4 ways to make money with Power BI

While listening to a group of employees talk about money and motivation in the workplace, what came to mind was Frederick Herzberg's "Two-Factor Theory". If you have taken some performance management related courses, you would have come across Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory. According to Herzberg, Motivation factors, true to the name, are factors that motivate employees. They are not to be mistaken with Hygiene Factors such as Salary which do not motivate. Yes, Salary is not a motivation factor but rather an Hygiene factor. If your salary is doubled, it won't make you double your efforts or double your productivity. However, while motivation factors motivate, the lack of hygiene factors lead to dissatisfaction, it demotivates.

But the truth is, everybody likes money and we care less whether it is motivating or hygienic, we love it, we need it, and we will make it in any legit way, four of which i will discuss here.

What is Power BI?

Without boring you with too much details, Power BI is a Microsoft tool for self-service business intelligence. Business Intelligence is simply a process of analyzing data to gain insights for making intelligent business decisions.

I once asked a supermarket owner on my street why she closes her store at 8pm on Sundays and her response to me was "Since 10am? the body needs rest". I spoke to her about BI and promised to do a free analysis for her with Microsoft Power BI using 2 years of her sales data (I was in a joyous mood, my team had just won the UEFA Champions League Trophy a day earlier). "How long will this take"? she asked and I told her I would be done in less than 5 minutes. Who would believe that? Analyse 2 years of sales data with insights from a dashboard in less than 5 minutes. I dashed across the street to get my laptop from the house and returned.

We found out from her data that about 25% of her total daily sales everyday from Mondays to Saturdays happen between the hours of 8pm and 10pm. The data also showed that sales volume and values on Sundays usually pick up from 4pm. So I told her, "You want more rest time on Sundays? open your store later than you do, and close later than you currently do"

I hope the above story has been able to clarify Business Intelligence, Self-service business intelligence and Power BI to you. With Power BI you can quickly go from data to insights within minutes and really anyone can do this as much as anyone uses Excel. If you own a business, that's one way to make money with Power BI. Analyse your data, get insights and make intelligent decisions. But this article is not for the business, it's for individuals. You can learn more about Power BI from Power BI website

4 ways to make money with Power BI

If you want to make some money with Power BI, you first have to arm yourself with the skills required. And it is not so difficult, especially if you already have a background with Microsoft Excel. Even with zero experience, you can learn this tool from ground crawling to walking within a couple of weeks and with a lot of practice, you'll soon be running fast and even fly. So, here are some of the ways to make some money:

1. Employment income: With Power BI knowledge, getting a new job with better package is much easier, if your organization refuses to improve your package based on your new powerful skill. Perhaps your current role has no use for data analysis, you can show your organization the value you can bring to the table with Power BI and negotiate new terms.
2. Become a trainer: Once you perfect your skills, one of the easiest ways to earn is to begin to train people on using this in-demand skills. The good thing here is, unlike Microsoft Excel training, the market for Power BI training is not yet saturated. Training an individual for 2 to 5 days period can go for up to $300 and I have come across some Power BI training as high as $2,500. If you are able to train 100 individuals in a year for $300 each, you are looking at $30,000.
3. Become a consultant: So many companies are looking for ways to improve their bottom line. They are looking to increase revenue and reduce costs. They have answers in their data, and you as a Power BI analyst can help them answer their questions. Just identify your ideal clients, work out your pricing strategy, have a solid marketing plan, go to market and come back home with money.
4. Write a book: Another cool way to make some money is by writing books. Power BI is just 3 years old now and you can make some money providing valuable content. This is not the easiest of the 4 ways, but that is something you do once and continue making money. It will be good you revise your book from time to time though.

You can actually combine some or all the options as long as you have the capacity and capability to do so.

To conclude, Power BI has come to stay. More companies are starting to adopt Power BI and looking for "datawise" individuals. They also need data analysis solutions as the world has now realized the power of data.

Put powers into your hands, learn Power BI ASAP.