BMS Blog: SBS Consulting in the UK

Posted on UK SBSC blog is info on promotions due to end soon. You’ll have to be quick if you want to take advantage of them:

Promotion

End Date

BPOS 27% discount

30^th June 2009

Power Through The Downturn – 10% Open discount selected products

30^th June 2009

Windows Server Services Rebate

30^th June 2009

Claims submitted by 31^st July 2009

5% price promotion on Open License for Government

30^th June 2009

Windows Client 10% Software Assurance

31 August, 2009 (extended from 30 June 2009)

Up to 10% discount on BPOS –EA/EAS & MOSP

31 August, 2009 (extended from 30 June, 2009)

Thanks to Emily for the reminders

Have you taken a look at Microsoft Pinpoint yet, and more to the point have you checked your profiled solutions work on there?

Pinpoint is a new lead generation tool that customers can use to find your solutions. Launching this month it offers a user friendly interface, customer ratings, reviews and partner spotlight features.

It is recommend you enter your solutions in Solution Profiler. If you have existing solutions in Solution Profiler, we recommend you visit the Pinpoint information page on the Partner Portal to ensure these solutions are Pinpoint-compatible. Use the Microsoft Pinpoint Content Guidelines to succinctly communicate to customers what your company does and how your offerings can benefit them.

I checked out or existing profiled solutions and they all looked fine. Weirdly putting in our postcode doesn’t bring us up though! I’ll be sending an email off to Microsoft about that asap!

Good to see that Microsoft UK are doing their bit to promote the purchase of “first servers” and SBSC partners via an email campaign I’ve see pop in to several peoples email boxes recently

The email has a link to the Microsoft Small Business Centre as well as a downloadable whitepaper:

It’s very easy to be blasé when it comes to talking about the SBSC community and how we all help each other drive business opportunities forward etc. but there are 2 such projects which prove the point recently which I want to point out: Richard Tubb’s blog post about A great example of Microsoft Partners collaborating to deliver value and the response to our own request for assistance in rolling out broadband in the south of England.

Richard works hard at being an active member of the community and it has obviously paid off in spades when it came to a recent collaboration he undertook. In Richard’s own words:

I was reminded of just how far we’d come along thanks to the partnerships we’ve nurtured during a recent large project we collaborated on with Aparion IT, an fellow IT Consultancy based in Nottingham run by my old friend and colleague, Neil Wykes. Aparion are an experienced IT provider with a number of members of staff. They had recently won a large project based overseas that was keeping them very busy, but had come across another equally large opportunity within a large multi-national Transport company operating within the UK that they were under-resourced to tackle immediately, but loathe to pass up on as an opportunity. Neil got on the ‘phone to us and asked if we’d be interested in partnering up to help deliver a solution. Partnering up in this way is always a big step, as you’re basically asking someone else to represent you to your client, and I’m grateful Neil had enough trust in Netlink IT to place his trust in us that way.

At BMS we recently asked for community assistance to roll out broadband to a group of offices around the south coast of England. The response was swift and within 24 hours we had 12 offers of help! Very impressive and we are looking forward to working with some of our fellow SBSC partners when the deal is signed.

So if you want to offer a wider range of services and cover a larger geographical area make sure you get involved in the community, either via going along to your local SBSC user group, joining the SBSC group on http://www.microsoftpartnercommunity.co.uk/ and start talking  to your fellow SBSC colleagues. The community really does work!

When is a customer not a customer? The first time they don’t pay you – that’s when.

There was a time in the IT SME services sector that you almost couldn’t help but make money – companies were trampling each other under foot to buy your services – well that might be a slight exaggeration but you get the picture! But not any more. Trying to convince customers to part with their hard earned  so you can monitor their systems and ensure maximum uptime and availability can be a hard sell when their cash flow sucks and their own sales have dropped off faster than a Lemming over a cliff.

With that in mind it is even more important that you take a look at your existing customer base and decide which customers are earning you money and which you should get rid of. Now I know that it might be an odd thing to consider getting rid of customers but if they aren’t making you money and assuming you aren’t a registered charity then they have to go – for your sake, your employees sake and your good customers’ sake.

So that brings me on to what we consider a non customer or one that needs to go and how we go about telling that customer. We used to be quite lenient when it came to payments – I don’t mean we didn’t have procedures in place, we have and have had since the beginning. We have however tightened up on those procedures a lot as we were stung by 2 customers whose payments we let slide who then went belly up. Now, as soon as a customer doesn’t pay us when they’re supposed to we give them one chance and one chance only to correct the situation. After that we suspend any services related to non payments until they do pay up.

If they still don’t play ball, we issue a draft small claims court red letter. Experience has taught us that if they don’t pay at that point they really can’t afford to pay and it is time to get rid of them. You aren’t their bank or finance house, but by continuing to provide your services when they aren’t paying means that is exactly what you have become to them. It’s a hard decision but it has to be made.

So now you have weeded out the bad customers what do you do with the additional time and resource that has freed up? You go and have conversations with your good customers and spend more time with them. Keeping your good customers on side during these hard times is incredibly important and if you aren’t talking to them on a regular basis you can bet one of your competitors is!

We are currently looking for SBSC partners who can help us with a potential phased roll out of broadband in the following locations:

Wendover
Maidenhead
Beaconsfield
Windsor
Northwood
Winchester
Moorhill
Marlow
Southampton
Reading
Beaconsfield

Click on the map to see a larger version of the rollout locations.

The rollout will include setting up existing routers/firewalls and testing Internet connectivity/VPN back to head office. Ideally we are looking for one SBSC partner to cover all locations but we will also consider working with multiple partners to cover all locations if required.

If you would like to be considered for the rollout please contact swright@bmsnet.co.uk as soon as possible.

This month we have 2 presentations. First up is Sonicwall who will be telling us all about their SME solutions and services. I’m sure we’ve all heard of Sonicwall in connection with firewalls but they also produce a whole range of other related products and services which should help with generating those all important recurring revenue streams!

Second up is Quintadena, reseller of Quotewerks which is an excellent tool for putting together fast accurate and professional quotes quickly and easily. If you aren’t using Quotewerks you definitely need to see this presentation and if you are using it the presentation can be an opportunity to quiz Paul from Quintadena about some of the more advanced features.

I have a  limited number of SBS/EBS 2008 printed brochures available but you will only be able to get them by turning up to the next AMITPRO meeting on Tuesday 9th June, and when they’re gone they’re gone! Yet another great reason to get involved with the SBSC community

Licensing’s Cool Event – Saturday the 13^th June 2009

Taking place on 13^th June 2009 at the Microsoft Campus in  Reading, this Saturday morning workshop aims to dispel the myths around Microsoft Licensing being complex.

Workshop topics will focus on introduction to –

Microsoft’s Licensing Accreditations - Understanding the Microsoft licensing programs and how to identify the right licensing solution for your customers; Understanding the Microsoft licensing models and how to license your customers’ solutions correctly;

Microsoft Products: Fundamentals - Key Microsoft technologies and how you can cross and up-sell these products to your customers. 

There will also be the opportunity to take the MLSS Lite exam.  The course is ideal for anyone who wants to learn more about Microsoft basics.

Limited spaces available – Register on the Partner Learning Centre – Reserve your space HERE.

Following on from my previous post regarding the new brochures they can now be downloaded from the Sales and Marketing Resource Library.

You can get the SBS one directly from here, or the EBS one directly from here.

There are a limited number of printed brochures available but you will only be able to get them by turning up to the next AMITPRO meeting on Tuesday 9th June, and when they’re gone they’re gone! Yet another great reason to get involved with the SBSC community

I also have a load of Harry Brelsford’s SMB Partner Community mags to hand out. Details on the speakers of the June meeting to follow soon.

To coincide with the free exam vouchers which were available recently Andy Trish, my fellow Microsoft PAL as of July 2009 is running some live meeting events to help ensure you get the best possible chance of passing the exam.

The live meetings will be intensive so be prepared to answer questions thrown at you and you’ll be given homework to prepare for the next one with the intention of all candidates being able to complete the live meetings and take their exams prior to the end of June.  The cost of attendance is free however if you don’t have a voucher the exam cost will need to be funded by yourself… but as Andy says, this is a great investment you are making in your future both for you and your customers.

Exam 70-653 will be one of a choice of exams required to be SBSC in the upcoming changes Microsoft are making in the Partner Community so get out your notepads and join in. The first event is Thursday 28^th of May at 3:30pm and is due to last 1.5 hours

The registration link is https://www.livemeeting.com/lrs/0000000379_116/Registration.aspx?pageName=9jp66cq70v4t53q2