How to Find (or Create) Data For Consulting Projects

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Hi there!

One of my favorite parts of consulting is meeting incredible people working on incredible businesses.

This week, I got to speak with Christian and Conner about their new business, Uncommon Elite.

Here's how their business works:

• An entrepreneur or startup founder needs help with improved performance through accountability on their business, personal, and family goals

• Christian and Conner work with them 1 on 1 to help them reach their goals. Weekly Zooms, daily check-in texts, etc.

Why are they qualified to do this?

Conner is a former Green Beret & Christian flew for the 160th, known as the Night Stalkers. They are unquestionably the best helicopter pilots in the world.

Other coaches at Uncommon Elite are other former JSOC operators, including Seal Team 6.

It’s a really cool business, and in demand. There is a lot of interest in coaches to improve performance through accountability.

For example:

The data problem

Christian & Conner have everything they need to build a great business. So, they’re starting to put in the work to scale.

The problem: they need data to do so!!

For example: how many clients can each coach take on while still delivering great results?

Someone, somewhere, has that data.

If you are their consultant: why not make that someone be yourself?

(P.S: they are great guys and are aware I’m writing about them. If you want accountability coaching yourself, check out Christian and Conner here)

How to find (or Create) Data for consulting projects

As you can guess, we’re talking about data today! It’s the topic most of you voted for in last week’s poll.

So let’s talk about the five strategies I use to find data for clients and how you can do the same.

Strategy #1: Library Card

What it is

Get a library card from a library. Bonus points if you get a card from a wealthy area (read: big library budget) or from a major city.

You typically don’t need to live there. For example, I use a library card from Boston, and I live in Chicago.

Cost

$0

Why it works

I once needed this report for a project. As you can see, it costs $3,456.

I found it for free at the library.

The client was thrilled. They didn’t have the budget to buy it themselves, and this report answered some crucial questions we had.

Strategy #2: Linkedin

What it is

Inform competitor analysis by tracking headcount

Cost

$100/month for one month of access to Sales Navigator

Why it works

It’s very common for clients to ask: “What are my competitors doing? Can we do a competitor analysis?”

One of my clients competes with offshore customer service divisions of big banks.

I made this chart of how many people said on their Linkedin they worked in customer service at the banks and where they were located.

It was an ugly chart and took <15 minutes to create.

This was the client’s favorite piece of data in the entire project and directly led to follow on work.

Strategy #3: Expert Interviews

What it is

Schedule meetings with subject matter experts to ask them relevant questions

Cost

$0-$1,000/hour (if you use GLG, expect $1,000/hour)

Why it works

Let’s say you wanted to talk to ATV owners to get their perception of different brands.

Someone who joins a Facebook group about ATVs is likely a huge fan. They’ll jump at the chance to talk about their passion.

So, join a Facebook Group on ATVs. Post and ask if anyone would be willing to speak with you via phone about ATV brand perception.

You’ll get 10 calls that day.

Strategy #4: Pollfish

What it is

Online survey software. But unlike most survey software, Pollfish will actually find the people you want to complete the survey

Even better, you could be very specific.

If you only want survey results from people who make $100K+, live in Boston and drive Toyotas, you can do that.

Cost

$250-$500

Why it works

You can ask anything in these polls and get the results in <24 hours.

This gives you a “wow” data point to show a client without a ton of work on your part.

I try to use something from Pollfish in every major project I do.

Strategy #5: Scraping

What it is

Use a company like Apify, which has built scrapers you can use without any coding skills

Cost

$50-$100/month

Why it works

There are limitless options here to get data to impress a client.

For example, let’s say I wanted to help Christian & Conner. We can scrape millions of Glassdoor posts.

Then, we filter for only posts with the phrase “Accountability Coach.”

Then, we dump those posts into a word cloud or similar to see in what context people talk about accountability coaching.

Then, they adjust their marketing website to match that language.

This is super easy to do and scraping online data is my go-to strategy to impress a client.

You can scrape almost anything, it takes 20 minutes and always generates interesting data the client is excited to see.

How can I help?

If you reply to this email, it will come directly to me & I’ll respond early next week.

I don’t have any formalized training to help people get started consulting, but I potentially will down the line.

What would be most helpful to read about next week?

Let me know what would be most helpful for you :)

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