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Partner of the Year Award at Inspire close Friday April 7 16:59 (AEST) - Hear from one of our last years winners DDLS!

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gary-duffield

 

Gary Duffield
National Marketing & Vendor Director
DDLS

 

 

Gary Duffield believes you can't build a reputation on what you are going to do, you actually have to go out and do it. That’s why, after his company DDLS, a learning partner for Microsoft, won the Global Microsoft Learning Partner Award in 2016 he wasted no time in getting together transformational journeys from his clients for this year’s Microsoft Inspire Awards.

It’s not hard to see why DDLS is so intent on winning another Microsoft award given what winning last year’s award meant for them. Gary reports three immediate impacts of winning. “One is the feel good factor in terms of staff who worked on the project; that euphoric feeling of having done so well is priceless. We are all so busy getting our day jobs done, it’s important to stop and say we did an excellent job. The customer is happy. Microsoft is happy now let’s get back to the in-box.”

The second impact, Gary says, is the story you get to tell your customers, a soft story in terms of banners on your websites and footnotes on the bottom of email signatures. But an important story in the conversations you get to have with your clients in telling them, or indeed reminding them, of your win. “The third impact is often not mentioned and is underplayed. It’s that feeling of being the person who drove this. I took huge satisfaction in being part of that. It’s something I take out to remind myself when I am having a bad day or when things are going wrong,” Gary said with a smile.

DDLS sees a 110% return in investment in winning the award. While it may not mean that someone places a booking or buys a product from them directly because of the award, it’s certainly something that comes up as part of any organisation’s due diligence when they are comparing DDLS with the competition. “We will trade out on the award win that we have had until it’s won again this year, but we will continue to reference that award for as long as the business is in existence,” said Gary And in terms of this year’s submission Gary has an important message for any Partner looking to nominate. “This has had a huge impact in terms of kudos and business through the door. It’s always better to be a winner than a non-competitor.”

The 2017 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards nomination tool closes April 6, 2017, at 11:59 P.M. Pacific Time (April 7, 2017 , at 16:59 AEST). No extensions or exceptions. We look forward to reading your submissions and we can’t wait to see you at Microsoft Inspire 2017.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 05, 2017
    "Your blog is too helpful for me. Please share this type of blog.Thanks"
    • Anonymous
      April 06, 2017
      Thanks for your comment. Good luck if you are entering.