You're All I Have... 

Ever since the release of CRM 3.0 back in December 2005, the UK Microsoft Dynamics team has worked regularly with many of our CRM partners to help them become more effective at selling the value of Microsoft CRM. Invariably, the conversation always ends up with the same question - "What's the best way to demonstrate the product to different audiences?". Whilst there is no single "silver bullet" to this problem, I have noticed that in many cases, understanding the standard business functionality really well (not just the I.T.Pro or Developer features), coupled with some demonstrable, yet simple, end-to-end processes and a good supporting slide-deck will be more than adequate.

Well, I was speaking with my friend Rob Norton who is the CRM Product Manager in Redmond responsible for partner readiness, and he has just finished developing a whole bunch of content that will help our partners to deliver more effective customer demonstrations.

The "Pre-Sales Technical Demonstration Download Packs" are available on http://www.microsoft.com/downloads. There are four different packs:

• Demonstrating Microsoft CRM 3.0 to Sales Professionals - This download pack is intended to teach you the basics of how to talk to Sales Professionals about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and show you how to give an effective, efficient overview of the Sales features of Dynamics CRM in an introductory meeting situation.
• Demonstrating Microsoft CRM 3.0 to Marketing Professionals - This download pack is intended to teach you the basics of how to talk to Marketing Professionals about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and show you how to give an effective, efficient overview of the Marketing features of Dynamics CRM in an introductory meeting situation.
• Demonstrating Microsoft CRM 3.0 to Service Professionals - This download pack is intended to teach you the basics of how to talk to Customer service Professionals about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and show you how to give an effective, efficient overview of the Customer service features of Dynamics CRM in an introductory meeting situation.
• Installing and Configuring Virtual PC Images for demonstrating Microsoft CRM 3.0 - This download pack is intended to teach you how to install and configure Virtual PC and the images necessary  to demonstrate Microsoft CRM 3.0.  This video is intended to teach you the basics of how to prepare to give an effective, efficient overview of the features of Dynamics CRM in an introductory meeting situation.

Each Download Pack contains the following:

• A video with an overview of the pain points of the respective audiences, why these groups may be looking for CRM, how to speak to them intelligently about their issues and how Microsoft CRM can help solve those issues, some key points to touch on when presenting to them, a brief demo overview, additional resources to help them get started and a full-length step-by-step demo walkthrough.
• A Demonstration Script that follows the same demo as is used in the video, with screenshots, talking points, "day in the life" storyboarding and the like
• A Partner-Ready PowerPoint Deck with 24 slides and speaker notes that can be used as-is or pulled from to create Partner's own presentations.
• Other useful documentation including release notes, how to use the download pack, links to system requirements and additional resources.

I have just downloaded the Service Professionals pack and I must say that I am pretty impressed, although when I met Rob face-to-face for the first time in Redmond a couple of weeks ago, I'm sure he's been on a health-kick since recording the video as he seems to have lost a bit of weight since then. Hey Rob, next time I'm in town, mine's a "skinny" latté :-)

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.