11 February 2022

How storytelling defines winners | Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards

By Microsoft Americas Partner Team
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Do we really have what it takes to become a Microsoft Partner of the Year Award winner?

If you’ve considered throwing your hat in the ring for one of the most coveted awards in the industry, you’ve likely asked whether or not you stand a chance. It’s a fair question – after all, judges review hundreds of award submissions each year.

Here’s the truth: it’s not size or tenure that set you apart, but your ability to tell your story well.

“You don’t have to be big, but you need to know your story and what category it belongs to,” advises Gail Mercer-MacKay, a communication coaching and writing consultant who has helped more than 100 Microsoft partners secure recognition as Microsoft Partner of the Year Award winners and finalists.

“Business storytelling in general can touch a lot of different things, but for Partner of the Year it’s a much larger story because it looks at how your customer succeeded and how you impacted that through your partnership with Microsoft and how you leveraged Microsoft technology to build impactful solutions,” said Sue Whitney, Director of Marketing at Partner of the Year Award winner, Quisitive. “It’s not just about a customer – it’s a much larger story about how Microsoft technology has empowered partners to create solutions really make a difference in a customer’s life so they were then able to go help their customer.”

Whitney drew on Mercer-MacKay’s 4-part webinar, The Art of Storytelling, to turn their entry into a 2021 Partner of the Year Award winner in Healthcare.

Here are some tips inspired by Mercer-MacKay’s guidance to help you draw out a story that will not only inspire but win. We’ll start with the essential elements to a great story, then explore seven ways to build out a more impactful entry.

Four elements to a great partner success story

All great stories – from novels to journalism to Super Bowl commercials – are built around four essential elements: an attention-grabbing hook; the daunting challenge; the cast of characters; and the transformative resolution.

To make these four elements come to life, Sue Whitney of Quisitive provided a uber-simplified example of the hero’s journey she used in their winning entry:

Story element Example
An attention-grabbing hook

A compelling opening statement should capture all pertinent information up-front, including the solution, the competitor, and your key results.

 When the pandemic struck, healthcare providers and the public sector needed to accelerate vaccine rollouts to protect public health. Building on the robustness of the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, MazikCare VaccineFlow by Quisitive was able to accelerate vaccination distribution in an environment of ever-changing rules.
The daunting challenge

Describe your customer’s pain points as well as the obstacles your team had to overcome in delivering the solution.

 Organizations faced unique challenges as they worked toward making an impact on population health through accelerated vaccines.

Providers needed portals to schedule thousands of appointments as well as the ability to set up remote sites for vaccine administration, while also tracking the supplies of different vaccines on hand.

Primary care clinics, stepping in to provide vaccinations, didn’t have CRM systems equipped to take on the surge of one-time vaccine patients.

Counties needed to be able to report all vaccinations to the state within 24 hours of administration – an impossible task to do manually for one county that administered 10,000 doses daily.
The cast of characters

Develop your brilliant cast of characters including the distressed (customer), the villain (customer pain points, competition, budget, company culture), the hero (you!), and the trusty sidekick (Microsoft).

 Equipped with deep healthcare industry and Microsoft Dynamics platform expertise, Quisitive’s VaccineFlow solution provided the agility and scalability to accelerate the distribution of lifesaving vaccinations to meet the emergent needs of the population.

Quisitive team members worked with their customers to understand their specific needs, and tailor their product to meet quick deployment dates and provide the necessary training. As rules changed and needs changed, the solution provided flexibility to scale.

Quisitive has a long and valued relationship with Microsoft. This helped surface co-sell opportunities and to move quickly into a demo for customers.
The transformative resolution

Show how you helped your customer not only overcome the villain, but how you also transformed their business to help them emerge stronger than ever.

 VaccineFlow was built on proven technology which shortened implementation times, in some cases to 1-2 weeks. Leveraging Microsoft Power Apps, Power Apps Portal, Power BI, Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, and Azure, VaccineFlow includes self-service scheduling, adverse reaction monitoring, vaccine inventory tracking, and dashboard reporting. Its modular format enables scalability and agility to support the ever-evolving vaccination landscape.

Healthcare providers, schools, local governments, and communities have used VaccineFlow to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to more than 35 million people. The MazikCare platform also developed Microsoft Power Apps-based back-to-work/school solutions to enable end-to-end COVID-19 assessment and contract tracing, and digital vaccination verification, delivering on its goal of keeping people safe and healthy.

 

“The Partner of the Year Award really looks at our impact with our customers, their impact on their end customers, and ultimately how this impacts Microsoft usage,” says Whitney.

Much broader than a case study, it follows a journey starting with Microsoft’s cloud technology, and its security and agility, as the foundation, following with how a partner’s IP or services built atop that foundation helps the customer serve their customers.

“For us,” continued Whitney, “It was Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, Power Platform then MazikCare IP, then the hospital or surgical center group who are trying to serve their patients, the end customer. I see it as a triangle. At the end of the day, it’s all about whether your customer’s customer (or patient) is happy. That’s when you know whether it was a successful journey.”

7 tips for weaving a strong submission story

With your hook, challenge, cast, and resolution clearly defined, use the following tips to optimize the structure of your story and refine your message to make a maximum impact with your audience (the judges).

  1. Front-load your story – Answer every question you plan to address throughout your entry in the first 1-2 paragraphs of your executive summary. Present the most relevant details early to make it easier for a judge to see the merit of your solution and encourage them to read further.
  2. Reinforce your main message – Repeat your compelling opening statement throughout the entry. While you may need to vary it to fit the context, ensure that the core message is consistent and reinforcing.
  3. Include customer brand and quote – Testimonials and customer quotes can be some of the strongest evidence of partner success. Invite your customer to share their perspective and help you capture a more well-rounded view of your solution’s benefits.
  4. Abundance of detail – Metrics, numbers, and statistics help paint a more specific, compelling picture of your solution’s impact on the customer and reinforce your claims.
  5. Competitive take-out – If you beat out a competitor to earn your customer’s business, name them and detail what made your offer more appealing.
  6. Have a measured ROI – How many people did your solution serve? What was the bottom-line impact? How was productivity improved? What were the cost savings?

Finally, make sure to start early and plan to invest 10-15 hours compiling and refining the components of your winning entry. Ensure your copywriting is polished and professional, with proper punctuation, length, formatting, consistency, and accuracy of information. If needed, consider bringing on a professional copywriter to help you write a story that reads well.

We hope you’re encouraged to invest in your own remarkable story and submit a nomination this year. Ready to tell your story? Start here.

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Nominations now open for Microsoft Partner of the Year Award 2022!

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