Candid Feedback to MSFT

Working with partners is a two way street. When I think you're headed down the wrong path (or we, I should say), we'll tell you.

But, don't be afraid to share with us what doesn't work.

It shows that you are committed to the relationship, excellence, and success.

Besides, we need to know!

Got this great email from Mike Jennings at BEI today (slightly edited to protect the guilty)

We received the attached email about extending the XXXXX Assessment telemarketing campaign. We have declined to do this and since I think you guys recommended us to participate in this originally I wanted you to know why we aren’t accepting this invitation.

The bottom line is that we thought the program was VERY weak and therefore, investing $5000 in it, compared to other investments we’re looking at, just didn’t make sense. The campaign weaknesses were:

1. - Very few leads received, maybe 4 over a five month period
2. - Leads received rarely fit the intent of the campaign –
3. - The assessment tool provided NEVER fit any leads. This tool can only create a proposal for up to 3 Windows servers and EVERY prospect we got already had more than 3 servers. So the tool was worthless for preparing legitimate proposals to prospects already with 5 or 10 servers.
4. - Leads were not very “warm”. We’d call and the prospect would be very skeptical and/or reluctant about wanting an assessment. If we have to re-sell the assessment then the telemarketing is pretty worthless.

Comments

• Anonymous
  April 18, 2007
  Working with partners is a two way street. When I think you're headed down the wrong path (or we

• Anonymous
  April 25, 2007
  Remember how Mike wrote in with some pretty candid feedback about how Microsoft was letting him down