Peer Power Blog

One of the more common requests the past few months has been around being able to expand credit lines with distribution or financial institutions. The frantic calls usually involve a very large sale that exceeds the minimal credit capacity that most partners often have available. The good news is that end customers seem to be spending money again. The bad news is that many partners have done nothing to prepare for the increased demand and credit needs, so now it goes into crisis mode to try and land that big deal that puts one over the top.Rule #1 – We live in a new world. No matter what your experience has been previously, the rules have changed. There are much tighter views being taken on ... Continue reading

Microsoft® recently migrated eOpen and MVLS to the new Volume Licensing Service Center website (VLSC) in order to provide a convenient, online solution for customers and partners to easily manage their licensing agreements and Microsoft products. As a result of the initial upgrade, a number of Partners experienced some access and usability issues. We know this has been both inconvenient and frustrating in some cases and we appreciate your patience and assistance during this transition.To address many of the common questions and provide a review of the new features and procedures of the site, Microsoft’s VLSC team is providing an in-depth training, including tips and tricks, on how to access ... Continue reading

Today I experienced the power of partnership - twice in one day from the same vendor - SonicWALL. Our first experience revolved around a technology challenge at a customer site with an implementation. We had fought an issue for a few weeks and just couldn't quite get things configured the way the customer wanted. Our customer was frustrated and we knew that our only real chance to save the sale was to get an engineer from our vendor to come in and help us. They stepped up and delivered in an amazing way. Engineer flys into the closest airport and drives to meet our team on site - rural Iowa. The problem turned out to be much more difficult than anyone expected, but they got it resolved after... Continue reading

The highlight of day three might surprise you - but it had nothing to do with former President Clinton speaking at the Verizon Center. In fact, I have to confess I didn't even go hear him. It happened between 7 and 8 AM at the Partners in Christ Prayer Breakfast where Amy Lucia, former Microsoft marketing guru for the US shared her life story with the room. Amy didn't share her story to tell all of us to quit what we are doing and find a new place to go to work. In fact, she was very clear that leaving Microsoft had nothing to do with Microsoft at all actually. It was all about God's call on her life, and her desire to walk in obedience to His leading.God is in the business of calling and le... Continue reading

Tomorrow - Wednesday January 13th - at 10AM central join me along withDerek Kuhr, Lead Engineer of HTS, and Danielle Aronstam, Core Infrastructure Partner Marketing Manager to learn more about the FREE tools available to Microsoft Partners to help assess customer needs and find them the right server solution. You can register here. Do you know how partners are using sales tools to deliver deal close rates of almost 70%? There are a wide range of Server, Virtualization, Management, Hosted Services products available to meet the needs of all your customers’ – regardless of their shape or size! Ensure you are recommending the right Server Solution to your customer and become their trusted busin... Continue reading