Past article: SBSC 1-year Birthday article

Howdy readers – I am Harry Brelsford, the publisher of the SMB PC magazine and I just had a great idea. Each day I am going to post up article from back magazine issues to get you up to speed. Here is the SBSC First Birthday article from the original magazine issue! This is fun – we launched this magazine edition at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Confernece Small Business Specialist (SBSC) pre-day in Boston at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in 2006!!!

Enjoy the read…harrybbb

Harry Brelsford ceo at smb nation www.smbnation.com

PS – did u know we are sponsoring a raging Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 launch conference (SBS and EBS) in early october in Seattle!!!

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REPORT CARD

 

• SBSC program launched – great buzz!
• USA accomplishments include successful radio advertisements, hosting customer-facing small business summit.
• Worldwide Microsoft subsidiaries embrace SBSC and add innovations. Program launched in many EMEA subsidiaries including Russia, Israel, Greece and South Africa.
• Small Business Technology Assessment Kit offered to Small Business Specialists.
• Best Buy commits to three Small Business Specialists per business center at its USA stores. Customer experience improved.
• Registered Partners see the SBSC logo value.
• Microsoft SBSC training embraces business thinking.
• Small Business Specialists receive a complimentary subscription to this magazine!
• Microsoft Finance has special offer for Small Business Specialists in the USA.
• Important industry affinity groups like ASCII, SMBTN and the Computer Troubleshooters franchise push SBSC enrollment.

• Loudest critics haven’t converted – many gurus haven’t been motivated to complete program requirements and are being outperformed by newbies.
• Candidates request more “attractive” and professional certificate of accomplishment for successfully completing the Small Business Sales and Marketing Assessment (want certificate suitable for framing).

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Learning to Walk – SBSC Takes Its First Steps!

By

Harry Brelsford

 

There are always plenty of folks ready to take credit when something is working. On this, the first birthday of the capable Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC), we found that no less than a half-dozen claims have been made as to the origins of the SBSC program. Was it an SBS MVP who goes by the call sign “Gramps” who first suggested such an idea at an MVP summit years ago with the SBS product team? Was it two long-ago SBS product team members (a Frenchman and a former Peace Corp volunteer) collaborating informally at Interop+ in Las Vegas a few years ago? Was it a “life’s a beach” SBS consultant in San Diego who chanted “Microsoft just doesn’t get it,” at numerous SBS Advisory Channel Meetings? Could it have been a long-time Bainbridge Island SMB author with Redmond connections spanning both the SBS product team and the Microsoft Partner program? (Wait a minute – that’s me!) Can the SBSC program be traced back to the insights of British thought leader John Coulthard, a Microsoft UK executive? A Microsoft Polish partner program manager told Beatrice Mulzer, editor of this magazine, that the SBSC idea came from Poland. Heck – we even have claims that an explorer found the SBSC logo on ancient cave walls in Africa. Honestly – while the source of the Nile was the subject of compelling books and movies, cracking the DaVinci code about the SBSC is very easy; it’s YOU, the small business technology consultant, channel partner and reseller! You asked for it and Microsoft delivered. You are the source of the SBSC program.

 

Last year at WPC 2005, Microsoft introduced the SBSC. And while the “buzz” has been significantly positive, even the most vocal proponents would admit that it has been a slow start marked primarily by test anxiety. Potential Small Business Specialists seem to be afraid to sign up and take one of the required certification exams.

 

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Caption: SBSC launch fanfare included bus banners and airport display advertisements at WPC 2005.

 

Launched!

The SBSC was launched with great fanfare and bus banners at the sold-out 2005 Worldwide Partner Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in early July 2005. Pilot partners from Denmark and Italy were paraded across stage to tout double-digit consulting practice sales increases as a result of having participated in the SBSC pilot. The SBSC program was the “buzz” in an otherwise slow product introduction year. Initial reaction from Microsoft Gold and Certified Partners was one of fear. One Microsoft Certified partner confided that the SBSC title devalued the hard work and effort expended by those entities who had worked hard to become Gold or Certified. The concern was that a one-person operation could enjoy the prestige of being a Microsoft Partner without having to earn competencies, employ two MCPs and pay an annual program fee. Other partners thought the attractive blue SBSC logo somehow upstaged the existing Microsoft Partner program logos.

 

The irony surrounding the Gold and Certified Partner concerns about the SBSC is this: Microsoft reports that the majority of SBSC awardees (58 percent) are in fact Gold and Certified Partners. So whereas the Gold and Certified Partners once expressed fear towards the SBSC, this stakeholder group has been the most ambitious in embracing the SBSC opportunity. Perhaps it’s because the same drive and moxie necessary to become Gold or Certified has been channeled into completing the steps required to attain SBSC status. And in a sign of the truly big players “getting small,” Best Buy, with over 700 USA stores (plus more stores in Canada with the Future Shop acquisition), committed to having three SBSC title holders in each of its 130+ business centers (a “store-within-a-store concept). The Best Buy story will be fully told in the September 2006 issue of SMB Technology Community Magazine. The SBSC launch at WPC 2005 was otherwise smooth with an opening reception, a generous “show and sell kit” offer from CA to SBSCs (earn your SBSC and get both a NFR and a for-resale copy of CA’s Total Protection Suite). Truly the biggest glitch at launch was relatively minor: SBSC candidates learned that they must turn off their Internet browser pop-up blocker to complete the online Small Business Sales and Marketing Assessment.

 

 

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Become a SBSC!

You must complete five distinct steps to attain the SBSC title:

1. Be a Microsoft Partner (Registered member, Certified, Gold).
2. Complete the online Small Business Sales and Marketing Assessment.
3. Pass one of two qualifying Microsoft Certified Professional examinations:
   1. 70-282 Designing, Deploying, and Managing a Network Solution for a Small- and Medium-Sized Business. Note that successfully passing this examination also gives you Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) status.
   2. 74-134 Pre-installing Microsoft Products and Technologies.
4. Purchase Action Pack if you are a Registered member or Empower if you are a ISV\OEM.
5. Complete the SBSC registration process at the Microsoft Partner site. https://partner.microsoft.com/global/smallbusiness/smallbusinessspecialist.

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Early Efforts

Old timers in the Microsoft small business community will quickly recognize that the early SBSC days and weeks were comparable to the early years of Small Business Server (the first two 4.x releases), where the program paradigm was still being defined. SBSC launched right into the summer vacation months of the Northern Hemisphere (July and August) where Europeans stroll the beaches for six weeks and Americans engage in “dog days” recreation activities, such as attending a baseball game. That would be akin to launching a consumer operating system after the coveted holiday shopping season (I couldn’t resist that one). But in all fairness, some early SBSC recruiting efforts got traction:

• Rolling Thunder Local Public Relations. Microsoft engaged a couple of small PR agencies to work with early SBSC awardees to announce “first in the city” status. This was especially appropriate as smaller PR agencies are themselves small businesses and “get it.” For example, long-time SBS consultant Bob Hood was profiled in a press release as the first SBSC in the Chicagoland area. Other SBSCs proudly proclaim their “first in town” status on their small business technology consulting Web sites and marketing materials. This sophisticated PR strategy is a very mature business model approach, often unfamiliar to lone ranger small business technology consultants. It directly increased the incumbents’ revenues by overtly and covertly boosting business development efforts! Just months prior to the SBSC release, the Microsoft Small Business Server product team working with the small business team at Wagner Edstrom, released a PR Kit for SBS consultants (see Issue 4-6 of the SMB Technology Watch newsletter at www.smbnation.com to learn more).
• Expert Column: Small Business Watch on Microsoft Partner site. (Read about Bob Hood in the January, 2006 installment). A regular column, written by yours truly, was available on the day of the SBSC launch to tell the SBSC story and build community. You can read about Bob Hood (above) by visiting the Microsoft Partner site and selecting the January, 2006 column installment.
• Dark Days Lead to Bright Days. Okay – Microsoft field representatives and others have been incredibly honest about the SBSC’s slow start. In fact, some partner event presentations even bordered on guilt-tripping to get you to take the 70-282 examination. (Although such sermons were often accompanied by compelling discount test vouchers!) At times, the Redmond mood truly resembled the darkness of some early SBS developers in the “early years.” But dark days often lead to better times. While the conversion rate lagged in the first several months of the program – several leading indicators suggested bright days were just around the corner. As the late Louis Rukeyser, host of PBS’s Wall Street Week TV show for many decades, would say, the “elves” predict good market conditions ahead. Such was the case. Witness these positive trends:
  • Beatrice Mulzer (editor of this magazine) co-authored a SBSC/70-282 exam cram that went to its fourth printing before Christmas. This is significant because an exam cram book is a leading indicator that the masses are preparing to take the 70-282 examination and earn the SBSC title.
  • Small business workshops overflowing. Both SMB Nation and Microsoft workshops were able to compare and correlate what Microsoft Certified Training Centers were starting to report – the demand for training and instruction had returned after a multi-year drought. Workshops that previously had only 25 attendees present to hear the SBS 2003 story now had over 90 attendees once the SBSC storyline was highlighted.
  • Hands-on labs sold out. You had to have been there to witness the near riot. The Boston venue for the two-day SBSC hands-on lab hosted by the Microsoft Partner program experienced an overflow crowd where wait-listed attendees stole the seats of bona fide (albeit late arriving) attendees. It caused in more tension than the Boston Tea Party caused for the British during the American Revolution.
  • Grassroots community support. Starting from day one of the SBSC, Susanne Dansey, contributing editor for this magazine’s monthly Community column, quickly rose in the UK small business technology community (OK – society) with her energetic efforts to build, launch and maintain the UK’s independent “go to” SBSC site at http://www.sbsbpi.co.uk. The Magical M&M’s, both SBS MVPs, launched a SBSC forum at Smallbizserver.net.
• Exclusivity Enforcement – certification exam requirement retained. Let’s face it. When a software product is about to ship late, developers often cut features to make the release to manufacturing (RTM) date. So when the SBSC program initially missed its recruiting targets, the temptation could have been to lower the quality bar and suspend or eliminate the certification exam requirement. No such action was taken as the SBSC award needs to have an earned-exclusivity element to create value and prestige for the incumbent. What’s the value of a trumped-up title if there is too much fluff and not enough buff?

 

USA Innovation

Microsoft’s SBSC teams can be thought of as three-fold: worldwide, USA subsidiary and international subsidiaries (to learn more about how Microsoft is organized, visit Directions On Microsoft at www.directionsonmicrosoft.com). From the forest of Redmond to the crashing waves of the San Francisco Bay, a few first-year American innovations are noteworthy from these Microsoft employees.

• Robyn Trembley’s SBSC radio ad (listen to it at www.smbnation.com). A customer-facing radio advertisement that directed listeners to a Web site to “find their Small Business Specialist” to implement SBS, Office and Windows XP Pro allowed Robyn’s region (called PacWest) to go from worst to first in SBSC recruitment! Robyn reached her SBS recruitment goals six months early. “I would say that the ads were done with 2 goals: to reach the customer with the promo and create leads and to provide an extra incentive for the partners to become Small Business Specialists sooner rather than later. I ran a blitz campaign (e-mails and call downs) telling partners the ads were coming and that customers would be looking for SBSCs in their area by the end of January so they needed to become a SBSC in order for customers to find them,” a very busy Robyn shared. “In addition, I held a one-day exam cram and testing to make it easy for them to make the deadline.” This advertisement has since been run in other markets including California, New York and Denver.
• Susanne Lavine’s Bay Area telemarketing campaign. Susanne found funds in some nooks and crannies of her district budget to implement a telemarketing sales campaign that directly fed leads to SBSC members. Karl Palachuk, a leading Small Business Specialist from Sacramento, offered the following observations about Suzanne: “As soon as the SBSC program was announced, Suzanne hit the ground running. She’d apparently been collecting e-mail addresses for years. So suddenly she’s got this major mailing list for all of Northern California. Then she came up with one great idea after another for us–including the telemarketing program. She’s been great for the community.”

  Bob Nitro, who assists Karl in running the Sacramento SBS user group, proffered, “Suzanne’s initiative in creating and delivering her outstanding newsletter has brought to our Northern California region a level of communications with Microsoft that we have never before enjoyed.  The breadth, depth and quality of the information that she has been providing is simply incredible.  In my opinion, Suzanne has single-handedly changed the landscape for Microsoft partners in Northern California by making it so easy to keep up with the Microsoft events and resources that are available to us.  Until Suzanne came along, we never had anyone from Microsoft who showed such an interest in Microsoft partners, with the exception of Margo Day, of course.  As I see it, Suzanne has taken the touch that Margo embraced and brought it down to the local level.  I met with Margo in Atlanta earlier this year and I took that opportunity to tell her what a fabulous job Suzanne was doing for us and I asked her to never transfer Suzanne anywhere else.  We want her all to ourselves!”

• Eric Ligman’s magic touch (see video interview at www.smbnation.tv). Proving once again that most corporate innovation occurs in the field before being swallowed by the proverbial corporate HQ, Eric Ligman took the individual initiative to create a quasi-independent Web site  (www.mssmallbiz.com) and Yahoo! newsgroup in an almost “skunk works” mission (this is a 1980s MBA business term for covert corporate projects).Another Eric-ism was his Less Than Coffee paradigm at www.lessthancoffee.com that allows a Small Business Specialist to show a customer a capable small business network is possible for less than the price of coffee per day. Eric’s innovation resulted in his promotion and relocation to Redmond where he has assimilated well into the HQ world while avoiding “Redmonditis” (a productivity-robbing malady marked by days of endless meetings).  In the near future these sites will be moved to the Microsoft Small Business Community site (there will be an automatic redirect).
• SMB Finance Futures. Microsoft Finance used a customer-facing March, 2006 event, the Small Business Summit, to sweeten the pot for Small Business Specialists seeking to close more customer deals. Generous financing terms and conditions, such as a lower deal size and the leasing concept that wrapped the Small Business Specialist’s labor charges for deployment, administration and training). Learn more about this at https://www.microsoftfinancing.com (note that offers may change over time).

 

Overseas Innovation

Hopefully you, the reader, will quickly come to appreciate that this magazine is NJAATM! (Not Just Another American Technology Magazine). Rather – we are most often appreciative of and impressed by overseas SBSC efforts, such as these highlights.

• In order to qualify SBSC awardees on an ongoing basis, Microsoft UK raised the SBS bar even higher by dating the SBSC logo so that British subjects must renew their SBSC award each year. Renewal qualifications being considered include in-classroom business and technical training much like professionals (attorney\barristers, medical doctors) clock hours under the Continuing Professional Education (CPE) guidelines of their respective profession. The UK has also been very proactive in fostering user group growth and holding cantankerous “House of Lords” style feedback sessions for existing Small Business Specialists.
• Italy – Punto Microsoft. One of the SBSC pilot program venues, Punto Microsoft, used its existing base of over 800 small business technology resellers as the basis for its entry into the SBSC (it recently celebrated its second birthday). Punto Microsoft focuses on reseller rebates and sales incentives and its approach is being lauded and applauded internally at Microsoft as a successful model for getting small business technology consultants to sell more licenses and bill more service revenue. Read more at www.microsoft.com/italy/punto_microsoft. Note that Microsoft Punto has a “combined branding” logo with the SBSC logo and over time, the Microsoft Punto logo will shrink in size and the SBSC logo will increase in size. This logo is shown below.

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MICROSOFT PUNTA LOGO HERE

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• New Zealand – In late fall, 2005, over 2,500 attendees participated in the SQL Server 2005 launch in Auckland. The following day’s SBSC workshop had only 48 attendees present. What gives? Why the dramatic drop off? Here is what occurred. Microsoft New Zealand privately invited selected partners to the event to learn more about the SBSC and participate in the exam cram. The thinking was that “exclusivity equals added value.” If New Zealand SBSC title holders are hand-picked based on demonstrated competencies, doesn’t that necessarily enhance the quality of the SBSC designation?
• Denmark – the other SBSC pilot country was Denmark. Not only did Denmark share its beta learnings with Redmond, it continues to be an SBSC thought leader with its business school development efforts. Microsoft Denmark is leading the charge to elevate the mindset of SBSC members with business thinking!
• Germany – rumor has it that Germany is ahead of plan in SBSC recruitment because Germany has a surprisingly strong record of success with the SBS product. The SBS product success is driving SBSC success!
• Russia – The very first SBSC workshop drew 180+ attendees, prompting the local Microsoft Small Business program manager to hold the exact event a second time, which drew another 120+ attendees in Moscow. Considering that this country is also said to have a high rate of software piracy, the interest in the SBSC should give insight into the maturing economic situation in the former Soviet Union: less piracy and more legitimate software.
• Microsoft Australia SBSC manager Bill Vlandis has grown the SBSC program by aligning with an Australia-based franchise organization, Computer Troubleshooters, which is supporting its franchisees’ efforts to become Small Business Specialists. Vlandis also receives kudos for rallying Aussie Small Business Specialists towards a fundraising, community-building event where the proceeds where donated to charity. Computer Troubleshooters will be discussed more in the August, 2006 issue of this magazine (see our forthcoming cover story on franchising).
• Israel – SBS MVP Steven Teiger teamed with Microsoft Israel to create an entertaining SBSC video featuring biking in a local park that promotes both community building and recruitment.

 

 

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SBSC Toy Story!

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These are photos of SBSC gimmicks and toys from around the world

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Future Tripping

Looking forward, better days are ahead for the SBSC program as it grows from infant to toddler. In February 2006, Microsoft summoned members of the worldwide SBSC team as well as SMS&P (Small and Medium Solutions and Partners Division) small business managers and SMB product managers to Seattle for a week-long planning session. Much of the discussion focused on assessing and improving the SBSC program.

 

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The February 2006 internal small business summit was held a month before the public-facing Small Business+ Summit and afforded Microsoft the opportunity to align its small business partner and customer messages. A key takeaway was the realization by many Microsoft managers that some SBS consultants are “too technical” to be financially successful.

 

Professional honor and dignity is the mantra sounded by Mitch Garvis in Montreal. A strong advocate for the SBSC program, Mitch likens it to the engineering profession where certain standards must be met and maintained by incumbents. You might be interested to know that Quebec, the province where Montreal is located, was one of two locales to successful challenge the term “engineer” in the Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE) certification program, based on professional-standard grounds (but that’s another story). This cultural commitment to professionalism is the basis of Mitch’s contention that the Microsoft Certified System Administrator (MCSA) should be the technical requirement to become an SBSC member (not just passing the 70-282 or 74-134 certification exam). In addition to being a more noble achievement, the MCSA offers an enhanced educational opportunity for the SBSC, serving real-world customers using a variety of different technology solutions.

 

Balancing bits and bucks! The SBSC strikes a comfortable balance between the technical and business dimensions that shape the professional life of the small business technology consultant. Look for this to continue. We predict the SBSC program will carve out its niche as a community resource for supporting the consultant and draw linkages to the more technical resources such as Microsoft TechNet.

 

Marie Huwe, profiled in the Microsoft Insider column this issue, hinted at future developments that include embracing the other Microsoft Partner participants such as the MBS\Dynamics partners into the SBSC program. How this assimilation will occur remains to be seen. Will there be a grandfather clause to “fast-track” this white collar partner crowd (accountants installing Great Plains as an example) into the SBSC? Will other SMB product stack applications be part of the SBSC mix? Will other certification examinations be added to the qualifying list?

 

To answer the above questions, you’ll just need to keep reading these pages as we’ll report on how the SBSC program evolves and elevates the lives of small business technology consultants everywhere. Happy Birthday SBSC!

 

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BEST PRACTICE

Attend a Microsoft Partner event. In order for Microsoft to sustain its robust events calendar, it must meet certain attendee metrics, hit acceptable evaluation marks and show a bona fide ROI. It’s in your best interests as an SBSC to have these in-person events, as evidenced by TS2 events in the USA, be successful and ultimately make you more successful.

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RESOURCES

• Read the Microsoft Insider column interview in this issue with Marie Huwe where she speaks about the future of the SBSC.
• SMB Nation TV (www.smbnation.tv). See follow-on interviews with many of the people and topics profiled in this article, including:
  • Marie Huwe
  • Susanne Lavine
  • Eric Ligman
  • Microsoft UK
  • Microsoft Italy – Microsoft Punto
  • Microsoft Russia
  • Microsoft New Zealand
  • Microsoft Denmark
  • Microsoft Australia
  • Microsoft Worldwide SBSC team at February 2006 internal SBSC planning meeting
•  Visit Microsoft’s SBSC site at https://partner.microsoft.com/global/smallbusiness/smallbusinessspecialist.
• Read the infamous “red book” from SMB Nation Press: Microsoft Small Business Specialist Primer and 70-282 Examination Preparation Guide (Mulzer\Brelsford)

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