Introduction
- All story is change – moments of unexpected change
- Stories with emotional content result in a better understanding of the key points and enable better recall of these points weeks later
- People are more motivated by higher purpose (how your product improves lives) than by its transactional purpose (features/benefits)
Take a moment to think of a story you recently enjoyed. Was it a book, a movie, a documentary, a blog post? Stories told well capture and hold our attention. We are able to recall them quickly because we connect with them emotionally. For your Microsoft Partner of the Year submission, your chances of winning will increase if you can tell a complete story, one that has the judges’ full attention throughout. As a partner, you cannot control what other partners are submitting in the same category, but you can control your presentation to the judges. Here are some great storytelling techniques to use as you craft your submission.
The Inciting Incident
Every story is about change. How did the hero (the main character) change or transform as a result of participating in the story? But before that change can happen, the hero needs to get started. In storytelling, this is called the “Inciting Incident”.
Our brain on story
- Cortisol is produced during story conflict/tension
- Oxytocin is released when we relate – promotes connection and empathy
- A happy ending triggers the limbic system, our brain’s reward center, to release dopamine which makes us feel more hopeful and optimistic
An inciting incident is always a pain point, but it does not have to be painful; it can also be aspirational. For example, when Frodo made his decision to leave the Shire to join Gandalf and the Dwarves, he was following his secret ambition to go on an adventure like his Uncle Bilbo. He was comfortable in the Shire. He had a lovely Hobbit house and lots of food – there was no real need for him to leave – but his personal ambition was triggered and that became his inciting incident.
In many cases, your customer’s pain point will be both painful (ex. we can’t respond to customer demands because our legacy systems are difficult to manage) and aspirational (ex. we will be one of the first in our industry to offer an AI-driven quality experience across our shop floor, reducing cost, production errors and increasing employee safety, which will transform our ability to compete).
In summary, your Microsoft Partner Award submission will need to be about change and transformation. Make sure that is clear to the reader of your submission.
In the image above, we have a simplified version of The Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey is a literary framework, first documented by Joseph Campbell in his book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, and used as a roadmap by many storytellers. We like using it because it is easy to follow and aligns to narrating the transformation that customers experience when technology is implemented well.
How to Use the Simplified Hero’s Journey in your Microsoft Partner Award Submission
Who is featured in your story?
First, you want to identify who will be featured in your story. Here is the list of characters that typically appear in a Microsoft Partner of the Year award submission.
- Hero (or Heroes) – This is your customer, or customers if you are featuring more than one. You will want to humanize your hero. While you will need to talk about a customer as an enterprise or organization, try to show exactly how lives were impacted as a result of that customer implementing Microsoft technology. For example, show the experience of a shop floor transformation through the eyes of line operators who are now able to work more safely, or explain how citizens can now get their passports renewed in less than a week though a simplified process that relies on AI to accelerate security checks by 300%. (Here’s an example: “Bill and Marie had been planning their 25th anniversary cruise for almost 5 years, but due to interruptions brought on by the pandemic, their trip had been postponed twice. Days before their departure date they realized their passports had expired. In tears, Marie believed that they would now have to cancel their dream vacation, as passport wait times in their state typically took 12 to 16 weeks. Even a costly expedited process would take 10 days. However, when Marie checked with her local passport services office, she was delighted to learn that a new automated system built on Dynamics would let her renew the expired passports in less than 24 hours. Bill and Marie made their departure date, sailing into a lifetime of new memories.”
- Mentor #1 – This is you, the partner. How have you been the mentor guiding your customer through transformation, BUT – and this is equally important – how have you transformed yourself as a mentor along the journey? This can include educating your teams to qualify for solution designations, becoming an expert in a particular industry, or even co-presenting with Microsoft at events. Perhaps you have created new marketplace offers that enable you and your customers to participate in a seamless transaction process. And don’t forget P2P. Did you build a relationship or an alliance with another partner, and how is that making your business better for customers?
- Mentor #2 – This is Microsoft. This should play as an underlying theme where you can reference how Microsoft has supported both the customer and you the partner to achieve success. Did you co-sell with Microsoft, and how did you win together? Try to show KPIs or metrics for Azure revenue, marketplace transactions, number of wins, size of your opportunity pipeline and more.
- The Challenges – The challenges or obstacles could be either people or things. For example, there could be a challenge migrating a workload into Azure because some people within the customer’s organization wanted the workload to remain on-premises. Another challenge could be facing Google or AWS and winning the opportunity as an Azure solution. In every story, the Hero faces challenges along the way and the Mentor enables the Hero to overcome them.
- The Happy Ending – This is where you document the results for the customer and for yourself. What did your customer realize as a result of choosing Azure and then working with you? How did you evolve as a partner as a result of embracing your Microsoft partnership this year?
How Do I Put All this Together in Only 8,000 characters (about 1,200 words)?
There is a great book called “Write Tight” which provides tips for cutting out the fluff and getting to the heart of your story. Great storytellers spend years learning their craft and are able to take complex scenarios and make them compelling and interesting.
You will have a lot of material that you will need to condense into only 8,000 characters. It is unlikely that you will be able to include everything you would like. We strongly recommend planning everything you want to include in your submission BEFORE you begin writing. Consider using our free tool daXai to capture all the information you need.
Once you have collected that information, here is a framework you can follow:
- Opening – Inciting Incident – Open your story “in media res” which means “in the middle of things”. Try to open with your customer’s biggest pain point, the moment they thought that all was lost. If you are in a category (such as Indirect Provider, Country Partner of the Year or Global SI, et al.) where much of the submission is focused more on you as a partner, still try to open with a story that shows how you transformed the lives of the people you serve (partners, a region or an industry). A great example of this in fiction is the memoir “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls, where she opens with the scene of herself riding in a taxi along the streets of New York and seeing someone rummaging through a dumpster on the side of the road before realizing it is her mother. Open in a way that will make the judges gasp and want to read the rest of your submission.
- Challenges and Obstacles – Document, in story format, how challenges were overcome. For example, you might want to talk about how a small window of opportunity to complete a migration to Azure needed to be met or otherwise the project would be cancelled. Show how your migration process, combined with Azure technologies and ISV technologies, enabled the customer to meet their very tight deadlines, and the resulting business value that they then realized.
- Side Stories – As you narrate your customer’s journey, you will want to introduce side stories, but don’t let them detract from the overall narrative. For example, list the full range of Microsoft technologies used to deploy the solution, include customer testimonials that speak to your knowledge and expertise, and share what you learned as a partner as the journey unfolded.
If you need help collecting and documenting your customer stories, consider using our free tool “daXai” which is available at https://www.daxai.com/pricing/#awards or hiring the Mercer-MacKay Microsoft Awards writing team. Email us at awards@mercermackay.com.
Good luck with your Microsoft Partner of the Year Award submission!