Consulting 104 – Why Do I Give All the Performance Tuning Scripts to My Customers? – SQL Server Performance Tuning

This is the fourth of my 5 part series on my over 10 years of experience in Comprehensive Database Performance Health Check consulting engagement. Here are the five blog posts which are the essence of my consulting business. You can also call it my business secret. In today’s blog post we will discuss one of the most popular questions I receive – Why Do I Give All the Performance Tuning Scripts to My Customers?

• Consulting 101 – Why Do I Never Take Control of Computers Remotely?
• Consulting 102 – Why Do I Give 100% Guarantee of My Services?
• Consulting 103 – Why Do I Assure SQL Server Performance Optimization in 4 Hours?
• Consulting 104 – Why Do I Give All of the Performance-Tuning Scripts to My Customers?
• Consulting 105 – Why Don’t I Want My Customers to Return Because of the Same Problem?
• Consulting Wrap Up – What Next and How to Get Started

Why Do I Give All the Performance-Tuning Scripts to Customers?

Because I want to and I can.

Now before you rate my answer as arrogant, I want you to read this entire blog post to understand the philosophy behind my consulting service.

Let me explain why I give all the SQL Server Performance-Tuning Scripts to my Customers.

Reason 1: Teaching is Learning

SQL Server Performance Tuning is a relatively complex subject and I am fortunate that I have mastery in this subject. I am able to solve complex problems in a relatively small amount of time. I want to help my customers to achieve the same kind of expertise as well. I want them to know how they can also start building the necessary expertise for their own server. When my clients do various task themselves, they learn more about their environment and processes.

Now, if I want to teach my clients SQL Server secrets I must share with them everything I am about to do on their server. That is why I share my SQL Server Performance-Tuning Scripts with them. Once they have the scripts, I explain various aspects of it to them so they can learn about what they are actually going to do and how they will impact their server. While I teach, I often realize that along with the customers, I have also learned something new about the entire process. I truly believe teaching is learning.

Reason 2: Auditing is Good Thing for Tuning

I do not believe in business secrets or even ‘black box consulting methods’. I want my clients to know every single thing I do and I want them to feel confident about the code that is running on their server. It is important to know what exactly is going on with your server.

If you look at the legal aspect, it is essential to know is running on your server. Many of my customers maintain the source control and changelog on their system. I personally love to comply with this methodology. I want my customers to log every single script we run and every single change we do. During the Health Check, there are many occasions when I request customers to take a screenshot of the previous settings and values, so if needed they can refer to them later.

Reason 3: Rediscovering the Wheel

There is no need to rediscover the wheel. However, the wheel is doing an entirely different task than what it was originally invented for. Alright, if you are not sure what I am talking about let me say it this way. The original wheel was invested to move heavy stuff. Today you are using the mouse wheel to move the cursor which is not heavy. The mouse we are moving is actually without a wheel. Did you get it? The wheel has already been reinvented and rediscovered.

Just like that, I have written scripts that I know help customers to immediately identify SQL Server performance problems and help them solve it. I want my clients to use the script and take advantage of it. I do not think it makes sense to charge for the same problem from the same customers again.

My clients have paid me once to fix a problem and if the problem comes up again, they should be able to solve it themselves and it is my duty to enable them in such a way that if the problem comes up again they can solve it without paying more money.

If you are still not happy with my answer on why I give all the SQL Server Performance Tuning Scripts to all of my clients, let me give the same answer which I had given earlier – Because I Can. I want my clients to learn performance tuning along with me.

Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)