Lohman says that when the SBSC was announced, he knew immediately that he wanted to sign up and get registered. “By participating, we’ve achieved an additional level of expertise we can use to demonstrate that we’ve done what’s required to really understand small businesses,” he says.

Lohman says that achieving the designation was relatively painless and that it’s yielded benefits.

The marketing materials, he says, are great. These include the partner marketing kit, substantially discounted pre-printed promotional materials, and the Microsoft Small Business Server Assessment Toolkit, which helps partners conduct an analysis from both business and technical perspectives. “It’s one of the greatest things ever,” he says. “It helps us understand our clients and prospects. Clients love it, and it’s opened up doors.”

Thanks to the toolkit, Lohman says that as a result of the eight analyses he’s conducted, five sales are in progress. “To me, that’s a big benefit,” he says.

Other areas of benefit that have resulted from the designation include having access to training and assistance with events for customers and prospects.

Lohman participates, on average, in between 15 and 20 online classes per month. “There are hands-on labs where you can go in and actually configure a virtual server,” he says. “The valuable thing about this is that you can really see what the impact is if you make a mistake. It’s a great way to learn.”

On the events front, Lohman recently worked with Microsoft to host an event that was attended by 20 people from businesses that were getting ready to make their first server purchase. So far, the event has yielded two sales, with more in the pipeline.

Lohman adds that the overall experience of partnering with Microsoft has been a good one.

“Microsoft is always there for us,” Lohman says. “We’re a little partner out in Havre, Mont., and Allison Watson knows about my business.” Watson is vice president of Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Group. “I partner with lots of companies, and Microsoft is the best by about a thousand times.”