7 Essential Templates for Data Analytics Consulting

Proposals, Sales And More

This resource is part of the Technical Freelancer Academy. If you’re looking to start consulting or you’re looking to increase your consulting revenue, then you should sign up here.

---

When I started my journey in data consulting, I remember searching for hours for a reliable proposal or SOW.

As a consultant, whether focused on data analytics or otherwise, it’s important to have several templates ready to help both speed up putting together all the documents required as well as ensure you have a clear process.

In this article, I want to not only provide templates that you’d find useful.

But also provide a general flow for how these documents should be sent.

1. Discovery Template

When you start having prospects respond to the marketing or cold emails you’re sending out, you’re going to want to track the discussions you have with said prospects(as well as any research).

This is where a discovery template comes in that can be connected to your CRM(which if you’re just starting is likely Google Sheets).

The purpose of this template is so you don’t forget what you talked about in terms of pain points, persons of contact, etc.

🔎 Here is my template for a discovery template.

2 and 3 - Proposal and SOW

Following your calls with your prospects where you’ve hopefully talked both with technical and business leaders so you make sure they understand the value of the project and have POCs and champions already excited about your work, now is the time to start thinking about your proposal and SOW.

There are a few different ways you can approach this. Depending on:

• The size of the prospect

• The size of the project

• Complexity

• Team size

• etc

These will generally change which document I use.

For example, if the project is smaller than 60-80k and only takes about 3 months, I’ll use a lighter proposal that will act as both an SOW and proposal since, in general, this level of project won’t require as much in terms of governance or framework to successfully deliver your project. As it will likely be a one person project.

I’ll also often send out an email before sending a proposal. This email is not too dissimilar to the one Matt Chung discussed in a recent live where he outlined sending an email with three possible solutions that could be offered.

I like how he explained his break as:

• The expensive fast and complete solution - As this option suggests, this is likely the complete solution and in Matt’s case he also added that he would deliver quickly. I think the point of this solution is that it is likely the most expensive and meets all of the client’s needs.

• The middle solution - where you’re likely giving up something but you’re going to pay less(perhaps you’ll build data ingestion and the data warehouse but not the dashboards)

• A discovery project(Audits, MVPs, scoping, etc) - A project that can help both sides understand how they can work together but isn’t as large and less of a financial risk.

In that email, you should outline what the results and deliverables will be for each of those different tiers of projects.

Now instead of spending a lot of time upfront putting together a proposal that ends up being rejected because the price or deliverables referenced were off. You’ve transparently outlined what you believe the results can be and provided a multitude of solutions.

Here are the templates for both the email and light proposal.

📧 Proposal Email

📄 Light Proposal & SOW for smaller projects and companies(do make sure to have a lawyer review and ensure your agreement properly covers what is required for your industry, location, etc)

4. Basic Deck

Alright, now let’s say you're pitching a rather large project that you know is going to a CEO or someone who has less time and you need to win over. That's where a basic deck comes in.

This needs to summarize the project, its goals, phases, and outcomes quickly. Rather than going through a longer proposal document that can likely end up in the 20+ page range.

🗣️ Here is my baseline deck that you can add to.

5. Project Kick-Off Email

Assuming all the prior discussions and documents go well.

Congrats, you’ve landed a client. Now it’s time to continue impressing them.

Step one was also referenced in Matt and I’s discussion. Which is you send out a project kick-off email. This was also something I did at Facebook whenever I started a project. It really just starts things off well and if you keep disciplined in terms of continuing your updates, I believe takes you to that next level of consulting.

You can use the template below, but the essential goal is to cover a few basic points.

1. Re-summarize the project

2. Main points of contact from both the consultant and client size

3. This is what you can expect from me in the next week

4. Here is what I need from you, and or this person

5. A link to an onboarding checklist

📧 Here is the project kick-off template.

6. Onboarding Checklist

Regardless of whether you are a technical consultant or a marketing one, having a clear checklist of what you will need access to or what you need from your client is important.

First, it shows that you’ve thought through what needs to get unblocked to ensure the project moves forward.

Second, it takes you to that slight next level. It seems small but most people don’t do it. Having some sort of onboarding process does make a difference. Whether it’s an onboarding process for your data team or for your consulting process.

✅ Onboarding Checklist Template

7. Update Email

Now there will be plenty of other document’s that you’ll likely need. Including audit examples and recommendation reports, etc. But for now, we’ll end it with the update email.

This is essentially a project update that should occur weekly along with a longer version monthly to help the client understand what is done, what is blocked, and what still needs to happen.

📅 Project Update Email Or Post

What Other Templates Will You Need?

Now there are plenty of other templates I have put together over the past few years as I have worked on varying projects. This includes audit templates, recommendation templates, and more. Much of which I cover in my Technical Freelancer Academy.

All of which are a combination of looking through online templates, working with others, and working with clients and understanding what they want to see. So hopefully these templates set you off in the right direction!

---

Data Events

DataPalooza Hackathon; Brining Together Twilio Segment and Databricks powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) - Virtual

Low-Key Happy Hour: San Jose Edition 🍻

Going From Data Analyst To Manager - Virtual

---

Articles Worth Reading

There are 20,000 new articles posted on Medium daily and that’s just Medium! I have spent a lot of time sifting through some of these articles as well as TechCrunch and companies tech blog and wanted to share some of my favorites!

---

Addressing the Challenges of Sample Ratio Mismatch in A/B Testing At Doordash

Experimentation isn’t just a cornerstone for innovation and sound decision-making; it’s often referred to as the gold standard for problem-solving, thanks in part to its roots in the scientific method. The term itself conjures a sense of rigor, validity, and trust. Yet as powerful as experimentation is, its integrity can be compromised by overlooked details and unforeseen challenges. One of these challenges is sample ratio mismatch, or SRM. 

SRM represents one of the most egregious data quality issues in A/B tests because it fundamentally compromises the basic assumption of random assignment. For example, if two reasonably sized groups are expected to be split 50/50, but instead show a 55/45 split, the assignment process likely is compromised. This means there is a strong possibility that any experimental results and decisions based on them will not be valid.

Read More

---

End Of Day 102

Thanks for checking out our community. We put out 3-4 Newsletters a week discussing data, tech, and start-ups.