I have met a whole bunch of partners over the last couple of weeks, all requesting different things, and it has got me thinking - are you / do you want to be a specialist or generalist and then do you want to be all things to a business, or a super capable techy?

First off, if you are a generalist, then this honestly means that you are a "Jack of all trades and a master of none" - well either that or you seriously need to get some more sleep.  I prefer working with people who specialise in a few areas rather than those who try to do anything.  If you do want to appear bigger and have a broader skill set, why not try relying on your local community of SBSC partners and farm out things you don't know well to those you can trust and become amazing at the things you do.  If you fear competition with these guys, it is worth remembering a couple of things.  1st off, there are 4m small businesses in the UK and around 500 SBSC partners - that works out at 8,000 customers each - do you really think you are all going to compete or have the ability to service more than your fair share?  Also, your customers should work with you because they trust you - do things to ensure that trust is maintained, be more than a super techy, and your position is assured.

On the business or technical front, this is a key question in the small business space.  As a pure techy, you work to make the technology do amazing things, but perhaps you don't actually drive the business decision in your customers, you respond to them. 

You see, you cannot be a super techy (IMHO - please comment if you disagree) AND a super business person at the same time.  To cover both, you need to de-focus a little on one or the other so that you are good at best, but not great at both, but then remember this and think about calling in the cavalry should it be required - whether this is MS Support or one of the partners around you.  The key here is that if you want to drive the business in your customers, you need someone else to be the super techy at times.

Now, if you want to be a super techy, where would you put your time - into SBSC which is about developing your overall business areas or into something like Technet, which has much less business focus, but does deliver loads of information about our technology and often provides opportunity for early beta access via the Technet Beta programme?  We do that in SBSC as well, but it is often around Technology Adoption Programmes (TAPs) where we are after supporting our partners and building a portfolio of case studies rather than readiness.  Obviously Microsoft does much general beta access, but this is the same for everyone - in businesses of any size.

What would be the ideal solution for small businesses, all super techy, all both, all business?  Should we actually end up with those who are business oriented driving our customers strategy for those that need the direction and then relying on those who are super techy to do the amazing things to make it real. In some small business partners, they already ahve people that fit into this slot, in others, perhaps it is time to decide where you fit?

What do you think SBSC should provide?  Should it cater for all types, have subsections depending on where you sit or should it worry more about the business orineted people?  Where do you think it targets today?

ttfn

David

TechNet Plus (included the betas) - http://www.microsoft.com/uk/technet/abouttn/subscriptions.mspx