Just back from this launch event in Detroit. Excellent turnout for prospects in Eastern Michigan. There were about 300 attendees. Most of the folks, during an informal poll, indicated they did not own CRM. The CRM market in Detroit seems to have a lot of opportunities. Two major Detroit Partners were there: Atrio and TM Group. They all wore brightly-colored  tee shirts to show their presence. I said hi to Steve Graff from Plain English Consulting, one of the remaining, and best, premier GoldMine partners in the country.  I met with Eivind Sandstrand from SalesCentric. They have a very impressive Relationship Chart application,  http://www.salescentric.com/ . We are considering joining their partner program.  I will have a follow up article on this app because it is sorely missing from the core Microsoft product, and they have come up with a very innovative method for manipulating the data.  Also a shout out to the other ISVs that were there that we have worked with: Lou from Scribe was there giving out a cool flip video camera; Scott Elller from SmartCatalog, who is from West Michigan originally, met me cordially.

Having been involved in the Beta program for CRM 4.0 there was nothing earth-shattering in terms of announcements. Many 'Microserfs' were there since their offices are located in the same building where the event was held. Many execs stopped by to pay a visit, and assess the turn out. They had plenty to be excited about— the place was standing-room only.   

I saw several of the Microsoft Technical presales folks, so a shout out to Tom Higgenbotham, Amberlee Tool, and Daniel Hunter.

I live 3 hours from Detroit so it is an early day... up at 4:30 AM to get ready and leave by 5:30 to make the 8:30 meeting. After which we drove to Toledo to meet with an existing SL client regarding a CRM and Infuse deployment. So by the time that meeting finished and we drove the then 4 hours back home, it was a long day and I noted that I drove about 500 miles, and it was about 9:30 PM. When all was said and done, I had sat through a 3 hour sales meeting, facilitated a 2 hour CRM discovery meeting, attended 3 conference calls while driving, had 3 cups of coffee, 1 Wendy's hamburger, and 1 sausage McMuffin with egg, 2 glasses of iced tea, 3 bathroom breaks, and spent $50 dollars on gas.  Pretty typical day for a CRM Consultant trying to make a mortgage payment every month.     

The Room at the Westin Hotel in Southfield Michigan

Pierre is currently rockin' to " Morning Rain" By: David Miles Huber - on the  Spring Showers album.