Notes on D365, AI, and shipping things that work
Opinions from 50+ D365 CE engagements. Not a content-mill rewrite of Microsoft docs — real numbers, real tradeoffs, real decisions.
Cornerstone Articles
Eleven deep-dives worth bookmarking if you're evaluating a small business website, running D365 CE, or hiring an AI consultant.
How to Get More Customers From Your Website (Service Business Guide)
Contact friction, trust signals, mobile speed, local SEO basics, and how to measure what's actually working — for HVAC, pool, landscaping, cleaning, and trades sites getting traffic but not calls.
Fractional Dynamics 365 Admin vs. Full-Time Hire: Real Cost Comparison
Loaded full-time salary ranges, fractional retainer pricing, the utilization math most orgs never run, and when a full-time hire is actually the right call.
Dynamics 365 Contractor Rates (2026): What You'll Actually Pay
Big-firm, boutique, staffing-agency, and independent hourly ranges — what drives the number, how agency markup really works, and when fractional beats hourly.
How Much Does an AI Consultant Cost for a Small Business?
Hourly rates, retainers, and fixed-scope projects — real 2026 market ranges, the running costs nobody quotes, and the red flags that mean you're paying for slideware.
Wix vs. WordPress vs. Custom Site: What Each Costs
Wix, WordPress, or custom — real costs, SEO control, and ownership tradeoffs for small business owners, plus what we'd pick and exactly why.
Is Your Website Losing You Customers? 7 Warning Signs
7 concrete signs your website is costing you customers, each with a 2-minute self-check you can run on your own phone right now.
AI Tools for Small Business CRM: 7 That Actually Work
7 AI use-cases for small business CRM that actually work today, with realistic effort levels and honest failure modes — no vendor hype, no fluff.
D365 Health Check: What's Inspected & What It Costs
What a Dynamics 365 CE health check inspects — security roles, data hygiene, automation debt, license waste — and what the fixed-price deliverable covers.
Dynamics 365 vs. HubSpot: Which CRM Fits Your Business
Dynamics 365 CE vs HubSpot in 2026: an honest comparison based on what your business actually needs to run on, not a marketing feature checklist.
Dynamics 365 Field Service ROI: Real Numbers, 25 Techs
Real ROI numbers from a 25-technician HVAC Field Service rollout: the 5 levers that actually move revenue and cost, and what never pays back.
AI in Dynamics 365 CE: What's Real vs. Hype in 2026
What Copilot, AI Builder, and a custom LLM integration actually do inside Dynamics 365 CE in 2026 — and when each one earns back its build cost.
What a small business site actually costs in 2026.
What a real care plan should include, and what cheap ones skip.
Honest D365 CE implementation cost ranges by deployment size.
A fixed-scope inspection of your existing D365 CE setup.
From the founder
Golden Consulting Partners is a solo practice: one working D365 CE consultant with 50+ client engagements across Sales, Customer Service, and Field Service, who also ships production AI software — GoodPickr and NearFaith are live. These posts are notes from that work, not vendor summaries.
Need a D365 CE Consultant?
If something you read here matched a problem you're dealing with, a 15-minute call with the founder is the fastest way to figure out if GCP can help — and what it would take.