It’s all about results.

That’s what I taught my kids – it’s not about effort or good intentions, what matters in the end is results.

In this post I hold myself accountable for results.

Previously I’ve encouraged you to do some things, but what results have I delivered?

It’s been 2.5 years since I joined Fusion-io, and 9 months since SanDisk acquired Fusion – what real world results with Microsoft have I delivered to my company?

Here’s are my results, the things my company does with Microsoft today.

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Early Access to Microsoft Products

• Early disclosure of vNext features and timelines for the Microsoft products.
• Opportunity to influence product features and direction.
• Access to early, frequent partner builds.
• Collaborative testing of our products with vNext features with the Microsoft product team.
• Attend regular NDA partner briefings, and network with other participants.

Marketing

• Whitepapers, jointly developed and co-branded, focused on using our products together.
• Customer-facing events, jointly developed and presented at Microsoft offices.
• Joint promotion of those customer-facing events, to Microsoft’s local customers and prospects.
• TechEd breakout session (not a “partner session”, a real breakout session)
• Microsoft product launch event participation – resulting in press and analyst coverage, and heightened visibility to Microsoft sales teams.

Microsoft Sales Engagement

• Leads from joint customer-facing events.
• Brief EPG account teams on our products.
• Swap account intelligence – contacts, projects, budgets, etc.
• Invited by Microsoft account teams to present to their customer contacts.
• Microsoft tells customers about our products and demo’s them.

Microsoft Investment

• Microsoft shares the cost of joint event promotion and delivery.
• Microsoft funding encourages EPG teams to include our products in customer POCs.

Customer Satisfaction

• Microsoft shows customers how our products will address issues in their IT environment.

Partner-to-Partner Collaboration

• Introductions by Microsoft to key contacts at other companies they work with for a specific initiative.

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This post is about accountability for results – my accountability for my results.

Now let’s talk about your results.

• Has your work delivered the results with Microsoft that you desire?
• If not, what are you doing to correct that?

Most partners I talk to haven’t even scratched the surface. But it’s not rocket science. You need to know what’s possible – that’s the point of this post – then set goals that make sense for your situation, and develop a plan for achieving those goals. Develop the ability to identify and exploit the opportunities available to you, working with your evangelist, by attending WPC, and talking to other Microsoft partners who’ve already done what you want to do.

Even if you have no meaningful relationship with Microsoft today, you can fix that. When I started with Fusion-io they had no relationship with Microsoft; they hired me to create a strategic relationship that would impact Fusion’s business results. Before I joined there were some personal connections with the SQL Server product team, and therefore some ability to influence product features; but that’s it.

I’ve benefited from working with exceptional people in the business development teams and others at Fusion-io and SanDisk, people who bring deep expertise in other disciplines. In the beginning, they all had little experience working with MS in these ways, but they learned fast and together we’ve delivered the results I’ve described. Competegy has also contributed to these results, thanks Larry!

Everything I’ve done, you can do – and achieve your own results with Microsoft.