Help Me Help You.

In my PollGab room where y’all can ask questions, Chocolate Thunder wrote:

I do genuinely wish that I could do two things at the same time:

1. Give y’all everything for free, and
2. Pay for the roof over my head and put food on my table

I haven’t figured out how to do both of those things at the same time. I know how to do one of them, but not both. So I try to strike a balance: I try to give away as much as I possibly can, for free. Here’s a quick rundown of what I provide y’all at absolutely no charge:

• The First Responder Kit: tools like sp_Blitz, sp_BlitzFirst, and more so you (and consultants all over the world) can solve problems for free
• Training classes:  like How to Use the First Responder Kit, How to Think Like the Engine
• SQL ConstantCare®: so you can get free monitoring for the most urgent issues like database corruption and broken backups
• YouTube videos: in the last year, people have watched 85,200 hours of videos – on average, at any given time, 10 people are watching one of my YouTube videos
• Short videos on my LinkedIn, TikTok, and Facebook channels

Every year, I challenge myself to give away more for free than I’ve ever given away before. 2024’s new addition was the short videos on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Facebook. This actually costs me money, because I have a social media person chopping up my Office Hours videos into bite-sized chunks and adding transcripts to make them easier to follow. (I can’t do this myself – I have zero free time left.)

Short videos don’t work for everything, of course. Some questions require longer, bigger answers. For example, in a 60-90 second free video, I can’t teach you how to rewrite a stored procedure to solve deadlocking problems. That takes explanation, a complex demo query, a cleanly rewritten one, and a long session showing the before and after effects.

So I do charge for the long, complex stuff.

I try to give away everything that folks need at the beginning of their careers. However, as they progress to the senior level and they start to face complex challenges – things that are costing the business real money – then that’s where I build more complex training classes to make those issues easier.

That means, Chocolate Thunder, that I’ve got good news and great news.

The good news is that you’ve found an authority online that you trust, whose opinion you value, and who you want to learn more complex things from.

The great news is that my training happens to be on sale this month! Now’s your chance not just to get your own problems solved, but also by buying my training, you’re helping to sponsor more free material every year. The more y’all buy, the more I can afford to give back to the community. Let’s do this together – help me help y’all!

And if you want to add on our apps, SQL ConstantCare® and the Consultant Toolkit, these bundles include those too:

• Level 1 Bundle (Fundamentals + Apps): $995/year $695/year, save $300
• Level 2 Bundle (Fundamentals + Mastering + Apps): $1,595/year $995/year, save $600

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we pay via check or purchase order? Yes, but only for 10 or more seats for the same package, and the full payment (not just a purchase order or IOU) must be received before the sale ends. Email us now at Help@BrentOzar.com with the package you want to buy and the number of seats, and we’ll send you a quote to include with your check. Make your check payable to Brent Ozar Unlimited and mail it to 9450 SW Gemini Drive, ECM #45779, Beaverton, OR 97008. Your payment must be received before we activate your training, and must be received before the sale ends. Payments received after the sale ends will not be honored. We do not accept POs as payment unless they are also accompanied by a check in the same envelope. For a W9 form: http://downloads.brentozar.com/w9.pdf

Can we get discounts for group buys? Not during the Black Friday sale. These prices are as low as we go.

Can we send you a form to fill out? No, to keep costs low during the Black Friday sales, we don’t do any manual paperwork or sign up for your vendor system. To get these awesome prices, you’ll need to check out through our web site and use the automatically generated PDF invoice/receipt that gets sent to you via email about 15-30 minutes after your purchase finishes. If you absolutely need us to fill out paperwork, we’d be happy to do it at our regular (non-sale) prices – email us at Help@BrentOzar.com for details.