My podcasting evolution from when I started. Nottingham, England budging free bed and board from my cousin and I had managed to schedule a time to speak with Guus Krabbenborg, a guy I had met years ago at a Microsoft Partner conference in Australia.

Last year I read a book by Simon Sinek called Start With Why. I like the idea of starting with why when it comes to creating a product as an ISV and taking products to market.

Microsoft Flow is one of the foundation tools that make up the Microsoft Power Platform. It is a tool that was born in Microsoft Azure. One of the founding creators of it was a guy by the of name Stephen Siciliano. He was working on a project called Azure Logic Apps.

In the past couple of months, I have had an increasing number of people asking me to coach them in their careers. Although I have coached people in the past, I have not been coaching for the past year.

This Saturday just passed I had the pleasure of speaking at Power Platform Saturday in Oslo Norway, organized by MVP Marius Agur Hagelund Lind. I love the way the community came together for this event.

When I look for content on how to become a successful Independent Software Vendor (ISV) for Microsoft Business Apps, I come up short. So, I thought it was time to create some. There are many reasons for embarking on this journey.

Microsoft Business Application Summit 2019 announced another build tool – AI Builder. As many of you know, the world of Microsoft Business Applications has changed. Those that have been in the industry for some time will remember talking about Dynamics CRM, and then Dynamics 365. Although Dynamics 365 was the starting point, today it is just a PowerApp operating on the Power Platform.

Here are my top 10 tips to maximize a Microsoft MVP in your company.This post follows on from my previous post What are the Benefits of Employing a Microsoft MVP?

I recently had a conversation with the founder and CEO of a Microsoft Business Applications Global Systems Integrator (GSI). The discussion turned to Microsoft MVPs and his desire to hire as many as he could across their global business. Some interesting questions were raised including, what are the benefits of employing MVPs? And how can a Microsoft Partner effectively invest in attracting and hiring MVPs?

First, let me start by saying sorry for this post. It has been boiling for a while, and everyone I speak to does not seem to have the authority to address it in Microsoft.

Throughout my career I have benefited from outstanding mentors and coaches. I was brought up in rural New Zealand on a dairy farm, one of seven children. In our home, the focus was on hard work and not academia.

In Part 1 I highlighted the need for Microsoft partners to focus on an industry solution, how to decide which industry to focus on, and how to establish a “beachhead” to dominate that industry. In this post, I’ll share ideas for creating interest within the industry you’re targeting and how to build credibility through references and industry engagement.

In my sixteen years of working in Microsoft Business Applications and twenty years of working for Microsoft Partners I have never come across a partner that has said “we have more leads than we can handle, we have more opportunities than we can pursue, we are making more money than we know what to spend it on”.

As a Microsoft Partner, it is time to start leveraging the vibrant Microsoft community that exists around the world and proactively encourage all staff to get involved.

“500 million apps are going to get created in the next five years.” Think about that. That's more apps than the last 40 years.

There are now about 26 different applications that make up the Microsoft Business Applications suite of products. I am not suggesting you need to learn them all, but you do need to decide where will you be focusing.

Being a firm believer in a growth mindset of learning and in designing the life I want, even if it goes against cultural norms.

These are two products that I love; Dynamics 365 and LinkedIn. Back in the day, I wrote a step by step guide on how to get them both working together – long before Microsoft started flirting with the idea of owning their own social network.

Dynamics 365 for Sales has been on my mind lately and the role that technology plays in evolving the sales arena. Over the past 20 years, I have worked with various sales applications including Maximizer, Goldmine, Act! Sales Logics, SugarCRM, Pivotal, and Salesforce.com, as well as bespoke applications built for specific industries such as banking and training.

For years, businesses and organizations have needed custom software applications to carry out day to day business. Applications that are unique to an industry, and sometimes unique to the way a company operates within that industry, are commonly known as Line of Business Applications.