How I Ran Pricing Tests for Training Subscriptions

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Lemme be the first to say that I’m not an expert on this stuff. There are SaaS experts doing a way better job of this. However, here in our smaller database server community, it’s a different story – so I figured you might enjoy reading how this works behind the scenes, dear reader. I recently decided to change the pricing model on our training videos. Before, you paid a fixed price (say $299) for 18 months access to a single video, or $699 for 18 months access to all of our training videos. The vast majority of buyers just bought everything,…
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When Giving Advice Isn’t Working

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In the https://sqlcommunity.slack.com/messages/consultants/ room, we were discussing a project that wasn’t going well. Someone was on a team where one of the team members wasn’t succeeding, and we were discussing ways to turn the situation around. Secrets of Consulting I’ve been a fan of the book Secrets of Consulting for years, and one of the most valuable lessons is that consultants in the business of trading advice for money. If you find yourself in a situation where your advice doesn’t seem to be making the situation better, there are three things that could be going wrong. It could be the wrong advice.…
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Logitech Brio Review: New 4K Webcam (2018)

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Logitech’s brought out a new 4K webcam called the Brio, and it goes for about $200. It’s quite a step up from the ~$100 former top-of-the-line Logitech C930e that I’ve been using for a couple of years. Here’s some sample comparison photos: Bright Light Comparison Photos My back wall is painted chroma key blue, and in these shots I’ve got a CowboyStudio light kit turned on in front of me. Logitech Brio, bright lights – click to see full size Older Logitech C930e, strong lights The new Brio 4K captures good details, whereas the C930e blows out all the details in a smear…
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My Home Office Setup, 2017

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We just moved into a new place and I added a few more touches to my home office setup. I use a motorized sit/stand NextDesk Terra Pro, so I can move the whole desk up or down with the touch of a button. I can’t say enough good things about that desk – it’s still rock solid, and survived a few moves. I wanted to up my minimalism game, though, so I mounted some of my gear underneath the desktop: Mounting the Mac Pro under my desk The thing with the bright sticker is the NextDesk motor controller, and that’s always…
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What It’s Like to Live in a Downtown High-Rise

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Erika and I moved to downtown Chicago 7 years ago to be right in the middle of everything. We’re moving out of downtown now, so I wanted to write up a quick recap of what we love about living in the middle of the 3rd biggest city in the US. (Population list at Wikipedia) The big thing to understand about downtown: there are no houses. Downtown residents live in high-rises and condos. (If you think you live in Chicago, and you read this blog, and you can afford your own house, you’re not in Chicago. You live in a suburb. Just because…
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How I Handle Intro Calls with Consulting Prospects

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In the SQLcommunity Slack #Consultants channel, Steph Locke (@StephLocke) asked if anyone was doing free consultations or office hours as a way of growing your opportunities. We had a good discussion in there, and I’d highly recommend that freelancers and consultants join that channel for help. I’ve done a free 20-30 minute sales call for years, and here’s the process that works for me. Let clients book the date/time. I used to make folks email us first with a brief description of their pains. We’d read that, make sure our company was a good fit, and send back a reply…
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What Makes a Good Online Presentation?

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The inaugural GroupBy.org online event finished recently, and I had the sublime pleasure of watching a bunch of presenters at work. Because I was staffing the Q&A, Twitter, and Slack, I also got to watch the community reactions firsthand. People love different sessions for different reasons. Let’s start with Pinal Dave. He runs SQLauthority.com, a site that has surely shown up in your search results countless times. I bet you’ve never seen him present, and I need you to spend just a couple minutes watching him get to work. Start the video, and either watch a few minutes from the beginning, or…
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The Two Best Things Paul Randal Taught Me

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Several years back, I had the pleasure of working with Paul Randal (blog – @PaulRandal) – first in the Microsoft Certified Master program, and then later at SQLskills with Paul & Kim. I had a phenomenal time – they’re truly wonderful people – and I want to share two of my favorite lessons that still come in handy every week. 1. When answering, be comfortable saying “I don’t know.” When someone asks you a question that stumps you, be honest immediately and say: “I don’t know, but here’s where I would go look: ____.” Paul Randal never did teach me the…
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GroupBy: We Did It!

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GroupBy.org is off to an awesome start: Dozens of speakers submitted abstracts and collaborated on ’em Hundreds of readers voted to pick their favorites The winning speakers put on a heck of a show Almost 700 of you showed up to watch live Our A/V team kicked butt and got the recordings up on YouTube the very next day And I have to say the site looks pretty spiffy these days Preliminary podcast artwork I’m really proud of what you and I built over there. Here’s what’s coming next: Friday, we’ve got another 6 live sessions Our A/V team will launch the podcast…
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Early Thoughts About the 2017 Data Professional Salary Survey Results

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The 2017 Data Professional Salary Survey is going on now, but with over 1,300 2,400 results in already, I’ve noticed some interesting trends in the raw data. (I did this analysis on Friday, so if you redo it, you’ll see even higher response counts and possibly different results.) 2017/01/06 responses by job title, count: A good chunk of the responders are DBAs (no surprise, BrentOzar.com is a DBA-focused blog.) Since DBAs are near and dear to my heart, I’m going to filter for just them, and then analyze responses by country: Good! We’ve got just over 500 responses from US DBAs.…
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Hi. I’m Brent.

That's me, Brent.

I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm on an epic life quest to have fun and make a difference.

I co-founded Brent Ozar Unlimited to help make your SQL Server go faster. I also maintain sp_Blitz® and the open source First Responder Kit repo.

My current car collection includes a 1986 Ferrari 328 GTS, a 1964 Porsche 356, a 1971 VW Type 3 Squareback, and more.

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