AppSource – 19th time’s the Charm
I am fresh back from the Microsoft Dynamics Partner Advisory Council meetings last week. AppSource, and the whole ISV strategy was a central topic. Unfortunately I cannot share too much because of NDA handcuffs,...
Category: RapidStart CRM
Dynamics 365 – The Battle for Simple
Mobile phone apps ruined everything. As a result of minimal processing power and small screen size, mobile app developers had little choice but to keep things basic. Given that mobile devices are used by...
Dynamics 365 – CDS Changes Everything You Know
Dynamics 365 Customers and Partners have had a few changes pushed to them in recent years. Dynamics 365 was evolving at a pretty rapid pace since it hit the cloud, and when James Phillips...
Dynamics 365 – Our Big Leap into CDS
Microsoft recently announced the availability of the Common Data Service (CDS), as a platform, accessible with a PowerApps P2 license. A few folks got kind of excited, many others said “So what?”, and most...
Dynamics 365 – FUD as a Sales Tool
I got a call the other day from a customer who said that another partner told them that they should not use a solution like ours because “It can cause issues”. I thought, what...
Dynamics 365 – What Customers Taught Us
When we designed our RapidStart CRM solution for Dynamics 365, we had a pretty specific idea of how it would be used. It turns out, that when you eliminate the complexity of customizing Dynamics...
Dynamics 365 – The SMB Hero Offer… for now
Microsoft likes to use the term “Hero Offer” for a particular subscription. It’s like the Sears Good, Better, Best approach. Usually the “Hero” offer, means that you are a hero to Microsoft if you...
Dynamics 365 – Does RapidStart CRM still fit?
I have had several of our partners and friends ask me how the new Dynamics 365 will effect our RapidStart CRM ISV offering. I think they feared I may slit my wrists, but actually,...
For CRM, Partial Adoption is Total Failure
Who could argue with the concept of keeping your finger on the pulse of your customers? From the CEO, to the VP of Sales, to the Sales Manager, right down the line to the...
The Microsoft Cloud Partner Margin Squeeze
Just a few short years ago, Office 365 launched. At the time, selling the product required genuine knowledge, and migrating to the product required genuine expertise. There was significant partner margin and incentives on...
Dynamics 365 – The Sky is Not Blue
So I am sitting in the Dynamics Partner Advisory Council on Sunday as Microsoft unwraps Dynamics 365. They start the conversation by saying they are going to make licensing waaay easier, and proceed to...
T-Ball for Major League Dynamics CRM Partners
The other day I was speaking to one of our RapidStart CRM Partners, who not only has an expert Dynamics CRM team, but is also a big fan of our model. He suggested that...
What is RapidStart CRM for Dynamics CRM Online Hiding?
It’s true… we are hiding things from you, or rather your CRM customer. We confess, we have been caught red-handed. But nothing nefarious is going on here… I swear! So what do we have...
For CRM Deployment, Did you Get Married Last Year?
No, we do not actually need to know “Did you get Married Last Year” in order to successfully deploy Dynamics CRM Online with RapidStart CRM. But that question was the genesis of how we...
Dynamics CRM Online; a Bridge to Active Use
Many partners and customers are under the impression that gaining user adoption (a/k/a Active Use) is very hard to do. History supports this, at least based on the most commonly used approaches to this...
Guaranteed SMB Success with Dynamics CRM Online
It is the heat of the political season, so in the spirit of that, I’ll need to “walk back” my post title. Success cannot be Guaranteed; even “Or Your Money Back” simply means you...
Why Choose RapidStart CRM for Dynamics CRM?
Okay, well I knew it couldn’t last forever. We created the first “Packaged Deployment” model available only through Microsoft Partners; RapidStart CRM. Now there are few others, so I have to write that “Why...
CRM vs Contact Management for SMB
There is an interesting battle taking place down in the trenches of SMB. Microsoft and Salesforce.com are peripherally aware of it, because both of these major CRM platforms have expressed some interest in SMB,...
A Tale of Active Use vs. Sale of Seats
The best I.P. ideas begin with a wide view; making sure as many possible challenges are being solved. The best ideas, are by definition, the “Best” ideas, but they have to withstand the cyclical...
Profit More by Down-Selling CRM
Okay, I can hear the Microsoft Partner community thinking “Why on earth would I ever Down-Sell, and how on earth would that Increase profit?” Okay, got it, you’re from Earth. Before I explain my...