What is a Small Business Specialist? Who Cares? (part 2)
Answering my own question, "I do". And I hope you do too. Here's why.
I have received feedback through various channels from people who may not have read past the deliberately-contentious title of my original post. The article was designed to provoke reaction and it has certainly done that. But the feedback I've received from a few people is along the lines of "why are you criticising the SBSC programme?".
Well, to set the record straight, I *love* the SBSC programme. On a personal level, my business has benefitted greatly from it - not all of that benefit has been monetary, much of it has been personal and business development. I've gone from an unknown nobody in the IT business to someone with links to many of the top people in the IT field in the UK and worldwide. I have reciprocal agreements with other SBSC partners that we cover each other's backs when we have to be away from our respective businesses and I do occasional work for some of them when I can plug a skills gap. Some of that is down to Microsoft and some of it happened despite Microsoft, but without the SBSC programme, I doubt any of that would have come about. So, make no mistake, I am a big fan of the SBSC programme and I wear my blue-badge lapel pin with pride.
There is one area where I think Microsoft could make the SBSC programme work even better and this was the real reason - if you read beyond the title - behind my previous post. That is to provide 'air cover' marketing to end users of small business related products to let them know about Small Business Specialists, why they exist and how to find one.
If you measure results in terms of sales figures, then you'd be forgiven for thinking that I'm just asking Microsoft to hand me sales leads on a plate. But you'd be wrong. While additional sales leads might indeed be a nice consequence, the real reason I want to see this happen is to create a perceived value that will encourage more partners to become Small Business Specialists. I've heard a few partners ask why they should bother to become SBSC qualified. A lot of people can only see value in something if it translates to increased sales. If you are used to thinking in those terms, then I think it is difficult to see the true value in the SBSC community at first. Marketing the blue badge to end users would help two ways. First, it would seduce more partners into becoming Small Business Specialists, joining their local SBS group and discovering the true value of The Community. Second, it would close the relationship-building loop that is currently missing:
I believe that if this happens, we will have happier users, happier partners and ultimately a happier Microsoft. Being happier doesn't pay the stock holders but I believe that customer satisfaction does ultimately lead to increased sales. Someone who buys Small Business Server FPP on eBay, blunders through the installation and has a bad experience with it is unlikely to buy much Microsoft stuff in the future. A business who doesn't understand the full potential of SBS is unlikely to appreciate its value to their business. I have customers that did exactly that. They run MySQL on their small business server because they didn't see the benefits of paying extra for SQL and ISA server. They wrote custom web applications rather than rely on SharePoint, because they didn't understand what SharePoint could do for them. They had no idea that they could work from home using Remote Web Workplace and Outlook RPC-over-HTTP. Consequently, they are all still running Office 2000 because they did not understand the business benefits of Office 2003 or Office 2007. This is what I mean when I say there has been a missed opportunity. Not for increased sales, but to build better relationships. More involvement from SBSC services partners inexorably leads to increased technology adoption and more software and hardware sales.
That same technology-agnostic business, given a leaflet inside the SBS box that told them how to get help from a local Small Business Specialist might have made different decisions. They could have had an excellent experience with Small Business Server and as a result been much more likely to consider investing in products like Office SharePoint Server and CRM. Everone wins when we build better relationships.
David Overton blogged on this subject and he has a quote from another partner: Not all our prospects have heard of "Certified Partner" or "SBSC". It was not important to them. It is our job to make it important to them. Yes, I agree 100%. It is my job to convince a customer of my value to them. The customers who buy SBS on eBay have not heard of SBSC and they are probably never going to hear about it. Unless someone tells them. How do we reach those customers? How about the inside of the SBS product box? How about a leaflet that says "We want you to have the best possible experience with this product and to understand its full potential for your business - so we recommend you contact a qualified Small Business Specialist by going to bCentral"?
As SBSC partners, we might wait forever for Microsoft to do something like that. Even if the political will exists within the company (and I'm not sure it does) there is still a lot of inertia. So returning to the real theme of my original post: What can YOU do to raise the profile of the Blue Badge?