Go for Gold....
So, you’ve managed to get a meeting with the Financial Services vertical lead in Microsoft’s NY/NJ district or the Public Sector partner manager in Finland. You go into the meeting prepared with reasons to partner together, customer references, a joint value proposition, the technical roadmap provided by your development team and target accounts to go after. After introductions you are asked, “Are you Gold Certified?” Hopefully the answer is “Yes”, but if it’s not ….
I was a Microsoft partner for 10 years, and I heard this question from almost every new Microsoft contact I met. My thoughts the first time were … “Should I be?”, “What does it mean to be Gold Certified?”, “How do I get there and what does it get me and my company?” Turns out that being a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner helps you stand out in a crowd. As an Alliance manager of a $60M company, that sounded good to me. After learning about the program, I secured my company’s Gold status six years in a row.
Gold Certified is the highest designation in the Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP). So what does it take to get to Gold and why should you? Having gone through the process myself, I can attest to the fact that it’s easier than you might think. Chances are that if you’re developing and selling products on the Microsoft platform, you have most of the pieces that you need. Once you achieve Gold you become part of a select group of Microsoft partners who have demonstrated their expertise with Microsoft technologies. When asked, “Are you Gold?” you can say “yes”, establish instant credibility, and get on with the business of doing business.
The first step? Go to the Microsoft Partner Program page and sign up. Basic entry into the MSPP is a Registered Member.
Getting to the next level, Certified, is almost as easy. Minimum requirements for Certified will be to register two of your staff who are Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) and pay the annual program fee (~$1500/year). Within your application/program site, select the option to ‘invite association’. This will send your employees an invitation to input their MCP number and link it to your organization. 50 points in the program gets you to the Certified level. Program points can be earned in several ways, outlined below.
So, now we get to Gold. To become a Gold Certified Partner requires 120 points. Here are some good ones to start with:
1. Certify your Product – this can include Certified for Microsoft Windows, Certified for Microsoft Vista, etc. A lesser known certification is the Data Warehouse Alliance test. This is a great one if your product runs on SQL Server and leverages Analysis Services, Reporting Services and/or Integration Services.
2. Attend the Worldwide Partner Conference – this year the conference will be in Houston, TX on July 7-10.
3. Associate your MCP employees – as mentioned above, you can invite your company’s employees to associate with your organization in the MSPP. You get more points if the MCPs have advanced certifications such as MCDBA, MCSE. I would suggest sending a survey request to your IT, Development, Helpline/Support and Consulting divisions. These organizations will be the most likely to have certified professionals on staff. Some companies look for these certifications during the hiring process or make them part of their continuing education programs for technical staff.
4. Secure Customer References – customer references in the MSPP aren’t what you might consider a sales reference. An MSPP customer reference is really a validation that you have implemented your solution at the customer site. First get the customer’s ‘ok’ to submit their information. Then, input it into the MSPP site. This generates an email that goes to the customer, asking them to verify that you have in fact implemented your Microsoft-based solution with them. That’s it!
5. Declare a Competency – a competency is an area that your company specializes in. To obtain competency points you will need some combination of customer references, certified professionals and certified products.
Gold status enables you to enjoy some great benefits. My favorites were unlimited demonstration licenses for several Microsoft products that were required for our sales presentations. These really add up if you’re running on Enterprise versions. A customized Gold Certified Logo for use in marketing communications, website, business cards, collateral, etc. is also a great thing to have for your sales team.
If you’d like more details on how to achieve Gold status and what the benefits are to you, download our ISV Guide to Partnering with Microsoft.
Go for Gold!
Heather Blatchford
Microsoft Business Development Manager and former Microsoft Gold Certified Partner