The Consulting Life: Managing Travel and Becoming a Better Communicator with David Klee (1/2)

Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional

What does it mean to be a consultant? We’ve explored the consultant role as part of the career path of previous guests, but this episode kicks off a focused two-part discussion on the nuances of consulting. In this first part of the discussion, episode 309, returning guest David Klee shares practical insights for managing business travel, enhancing communication skills, and excelling in the consulting profession. He explains how great consultants adjust the information they communicate (and the level of detail) to resonate with people in different roles within an organization. Whether you’re considering consulting, already in the field, or collaborating with consultants, this conversation has actionable advice that can help.
Original Recording Date: 12-18-2024
Topics – David Klee Returns, Focusing on the Consultant Role, Consulting as a Career Path, Job Descriptions and Interview Advice, Travel Expectations and Being Productive, Working for a Company with a Consulting Arm, Presentations and Communication Skills
2:23 – David Klee Returns
* David Klee is the founder of a niche consulting company called Heraflux Technologies. They do performance tuning and availability architectures for SQL Server and everything underneath. This spans on-premises, in the cloud, virtual, and physical instances. David has worked on some of the biggest SQL Servers in the world.
* This discussion series is meant to be focused on the life of a consultant. If you missed the previous episodes, we recorded with David that include his origin story in technology, check out these discussions:
* Episode 119 – Tinkering into Specialty with David Klee (1/2)
* Episode 120 – A Time to Build with David Klee (2/2)
3:22 – Focusing on the Consultant Role
* We’ve heard the term consultant used in many different interviews and contexts. How would David define what a consultant is?
* “I have a whimsical definition of it. A contractor is somebody you tell what to do. A consultant is somebody that tells you what to do.” – David Klee, on the definition of a consultant
* Hire a consultant to solve a problem you do not know how to fix, engineer something you’re uncertain of, or to handle tasks you may not have the skills in-house to do. Some of these tasks might be routine health checks, platform assessments, etc.
* We may have worked in an environment daily for many years, but a consultant brings the unique background experience of working across many environments over time.
* With the right background knowledge and experience, why do consultants get a bad reputation?
* “There are a lot of really, really good consultants out there, and there’s a lot of really bad consultants out there. And there are a lot of really good consultants out there that charge a ridiculous amount of money for what they do, and there’s a lot of bad ones that do as well.” – David Klee
* People remember the bad consultants they have worked with more vividly than the good, and this shapes their perception of what a consultant is.
* People might develop their own persona of a consultant as someone who charges too much, doesn’t do a good job, and then leaves. David tells us this spans across industries and is not unique to technology consultants.
* When people seek to hire a consultant, they might not know what to ask to vet that consultant’s experience before hiring them. Are references a nice way to do this?
* David says he gets asked for references pretty often,