what you’re The most impactful thing for me has been speaking bar none. It’s been especially from what it’s been doing the user group which again yeah too now I don’t know I don’t know I want to say this we haven’t brought it up to you because I don’t know how if it’s has the same impact it did six years ago but

37:44 same impact it did six years ago but pre- pandemic stuff. Pre- pandemic. Yeah. But doing speaking at the user group speaking at conferences was the bar none the easiest way especially from a side hustle point of view. of view. Interesting. the easiest way to in a sense build a brand, but also to the earlier point, make someone believe in what you can provide. Again, no one’s going to look at you go, he can build a lakehouse better than the other guy. guy. They’re looking at you when you speak. They’re looking at you going, “This person could bring me to the the land,, the land that we want to get to.”

38:14 to.” That’s a really good point there, Tommy. I think it really boils down to, so I’ve also said this to my clients, any one of them directly. Anyone can get any service that I provide from somebody other some other consulting firm 100% 100%. It’s almost all equal the information the knowledge the stuff that people it’s all the same stuff out there no matter where where it’s all publicly available. Yeah. Yeah. But the difference is can they communicate it well and do they overbuild your solution or they only build what you need? So I think there’s this whole relationship part of this is yes I’m in

38:46 relationship part of this is yes I’m in the business of consulting but I’m also in the business of relationship management. How do we get our work done? And do people like working with us? My mo of our company and all of our employees is we need to delight our customers, right? When they when they walk away, we we don’t need to be the limelight. Who we’re working for needs to be in the limelight. Look at what my team member did. Look at what how how much production we’ve done. Look at all this new technology that we’ve and how much more efficient it’s making us. We

39:17 much more efficient it’s making us. We want the person we’re working for, manager, leader, director, whoever, we want to make it really easy for them to go back to their leadership and say, “We’re having huge wins with Mike and his team. That’s that’s where we’re finding value.” And you do the same thing for you, Tom. Right. Well, again, like every company has their own version of their own the land of milk and honey, where the end destination is. And like to me, if I’m looking at the time that I would try to scale my side hustle, and I think if you look at if I’m spending 15 hours on the side hustle, how many of those should be

39:48 side hustle, how many of those should be towards promoting scaling that business, right? right? It should be minimal. It really should because again, you’re you have to understand and this person Jacob sounds like a family person like you and I are. You have to be conscious and there is the sacrifice there. No matter what hours, I don’t care if you’re getting paid $600 an hour or 15 hours extra a week for your side hustle. Great. Great. Good for you. But guess what? There are sacrifices. There is the personal and

40:18 sacrifices. There is the personal and the family thing that I know is important to you and I. It sounds like it’s important to Jacob here that you’re going to sacrifice. And if I’m doing this as a side hustle, I should be I should be spending the minimal amount of time with the most impact. And that is speaking. Now I do other things now but that’s also because well I got the time like I have the hours in the day my 40 hours are carved up in a certain way or 40 hours I don’t think I’ve heard that in forever but the idea

40:48 I’ve heard that in forever but the idea of my work hours right any hours that you’re spending on the side hustle is hours that could be spent with your family or hours that could spent personally and there is the notion that always happens to me still is where you feel like you’re drowning where you you have to the that triangle of balance of personal relationship and work or hobbies that you have to be very conscious of. So if I’m doing a side hustle I’m scaling my business by the user group by speaking by high impact

41:20 user group by speaking by high impact low hours. Now I’m obviously doing other things, but so I think that’s a huge part of what you’re doing and where I’m finding where is a t where is a threshold of looking at things going I either can push more or I need to scale back. back. I think that’s if you’re married or in the family I think it’s like you I I take an index of how the family’s doing. that’s what my personal thing that I do because if it’s up to me like I I’m a I’m a rabbit hole guy. I’ll I’ll work

41:51 I’m a rabbit hole guy. I’ll I’ll work till 2 am every night with something I find interesting. But there is and speak again speaking off the cuff or very personal here. If that’s affecting my relationships with my friends and more importantly my

42:04 my friends and more importantly my family, that that’s a that’s a deal that’s a dealbreaker. It’s a deal breakaker and that’s even with a full-time gig in my own company. But if I’m if I’m doing a side hustle, oh no, I have to be very conscious of that. And I think it’s it’s a you’re going I think this too. You owning your own business. You’re not only in a partnership with yourself, but you’re in a partnership with your family and there’s almost a contract you’re signing with them on the amount of time you’re sacrificing there. And you have to have that that

42:34 And you have to have that that conversation. I agree Tommy. that there is a balancing act here that you be very delicate around. Yes. Yes. Right. How much time do you spend on your self-learning? How much time do you spend in your current company? Where do you want to,, spend your free time? What does that all balance look like? And I think the balance here is going to be key about what you want to do. to do. There’s something Yeah. Okay. something to say for dividing your attention too much. Now, I don’t know where this fits with

43:05 Now, I don’t know where this fits with with Jacob and and your team, but you be be very careful with like if you if you do everything, then you’re really doing nothing, right? if your ultimate goal is to get out and do your own thing, you have to work the two jobs together at the same time long enough to get everything ramped up enough that you can just jump ship. I did an interesting pattern of going from corporate America to consulting, private

43:36 corporate America to consulting, private consulting, then to my own consulting. I would say going from corporate America to to consulting with like a firm that that had is like the salesunnel, the leads, that was nice because I was able to get all the benefits of like learning how to consult on my own, see what worked and what didn’t work, how I would take parts of the aspect and use them, reuse them, how I would take other aspects and not do it the same. So, I learned a lot there. But the hardest jump was going from consulting firm to independent. That was a really hard jump

44:06 That was a really hard jump because there’s a whole bunch of NDAs and non-competes. You’ve got to find your own customers and it’s very difficult for you to find customers when you’re at a consulting firm because one of their conditions is you’re working for us as a consultant. Any lead you get should be brought to us as a lead for the company to go work on. So that’s part of your conditions there. So, I’d just be very hesitant to go from,, if you’re going to go that route. That’s if you’re consulting though, too. If you’re already a consulting company, private consulting, and then into your

44:37 private consulting, and then into your own consulting, you, again, it goes back to what I think I said at the beginning is you got to have a really good funnel. You got to have a really good lead generation tool. And you’ve got to be able to be heavily dedicated to letting people know that you’re ready to help them. And I two things off that like so for me I wasn’t in a company that was offering the services that I did on the side hustle and so there was no conflict of interest and that was one of the again things that was talked about before it I made it very clear and

45:09 about before it I made it very clear and here’s the thing too you want to know if you outrown your company if you feel like you can’t have this conversation with your boss that you want to do a side hustle time to move on because like I think we just have to realize that is a part of what we do going into a new company you have the you have the opportunity Right. You have the luxury. Yeah. But I was already three years in my that company when I decided to do this. Yes. But you go to a different company, you have the opportunity like, “Hey, I’m running this little side gig thing. Here’s some terms and conditions I want to be able to do. I want to be able to continue that in

45:39 I want to be able to continue that in addition to working for you as, you addition to working for you as,, helping your team out or know, helping your team out or whatever.” So, I think there’s also this negotiation. You have some more items that you’re leverage when you transition to a different company. And I I think that’s useful for some people. Yeah. I I I want to I know we’ve already talked pretty good about this, but but Mike, there is a point though for me the easiest point was the transition from doing this as a side to full-time initially. Initially, I’ll say because it was so hard to balance the two. And

46:10 it was so hard to balance the two. And my wife and I were talking initially about maybe if we build up the clientele from the side, then it’ll be an easy transition. But you really can’t do that because how look I know that you can’t put a number on it but let me ask you this realistically for someone who’s a BI manager who’s owning a lot at their company and responsible for a lot realistically how many hours if you could put a number to how many hours is realistic to them to actually put for billable time or or to

46:40 actually put for billable time or or to that side hustle because for me you’re looking at maybe 15 max if you if you got a family., so it’s not a lot of time and you can’t really build it up like you want to scale it. How much? Those are the questions I would have. And the other the last question I would have for Jacob is are you looking to go full-time with this? And I don’t want to tell people what to do with their careers, but I don’t see a good path between getting your side

47:12 good path between getting your side hustle to a point where it’s an easy transition. There is a point where you rip the band-aid. It’s tough. Are you expecting to have four clients as a side hustle and do your job so you basically just walk into a full-time? It’s not going to happen., it’s probably not gonna happen. You’re gonna have to ramp quickly. Yeah. I’ve also heard a lot of people talking about when do they transition to like jumping ship or going full in and you want to only do that when you and you want to only do that when that you’re so overly work you’re know that you’re so overly work you’re like at the point of breaking.

47:43 like at the point of breaking. Yeah. Yeah. Then you start shedding other tasks and focusing on the only the dedicated the ones that are that are out there. All right. With that being said, I think we’re at a good place here. I think we exhausted a lot of things. So, I guess final words of wisdom here is make sure you’ve got a really good salesunnel for me. I would also echo be very public and facing with like your knowledge, your knowledge sharing. Build a build that that business brand, build that personal brand around yourself. I think more than ever with all this AI slop coming out and more things that are coming out all

48:14 and more things that are coming out all the time, having yourself with your real opinions, you actually doing the talking is going to be really valuable and set you apart from a lot of the other content creators, which will not be doing in-person real things., and and you’ll have to you’ll be playing catch-up with a lot of AI. There’s going to be so much AI stuff autogenerated, it’s going to be very difficult to like understand like what’s real, what’s not real. So building that personal brand I think will be key. If I was in Jacob’s shoes, yeah, my last closing thoughts here, if I was in

48:44 closing thoughts here, if I was in Jacob’s shoes and I’m looking at the next 12 months, I am looking to speak. I am looking to do things at user groups or in my local area or even on YouTube where I can at least become a brand that way. That’s the best way to get the word out there with from a minimal point of time. I like it. That being said, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We appreciate you joining us with this mailbag today. Very not related around PowerBI, focusing a lot more on business strategy, consulting, what

49:15 business strategy, consulting, what Tommy and I have found. So hopefully you enjoyed this conversation around things that we’re talking about a little bit off the beaten path here. With that being said, thank you very much for Jacob for the question. We appreciated the topic today. This is a really good topic. And that being said, we want you to check us out. Make sure you subscribe down below and the YouTube channel. We’ll have a lot more of these videos. If you want to have this these videos as soon as they come out, make sure you become a member. We’ll post these videos directly to YouTube as soon as we publish them, and you’ll be able to get episodes as we record them in addition to our normally scheduled Tuesday, Thursday sessions as well.

49:45 Tuesday, Thursday sessions as well. Tommy, where else can you find the podcast? podcast? You can find us in Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Make sure to subscribe and leave a rating. It helps us out a ton. Do you have a question, idea, or topic that you want us to talk about in a future episode? Head over to powerbi. tips/mpodcast. Leave your name and a great question. And finally, join us live every Tuesday and Thursday, a. m. Central on all the PowerBI tips social media channels. Awesome. Thank you all so much and we’ll see you next time.

50:22 Dance to the day in the mix. Fabric and I get your explicit measures. Drop the beat now. beat now. Kings feel the crowd. Explicit measures.

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