Peer Throwback: Do you get it now?

So you’ve had the time to sleep over the questions, not the answers, provided in yesterday’s MAPS call. Chris and Tim blogged about it, there has been a little followup in the community..

So here is the 64,000 question (no, I’m not that old, I saw it on a documentary in a media class in college):

Do you now know why Microsoft has been urging everyone to consider the certified partner program and certifications in general?

While I can respect anyone’s angst at building a sustainable growing business and not wanting to deal with HR issues and management, you’d be a fool not to start writing a competitive summary statement after yesterday’s webcast. That Q&A ought to be printed on the wall of your office to remind you of who your competitors are. If your business is providing Microsoft solutions then you need to showcase how much you’re familiar with Microsoft solutions.

Logo DOES matter, I don’t care if your customers don’t care about it. You make them care about it – you tell them what it means and you tell them why the other guys don’t have one.

Look at this from a customers point of view folks; Would you do business with a pool cleaner that skimmed on his chemicals, rental company that skimmed on the maintenance intervals, airline that made you sit on broken seats? Come on! Why would you expect a customer to think any different?

And in the sea of negativity, he is a positive comment on MAPS from someone that considers it a business tool, coutesy of Fred:

This is where I see MAPS as a great program for partners. The value
of the software that Microsoft gives us for internal use is
unbelievable. But, the real value in the MAPS program is the
opportunity that Microsoft is giving us to gain exposure into other
applications that we, as IT consultants, may not have looked at for
our own business (Project, Visio, etc).

Yes, Microsoft reduced the XP/Vista licenses to upgrade only…but,
guess what, I would have gone out and bought the license anyway
simply because I *NEED* it to run my business. Getting included
licenses, of any type, helps to reduce my overhead and I appreciate
that Microsoft sees fit to help their partners out in this manner.