Clarification on November 14th Licensing Session
Since the announcement of the November 14th Licensing session, there have been a few questions that have come up that I wanted to address (such as is it for customers, what prompted it, and can you promote it as a through-Partner effort):
First, yes, this session is open to everyone and is intended for your customers. For those of you that attended SMB Nation, I did a Licensing session there for Partners and received a ton of great feedback on it. In addition, when I asked Partners if a session like this would be helpful for their customers, there was an overwhelming, “Yes!,” that I received. Then I did the licensing session on October 12th for the Partners across the US on understanding licensing. Since that session I have again been receiving a bunch of feedback on the session and the request to make this information available to customers as well. In addition, when I did the SBSC Quarterly update, one of the requests there was also to have a customer facing licensing session to help customers understand some of the licensing basics and differences as well.
So, this session on November 14th is in direct response to all of the feedback and the large number of Partners that have told me that it would be of great value to them if I would host a licensing session for customers that they could invite their customers to. The session will be based on the same information I presented to Partners at SMB Nation and in the October 12th Partner session; however, it will be delivered in a to-customer manner showing them how to save money by understanding and using Microsoft licensing to their benefit. It is a “How to buy,” not a “How to sell” Microsoft solutions session.
Because of this, please do invite your customers to attend the November 14th session. Invite them on your behalf or even bring a bunch of them into your office and host them for the session so you can have a follow-up discussion with them after the session on how you can help them with any of the solutions we cover in the session. After all, as their IT & business advisor, helping them with their Microsoft technologies is what you do. This session is being delivered from Microsoft on all of the Partner’s behalves and is meant to help all of you.
Thank you and have a wonderful day,
Eric Ligman
Microsoft US Senior Manager
Small Business Community Engagement
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