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June 2007 - Posts

Friday, June 29, 2007 12:56 PM

Word of Mouth Marketing...

One of the best in the study and promotion of this art/science is Andy Sernovitz. I highly recommend his blog Damn, I'd Wish I'd Thought of That . And, just today, he posted on Mini-Review- Microsoft Office 2007 Upgrade I blogged about Andy before ( here
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Thursday, June 28, 2007 11:48 AM

The Rookie Gets a Hit...

Lajuane Brooks from Ngen writes in after completing her first event: Because we are like so many Microsoft partners who are relatively small with their resources already committed, I realized about 30 days before the event that I needed more resources
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Attachment(s): Page 1 - Name Tags.pdf
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 1:33 PM

The "Raving Fan" Strategy...

The Chinese may call 2007-2008 the "Year of the Pig," but for Microsoft partners, I am going to call it, " The Year of the Megaphone ." One of the primary, if not THE primary, reason that customers attend events is to network. You have a unique platform
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Tuesday, June 26, 2007 10:33 AM

Are you making meaning with your services?

A fantastic presentation by Guy Kawasaki (about 55 minutes) that is worth the watch. What does Nike sell? two pieces of cotton, one piece of leather, and some rubber "Authentic athletic performance" Obviously, #2, but how often do you sell features or
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Sunday, June 24, 2007 9:16 PM

Two decades of PowerPoint: Is the world a better place?

You know how I feel about the way people abuse PowerPoint. Here's a good one. Presentation Zen: Two decades of PowerPoint: Is the world a better place?
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Friday, June 22, 2007 2:27 PM

Community, Change, Results, and Harmony....

When I wrote about getting a cold reception from the email I sent last week , I prefaced the entire email with "I am putting on my partner advocate hat here...." The thing is, in the new age of Web 2.0 or whatever we're calling it is that the expectations
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Thursday, June 21, 2007 9:25 PM

He's got 300,000 customers. How many do you have? 5 Questions with Will Knight...

Today, we are talking with Will Knight, Director of Mid-Market Marketing, based in Redmond. Continuing our series of interviews (see here , here , and here ) Will is responsible for marketing to 300,000 customers ranging from 50-2000 employees across
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Wednesday, June 20, 2007 9:25 PM

Making Lemonade...

Sometimes, no commentary is needed... From John at Solutions Developers My company has done sixteen Microsoft events in the past sixteen months. We had a pretty good track record until yesterday; nobody showed up. We were packing up and a person arrived
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Wednesday, June 20, 2007 3:10 PM

You and me

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Wednesday, June 20, 2007 3:02 PM

Inkblogging

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Monday, June 18, 2007 1:47 PM

Communication and Change...

Last week, I got into a bit of hot water for an email that I sent up the chain of command. When I wrote it, I felt totally confident and noble in my objective (of course, right?!). I wanted to make the organization better, I was passionate about it, and
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Monday, June 18, 2007 10:25 AM

Building a Winning Brand...

Blogreader Joan writes in: I attended this webcast yesterday and thought it had a lot of good information. You might want to post it on your blog. On Demand Webcast: How to Build a Winning Brand http://www.msreadiness.com/recordedeventregister.asp?eid=494
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Friday, June 15, 2007 10:36 AM

Community Building...

Had a chat the other day with one of Microsoft's leading (if not, the leading) community builder/marketer, Sean O'Driscoll. He's Microsoft's General Manager for Community Support & MVP His blog, Community Therapy , talks about the ideas and challenges
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Thursday, June 14, 2007 1:29 PM

Showing the customer love...and vice versa

Went up to Hagerstown, MD today for an Open House with Innovative Incorporated , one of the leading Microsoft partners in that area. These guys really get the idea of the immersive customer experience. A festive atmosphere with rooms throughout the office
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Wednesday, June 13, 2007 1:27 PM

Really good mechanics...and some Rookie mistakes

Fabian Williams and the team at Williams Information Group should be proud. A few months ago, they went out on a limb and said, "you know what? We want to grow our business and we'd like to tap into your event model." They listened in on our bi-weekly
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007 3:43 PM

Salespeople and barriers...

Blog reader John sends in the following: Sales people hit barriers all the time -- a quick little newsletter to help
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007 1:51 PM

The Truth about Salespeople...

For those of you who loved "A Few Good Men" with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise...and who are salespeople. Sent in by a consummate salesman... Sales: "You want answers? Finance: "I think we're entitled to them." Sales: "You want answers? Finance (YELLING):
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Monday, June 11, 2007 2:47 PM

Structured Networking...

at WorldWide Partner Conference is the single most valuable tool for you to meet/get to know the MS staff, and more importantly, complementary partners. Sign up for it and set those meetings!
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Monday, June 11, 2007 2:39 PM

Event lessons from a top partner marketer...

Joan at AKGroup is another one of our success stories. Back in September, she did her first event with us and had 18 people there. Over the course of the year, she's religiously read this blog and joined our Best Practices call. Last week, she had, "by
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Sunday, June 10, 2007 11:46 PM

Does your business card make an impact?

How many business cards have you received? How many of them do you keep? How many of them make an impact? Are memorable? Take a look at these (the backside of each card). Unique, different, a good way to remember the person who gave you the card Jamie
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Friday, June 08, 2007 5:38 PM

The Million Server Man: 5 Questions with Chris van Wesep

Continuing our series of interviews with really smart people who work in Redmond, today's guest is Chris van Wesep, a Senior Product Manager for Windows Server AND Small Business Server in the SMB space. He's part of a team sells 250,000 Windows Server
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Friday, June 08, 2007 1:12 PM

A Partner's Tale...

We often talk about how partners can influence the sale of Microsoft products to their customers. You know what really works? Use them yourself! Was talking to a longtime acquaintance today, Mike Petrov (it's his birthday) from DigitEdge . He's got customers
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Thursday, June 07, 2007 1:51 PM

Details Matter, part 2

Here is the view of the parking spots across the way from me at Shoppers yesterday. And here is the amount of room left by a contractor's truck on my driver's side. It was so small that I had to get in the passenger's side. Pretty annoying since I had
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Thursday, June 07, 2007 1:46 PM

Details matter...

My wife is a big fan of Shoppers Food Warehouse . Standing in the checkout line, I peered behind me at the empty register slot. A how-to guide for efficient, speedy checkout. To me, this says that the store is focused on the right thing...at the right
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Wednesday, June 06, 2007 5:16 PM

Always look the part...

I play the role of mentor to one of the younger guys in my office. A few weeks ago, I told him that, if he wanted to move up in the company/career, I thought it was time for him to "raise his game" in terms of his appearance. His work ethic and results
Posted by jerman of the board | 1 Comments
Tuesday, June 05, 2007 9:21 PM

Who's got the power?

Think a Microsoft or YOU can control the conversation? Just because we've got more money doesn't mean we can do it. Nobody can. The beauty of the net and social media is the democratization of the bullhorn. If this story doesn't convince you, well then,
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Tuesday, June 05, 2007 9:09 PM

One Hit Wonder...or the Genesis of a great marketing org?

I think the latter, but time will tell, of course. Matt and the team from Guru ran their first event today co-marketing with Microsoft. I stopped by to see how it would go. Here's my analysis. On the Pro-Side 21 of 38 registered customers showed up (higher
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Tuesday, June 05, 2007 8:46 PM

Bring the Love Back...

Think advertising hasn't changed. Think again. This is a great commercial. (if it's really a commercial and not the beginning of a dialogue...) Hmmm... Now, whether it delivers on its promise is another story, but very, very creative. And as blog reader
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Friday, June 01, 2007 5:30 PM

How I got my teeth whitened for free...

And that's a $350 value!! One way that I- and you can - practice my marketing acumen is by making suggestions to the service providers of whom I am a customer. One of those is my dentist. The good thing about her, as opposed to some of the larger companies
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