I thought I'd pass along some information from an independent 3rd party that is conducting a leadership survey. Participate, and you'll have the opportunity to win 1 of 3 Xbox 360 consoles.

Microsoft is encouraging partners to participate in a survey of leadership and management traits and practices in the US Microsoft Dynamics channel. The survey is designed and conducted by an independent 3rd party and is not sponsored by or affiliated with Microsoft; individual partners’ information is confidential and will not be shared with Microsoft. Individuals who participate will have a chance to win one of three new Xbox 360 consoles. Visit PartnerSource for contest rules.

The intent of the study is to identify specific leadership behaviors and management practices most likely to drive business success. Partner organizations who participate will be provided an assessment of their own organization as compared with more and less successful VAR organizations. For questions or more information please contact DynLeadStudy@hotmail.com.

The survey is designed to build a 360˚ view of the partner leader and their organization and consists of two online questionnaires:

Questionnaire 1 – Leader 360 Survey: Employees of Microsoft Dynamics VAR organizations

Employees should complete the survey if they work for or with the leader of the organization - the CEO/President or primary company leader - and are familiar with his or her practices and behaviors. The survey asks the name of the organization and the leader being evaluated so that the study can evaluate employee’s answers with other parts of the study. The survey is completely confidential and no one within the organization or externally, other than the researchers, will find out any details about personal responses.

Employee Questionnaire – 20 questions

Questionnaire 2 – Key informant: Senior leaders of Microsoft Dynamics VAR organizations

This questionnaire is aimed at senior company leaders familiar with the strategies, policies, operations and programs of the VAR organization e.g. the firm's owner(s), President, CEO, CFO, Directors and Senior Managers. More than one profile questionnaire can be completed per company as long as separate individuals complete each questionaire. Multiple submissions per company are encouraged.

Key informant questionnaire – 24 questions

Thank you for your interest. The survey sweepstakes starts July 10, 2010 and ends at 11:59 pm PT on October 31, 2010.

--Kevin

The Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral fee program helps you earn supplemental revenue, when you submit opportunities that result in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics ERP, and Microsoft Dynamics POS and Microsoft Dynamics RMS transactions. Learn how you can help your customers across a variety of industries connect with the Microsoft Dynamics partners who can deliver specialized solutions that can address their unique challenges.

Enroll in the Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral Program

About the Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral Program

The Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral program does more than help you earn revenue—it helps you ensure your role as a trusted advisor to your customers. If your expertise does not extend to selling Microsoft Dynamics solutions, you can pass leads for those opportunities to Microsoft. Microsoft distributes those leads to Microsoft Dynamics partners with the appropriate expertise based on their profiles. And if the opportunity results in a transaction, you earn a referral fee of 5 percent of the amount Microsoft invoices—and show your customers that you are looking after their best interests.

How to Become Eligible for Referral Fees

Joining the Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral program is easy. To be eligible for fees, your organization must meet the following conditions:

• Enroll in the Microsoft Partner Network.
• Sign the Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral agreement.
• Submit relevant, high-quality, new lead information (before a transaction takes place).
• The opportunity must be new and not known to Microsoft when you submit it.
• If more than one submission is received for the same opportunity, the first eligible submission gets priority for the referral fee.

Exclusions

• You cannot receive fees from the Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral program and earn Solution Provider Agreement (SPA) discounts or Software Advisor fees for the same opportunity.
• Opportunities in the public sector are not eligible for Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral fees.

How to Submit Your Leads

To submit your lead to Microsoft:

1. Go to the Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral website.
2. Enter the requested information about the prospective customer and the Microsoft Dynamics opportunity. Some of the fields are mandatory; others are optional. The higher the quality of the information submitted, the more likely it is that a Microsoft Dynamics solution selling partner will pursue the opportunity, and that your organization will earn the referral fee.
3. After you have submitted the requested information through the online tool, you will receive a confirmation and a referral ID, which enables you to track the status of your submission at any time.
4. If a transaction occurs within 12 months of the submission date, Microsoft will notify you after the fee payment has been submitted to your bank account.

Additional Resources

Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral Program Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Maximize your opportunity as a Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral partner. Find valuable, step-by-step guidance about processes and how to claim fees, along with answers to other frequently asked questions. Read the FAQ.

Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral Agreement

Prior to beginning the sign-up process, you can review a reference-only version of the Microsoft Dynamics Lead Referral agreement. (Scroll to the bottom of the page to view the agreement in several different languages.)

--Kevin

After posting information about the Fiscal Year 2010 Distinction in Marketing Award Winners back on July 7, many of you expressed interest in the upcoming web seminar where our award winners would share insights to their campaign successes. That web seminar is now scheduled, and registration details are highlighted below.

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Community Call: Making of a Successful Marketing Campaign: 2010 Distinction in Marketing Award Winners

September 16, 2010 at 9:00 AM PST

Learn from the successes of your marketing peers in this 90 minutes session where we will hear from each of the 2010 Distinction in Marketing Award winning partners. They will overview their campaigns, highlight their key success factors and leave you with ideas, tips and inspiration to turn up the heat on your Microsoft Dynamics marketing campaigns.

--Kevin

It's that time again. The time of the new Microsoft fiscal year that many of our Microsoft Dynamics partners' salespeople and marketers look forward to. The official kickoff of the Sales Professional Community (SPC) and Marketing Professional Community (MPC)!!! Your opportunity to sign up for some key training events is now here. Whether you are new to Microsoft Dynamics or a tenured veteran, these programs have demonstrated solid success for networking and business & personal development.

Microsoft Dynamics Sales Professional Community FY11 Kick Off Call

August 26, 2010 at 9:00 AM PST

Attention all Sales Professionals! Are you ready to kick off the FY11 Microsoft Dynamics Sales Professional Community? Join us for this informative sixty minute presentation to learn more about the FY11 program. By attending this session, you will hear what’s new with the program, what has changed, actions to take to participate in the program, and much more!

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Professional Community: FY11 Kick Off and Marketing Planning Template Training

August 19, 2010 11:00 AM PST

Attention all Marketing Professionals! Are you ready to kick off the FY11 Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Professional Community? Join us for this informative session to learn more about the FY11 program as well as the new marketing planning template available to help you align your business strategy with your marketing plans. By attending this session, you will understand how you should leverage the new marketing planning template to plan for your marketing campaigns, how you can estimate ROI and track the performance of those campaigns throughout the year, and in the end we will let you know about all the upcoming training you should take as a marketing professional, and actions to take to participate in the program.

--Kevin

As always, we strive to make PartnerSource a top notch resource for managing your orders and customer service plan renewals. These key enhancements to PartnerSource should enable you to use these tools more effectively.

We are very pleased to announce these exciting new changes to improve partners' experience on PartnerSource. This new functionality in My Messages will be effective August 14, 2010.

The highlights of the changes are:

• Creation of renewal quotes for customers on 3 year Installment plans, 90 days in advance of upcoming installment date
• Visibility of customers on 3 year plan Installment plans in My Messages
• Ability to see entire customer list via My Messages and drill down to see all "Active Customers" or "Lapsed Customers".
• Additional search capabilities within My Messages views
• Ability to order Enhancement renewals for multiple customers at one time
• Show/Hide current contract details and quotes for "Active Customers".

These upcoming system changes are available for partners to review (including screenshots) on PartnerSource.

--Kevin

One more news tidbit from last week to pass along. I promise to deliver some "new" news soon! I was only out of the office for one week of vacation, and the Microsoft Dynamics team pushed out a lot of great resources for partners in that short week. Here's an update from the Microsoft Dynamics GP guys and gals...

Are you thinking about offering Microsoft Dynamics GP in the cloud? This new White Paper discusses the best practices for planning, building, and deploying a hosting service for Microsoft Dynamics GP.

For additional information, be sure to read Andy Westby's "We've got our head in the clouds..." posting on the Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP blog.

--Kevin

Here's another "in case you missed it" news item that was announced last week on Tuesday, August 3. Congratulations to the Microsoft Dynamics AX and Retail teams for the release this new solution! I've included a snippet from the announcement below from Michael Griffiths, Global Director of Product Managent, Microsoft Dynamics Retail. Visit The Edge blog to review the complete details.

This week marks the worldwide general availability of Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail, a new solution for midsized specialty retailers that offers a deep level of integration across point of sale, store management, supply chain, merchandising and financials to address business productivity while enhancing customer service in a single solution. It’s an exciting time for Microsoft and our retail team, because we are delivering the end-to-end solution, innovation, and value that our customers and partners have been asking for to meet the needs of today’s retail environment.

Please vist the Microsoft Dynamics AX for Retail homepage for more information.

--Kevin

There are several cool announcements that popped in my inbox over the course of my vacation last week. Hopefully, I can track them all down and provide some key updates to the blog this week! Let's start with some Microsoft Dynamics CRM training news...

The release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, formerly ‘CRM5’, is coming soon and promises to deliver The Power of Productivity to customers and partners through familiar, intelligent and connected experiences. We are excited to host our partners and begin to prepare them for this monumental new product – both for online and on premise sales and deployments. The information-packed day kicks off in a general session learning about the power of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and the afternoon will be split into two tracks, Sales & Marketing and Technical Presales.

The training takes place September through October 2010 in multiple cities across the United States.

Visit PartnerSource for complete details, locations, and registration information.

--Kevin

Do you have any prospects interested in taking a hands on look at Microsoft Dynamics NAV? If so, direct them to the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Test Drive website to learn more!

--Kevin

Here's another fabulous WPC 2010 video now available on demand courtesy of Digital WPC.

The Microsoft Dynamics business is built on partners as a foundational element of success. In this session, Corporate VP Kirill Tatarinov and Corporate VP Michael Park will paint a vision; a vision for business customers, a vision for challenging the competition and beating them at their own game. You’ll have the opportunity to preview unparalleled innovation in ERP and CRM, find compelling opportunities to grow your partner business, and see firsthand that the best partners are Microsoft Dynamics partners.

Looking for additional WPC 2010 info? Then check out the Post-Conference FAQ on Digital WPC.

--Kevin