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Tim scored a 1 on his AP computer science exam. Here's how he still landed a senior data analyst role at one of the biggest marketing agencies in the world.
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⌚ TIMESTAMPS
00:48 – Three failed careers
03:21 – Anyone can learn this
05:09 – The rejection phase
06:00 – Start reaching out
08:03 – Portfolio live in interview
10:06 – 100% remote, best pay ever
11:33 – Your turn
🔗 CONNECT WITH TIM
🤝 LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/tim-beecher-a5ba74183/
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Transcripts
You can get paid to learn whatever you
need to, whatever they want you to do.
2
:It keeps life interesting for
me because I'm always learning.
3
:I'm always figuring out how to do
something and I'm getting paid to do it.
4
:That's Tim Beecher today.
5
:He's a senior analytics associate at
one of the biggest marketing agencies
6
:in the world, working from home,
making the most money he's ever.
7
:But a few years ago he was sitting in
a boring cubicle at the Better Business
8
:Bureau, making a hundred cold calls
every single day, begging strangers to
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:hand over their credit card information.
10
:Not fun at all.
11
:And even before that, he was
changing locks out on houses in
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:the Texas Heat as a locksmith.
13
:And before that, he completely bombed his
AP computer science exam so badly that
14
:he scored a one out of five and s off.
15
:Everything tech related.
16
:So how did he do it?
17
:Well, this is the story of how Tim went
from all of that to landing a senior
18
:level data analyst role with no analytics
experience, no computer science degree,
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:and no connections in the industry.
20
:And honestly, the way he did it is
something that you could totally copy.
21
:It all started when Tim went to
Utah State to study psychology.
22
:He liked what he was learning,
but then reality kind of came in.
23
:He realized if he wanted to actually
do anything with a psychology degree,
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:he'd need to go back to school
and get a master's, and that's
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:like $30,000 in debt just to start
off making like 50 grand a year.
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:So not really realistic,
so he didn't do that.
27
:Instead, he moved to San Antonio.
28
:He finished his degree online and
took the first full-time job he
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:could possibly find as a locksmith.
30
:He was going house to house, changing
all these locks for new tenants in
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:the blistering Texas Sea year round.
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:It was really cool.
33
:There were a lot of situations where
I had to solve problems, and that was
34
:an important skill that I developed
and I had a good time doing it.
35
:And I did that for about a year, and
then I realized I didn't want to do.
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:Blue Cotter collar work
the rest of my life.
37
:So after that, Tim pivoted
again this time into sales.
38
:He ended up at the Better Business
Bureau, cold calling business
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:owners, trying to close them on a
membership in a single phone call.
40
:Literally hundreds of phone calls a day.
41
:Just to get the one close and 99.9%
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:of those calls ended in rejection.
43
:Very difficult.
44
:And, uh, there was a lot of rejection
and I also realized I didn't want
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:to do that the rest of my life.
46
:So here's Tim psychology degree.
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:He isn't using a locksmithing career he
doesn't want, and a sales job he hates.
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:He's tried three different paths and
literally none of them are working at all.
49
:And honestly, I think a lot of you guys
listening are going to relate to this
50
:next part a lot because a lot of you
are in the same exact spot right now.
51
:So one day Tim's talking to
his younger brother Steve.
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:And Steve has just landed a job as a
data analyst to ride out of college.
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:He's actually working
for an insurance company.
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:Fully remote, good pay, and he's actually
really enjoying the work he's doing.
55
:He was explaining to me what he
does and the problems he solved,
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:and it was fully remote for him, so
he didn't have to go into an office
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:and he was making good money, and
I was like, wow, I want to do that.
58
:Now here's the thing, Tim has.
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:Every reason to dismiss all of this.
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:Remember, he scored a one on
his AP computer science exam.
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:He went to an Excel workshop
in college and he couldn't even
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:understand what a VLOOKUP was.
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:And in his own words, he thought tech was
quote, the hardest thing I've ever done.
64
:But after looking into what a data analyst
actually does on a day-to-day basis.
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:He realized something really important.
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:It was like, oh, okay, I can do this.
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:I don't have to, to be able
to code an, an app, you know?
68
:Yeah.
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:I just have to be able to know
my way around, uh, a table.
70
:I can always Google
something if I don't know.
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:Yeah, and honestly, that's something
I tell people all the time.
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:Data analytics, it's technical for sure.
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:I don't wanna make it sound like it's
not a technical degree, not a technical
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:role, but it's not rocket science.
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:It's not that hard.
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:If you can learn PowerPoint,
you can use Tableau.
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:If you can use Excel, you're
already halfway there.
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:And sql, which is one of the hardest
things that I actually teach people,
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:really only has about 17 core commands.
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:So Tim, solo this.
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:And he saw that the pay was basically
double what he was making in sales.
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:And on top of that, he could work
remotely and, and this was huge for him.
83
:He wouldn't have to go back to school and
spend another 30 grand to get started.
84
:So Tim was kinda sold on becoming a
data analyst and he went on LinkedIn
85
:and started looking for people
who talked about data analytics.
86
:And that's where he found me
on LinkedIn posting about how
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:to land your first data job.
88
:So after reading a couple posts,
listening to a couple podcast episodes,
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:Tim joined my accelerator program and
started building projects from day one.
90
:I wanna be clear about
where he was starting from.
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:Basically zero.
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:Uh, psychology degree, failed AP test,
and basically no memory of what he
93
:learned about the VLOOKUPs in that really
short business Excel class he went to.
94
:But honestly, what Tim had is
something that a lot of people
95
:overlook and that is problem solving
instincts from his locksmithing
96
:job to sales and just figuring
out his whole career path and all.
97
:He was a good problem solver
and in data analytics that
98
:matters more than you realize.
99
:So with the accelerator program,
he learned the tools, he built out
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:his portfolio, and then he started
applying for jobs and sadly, nothing
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:really happened in the beginning.
102
:I wasn't getting as much,
much traction as I had hoped.
103
:And so for a minute there, I, I thought
about pivoting to, to something else.
104
:And truthfully, this is the part of
the story that no one really talks
105
:about because on LinkedIn, all you
see is the celebration post, oh, I
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:landed in my dream data job, but you
never see the months of silence and
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:rejection that happens before that.
108
:And it honestly got so
bad that Tim almost quit.
109
:But then he noticed something
that seemed maybe important.
110
:I saw other people that were in the
program landing jobs, and it was kind
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:of the, the wake up call similar,
like, oh, hey, this person did almost
112
:the exact same thing that I did.
113
:And they're, they're getting jobs,
so it's possible other people in
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:his cohort, people with similar
backgrounds, similar skill levels.
115
:They were getting hired.
116
:So instead of giving up, Tim
asked a really important question.
117
:He said, well, what are
they doing that I'm not?
118
:So what Tim did next is part of the
story that I really want you to pay
119
:attention to because it's the difference
between people who land jobs and
120
:people who keep applying into the
void in getting no callbacks ready.
121
:He stopped applying.
122
:He started reaching out to people instead,
specifically, he noticed that a few people
123
:from our accelerator program were actually
getting hired into one company, one of the
124
:biggest marketing agencies in the world.
125
:And there was a hiring manager who
wasn't even part of my program.
126
:I never even taught them anything
about data, but she followed my
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:content and she really loved our
community, and she had already hired
128
:one of our students previously who was
actually doing really well at the job.
129
:She was really great.
130
:Set up, uh, like an intro call
and she went through my resume
131
:and went through my portfolio.
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:She reviewed his stuff, she liked
what she saw, and she gave him
133
:a referral for an open position.
134
:Now, was this lucky?
135
:Yeah, I mean, it was, it was lucky
for sure, maybe a little bit, but Tim.
136
:Put himself into the
position to get lucky.
137
:He used our accelerator community.
138
:He sent the cold messages on his own.
139
:He did the uncomfortable work that
most people won't be willing to do.
140
:So that one cold message led to a
referral, which led to an interview.
141
:And here's what Tim did really well.
142
:He gets the interview at this huge
marketing agency company, and he is
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:interviewing for a senior analytics
associate position at a marketing agency.
144
:But keep in mind.
145
:He has no real marketing experience and he
has no real analytics experience on paper.
146
:He should not get this job, but in the
interview, every time they ask him about
147
:his skills or his responsibilities,
he didn't only just answer their
148
:question, he pulled up his portfolio
online and walked them through a real
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:project that kind of answered the
question for them, and they would ask
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:me about, you know, the, the roles.
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:Or the responsibilities that this job was
asking for, I could see, I could point
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:directly to my portfolio and be like,
here's an example of when I did this and
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:these projects that he was showing them.
154
:Well, one of them was a hackathon
that we ran in the program,
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:like an internship program.
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:You can think of it.
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:Were a real newsletter company
gave us their raw data.
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:We had the open rates, the click rates,
subscriber data, and we asked our
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:accelerator students to analyze it and
give him actionable recommendations.
160
:So Tim actually worked
on this project solo.
161
:He wasn't the most technical
person in the cohort.
162
:He wasn't even the smartest, but he
did something that no one else did.
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:He Googled what the morning Brew's
open rate was, because the founder had
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:mentioned he was modeling his newsletter
after the Morning Brew, and he put that
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:in the presentation as a benchmark.
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:I think the thing that stood out
to me was that I had listened and
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:I I had understood the business.
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:Yeah.
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:So I, I had put on one of the slides what
the, I think he was looking at open rates.
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:I'd put like, what?
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:I'd done a quick Google search
of what's the morning bruise?
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:Open rate.
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:Oh yeah.
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:And I had put that on there and as just
like a comparison as a benchmark and be
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:like, Hey, your open rate is this compared
to this, you're doing really well.
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:And I think he had, he had pointed
that out that was, that was like no
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:one else had had put something on that.
178
:And that was just for me, listening to
what the stakeholder wanted and knowing
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:that, hey, this could be useful to him.
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:So even though I didn't have
all the technical Python
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:skills, R skills, whatever you
may have, the fact that I had.
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:Understood the business and presented
it in a way that made sense.
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:That went a long way.
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:And that what my role is now.
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:I mean, just think
about that for a second.
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:He wasn't the best at sql.
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:He wasn't the best at data visualization,
but he actually understood the
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:business problem, and that's
literally what a data analyst job is.
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:Take complicated numbers and turn
them into simple actionable insights.
190
:So back to the interview, he's
interviewing at this marketing agency
191
:and he had just walked him through
this real marketing analytics project
192
:where he analyzed email performance.
193
:For a real business, how do you
think the interviewers reacted to it?
194
:Right.
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:Probably pretty well because the
interviewers didn't have to imagine
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:whether Tim could actually do this job.
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:He showed them real proof.
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:He didn't make it a guessing game.
199
:He's like, here's the evidence,
and they offered him the role.
200
:So let's zoom out here and
look where Tim ended up.
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:Tim's now a senior analytics
associate at one of the biggest
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:marketing agencies in the world.
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:One of his main clients
is actually LinkedIn.
204
:He's analyzing ad performance.
205
:He's building out Excel reports and
PowerPoint decks and working with
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:Tableau dashboards, helping clients
make sure that they're not wasting
207
:money on ads, and he's continued to work
from home, a hundred percent remote.
208
:He moved back to Utah to be closer to
family and getting out of that Texas.
209
:He, and he's making the
most money he's ever made.
210
:The cool thing is he's also learning
new things on the job, which is getting
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:paid to learn, which was the whole point
in the beginning that he didn't need to
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:go back to school and he could actually
learn on the job and get paid to learn.
213
:You can get paid to learn whatever you
need to, whatever they want you to do.
214
:It keeps life interesting for
me because I'm always learning.
215
:I'm always figuring out
how to do something.
216
:And I'm getting paid to do it.
217
:And some of those tools at the
beginning that he was scared of.
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:Well, now his day-to-day is mostly Excel.
219
:The thing he couldn't wrap his head around
in the beginning at that college workshop.
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:It turns out when you learn by
doing real projects instead of
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:sitting in a boring lecture hall.
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:Things kind of click differently.
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:We all learn better hands-on, and
the more hands-on projects that
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:you can actually do, the better.
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:So this is a cool story, but why
did I want to tell it to you?
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:It's not because he's some
genius who cracked the code
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:and pivoted from an absolute.
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:Nobody to a senior data analyst, it's
because he's a normal person who tried
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:a bunch of stuff that didn't work.
230
:He almost gave up, and then he did
three things that actually mattered.
231
:Number one, he learned the
skills basically from zero.
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:He didn't know that much before,
but he learned the skills that were
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:necessary to land this first job.
234
:Number two, he built projects that
proved he could actually do the work.
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:And then number three, he used his
network, in this case, the bootcamp
236
:and the accelerator to get in
front of the right people, guys.
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:That's it.
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:That's literally the entire playbook.
239
:If you're watching this from a job
you hate, or a career that you feel
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:like is going nowhere, or you're
staring at job listings for data
241
:analysts and wondering if someone like
you could ever land in those jobs,
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:well, Tim was exactly where you are.
243
:Psychology degree, not data failed.
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:AP tests for computer science can't code.
245
:He's a locksmith, a cold caller.
246
:But now a senior data analyst working
from home, you guys, the path is there.
247
:You just have to start walking it.
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:And if you wanna follow the
exact same roadmap as Tim.
249
:Learn the skills, build real projects,
and then tap into the community
250
:that's actually getting people hired.
251
:You can join the same
bootcamp that he went through.
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:It's called the Data
Analytics Accelerator.
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:It's the bootcamp I run, the one
that I'm actually thinking about
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:and working on every single day,
and I'll make sure I drop the link
255
:in the description down below.
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:I promise you that no matter where
you're at right now, no matter your
257
:skills, no matter how technical you
are, you can become a data analyst if
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:you take the right path, and I hope
you take a path similar to Tim's link
259
:in the description to learn more.
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:I'll see you in the next one.
