In Part 1, we talked about the blueprint: the five fundamentals, who to hire first, and why strategy alone won’t save you without the right people executing it every single day.
Now let’s get specific.
Because the two roles that will make or break your marketing engine are also the two roles most MSP owners get completely wrong. Wrong expectations. Wrong compensation. Wrong management. And then they wonder why nothing’s working.
Let’s fix that.
First, Know Your Numbers
Before you hire anyone in a sales or marketing role, you need to understand what it’s actually going to cost — and what you can realistically expect in return. Not a gut feeling. Real math.
Here’s a simple way to think about it: when you hire an SDR and run a proper outbound prospecting campaign, your all-in monthly cost — salary, list costs, direct mail, tools — will likely run somewhere around $10,000 at the high end. That works out to roughly $20 per prospect you’re actively targeting.
That number should change how you think about your list. If you’re not willing to spend $20 on someone, they shouldn’t be on it. List quality isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the foundation everything else is built on.
From a cold list with a solid, multi-touch campaign — phone calls, emails, direct mail, LinkedIn — a realistic response rate is around 0.8% to 1%. That’s not a lot, but the math works when you’re targeting the right people. And here’s important context: the average cost of a qualified lead through paid digital advertising for an MSP runs close to $3,000 per lead. A well-run SDR gets you to a similar number, but with a real human building relationships and working your pipeline every day.
The bigger point is this: acquiring a new customer is expensive no matter how you do it. Best-in-class MSPs spend well over $20,000 to bring in a single new client when you account for every fully burdened cost. That means the clients you’re going after have to be worth it. If the cost to acquire a customer is high, the customer’s monthly spend has to justify it. This is why targeting matters so much, and why you can’t build a sustainable business chasing the smallest accounts in your market.
What “Outbound Prospecting” Actually Means
One thing I want to clear up before we go further: a prospecting campaign is not a direct mail campaign.
A lot of MSPs send out a letter, wait for the phone to ring, and wonder why nothing happens. That’s not a campaign. That’s a mailing.
A real prospecting campaign is a coordinated, multi-touch sequence: you target a list, clean it, send a letter, follow up with emails, make phone calls, connect on LinkedIn. Every piece reinforces the others. If you skip steps, you cut your results. The whole process has to run together — and someone has to own it.
That someone is your SDR.
The SDR Role: Results vs. Activity
The most common mistake I see with SDR management is confusing activity with results.
Activity looks like this: “Make 100 dials per day.” A result looks like this: “Book 8 qualified appointments that actually sit every month.”
There’s a big difference. If your SDR is booking 15 appointments a month on 50 dials, do you care how many calls they make? No. You care about the outcome.
Here’s the trap: when you put dial counts in the key results, your SDR will hit exactly that number and stop. I’ve seen it happen. They report the dials, check the box, and wonder why the calendar is empty. Because dials are the floor of the activity, not the goal. The goal is the appointment. Some days they’ll need to make 80 calls to get there. Some days they’ll need 200. That’s between them and the result.
Track activity, yes. But manage outcomes.
Before you make the hire, have this conversation clearly: here’s what we expect, here’s how we measure it, here’s what happens if you fall short. About 20 to 30% of candidates will walk away when you have that conversation. Good. Those aren’t the people you want.
The Marketing Coordinator Role: Execution First
The Marketing Coordinator is the engine behind your campaigns. Their job is to make sure everything gets done, on time, exactly as planned.
If they’re newer or more junior, that’s the whole job: flawless execution. Campaigns go out on time, the list is clean, the follow-up happens and nothing falls through the cracks. That’s a key result worth measuring and worth paying for.
As they grow, you can start tying their goals to outcomes like lead generation and structure a small performance bonus around campaign results. But don’t rush that. Get the execution right first.
On compensation: a Marketing Coordinator typically runs $45,000 to $70,000, depending on experience and your market. Any performance bonus should stay at 10% or less of their total pay. Marketing roles carry less variable comp than sales roles, and that’s appropriate.
One thing worth knowing: marketing people are generally easier to hire and manage than salespeople. They tend to be more process-oriented, more detail-driven, and respond well to clear structure. That doesn’t mean they run themselves. They still need direction and oversight. But the management intensity is different.
Hiring Right: The Filters That Matter
For a Marketing Coordinator, start with the resume. I mean it literally. A marketing person’s resume is the most honest preview you’ll ever get of the work they’ll produce for you. Is it clean? Well-written? Formatted well? No typos? If they can’t sell themselves on paper, they’re not going to sell your company through a campaign.
In the interview, ask them to show you the campaigns they’ve run. Then ask: what did it cost, what did it produce, how did you measure it? If they can’t answer those questions, they were executing tasks, not running marketing.
For an SDR, keep the hire in-house if you can. There are outsourced options out there and some of them are fine, but an in-house person gives you more control, more visibility and more ability to coach.
Don’t hire someone with zero phone sales experience unless you have a real training program to support them. Cold calling is a skill. It takes time to develop, and without the right foundation, you’ll spend months waiting for results that never come.
And use a hiring process. Every single bad hire I have ever made happened because I skipped a step. The MSP Sales Management Manifesto (linked below) has a complete interview guide for the SDR role. Use it, even when you’re in a hurry. Especially when you’re in a hurry.
Managing Your Team: The Meeting Rhythms That Keep Things On Track
The right people with the right scorecards will still underperform if there’s no management structure holding it together. Here’s the cadence that works:
Weekly Sales & Marketing Meeting: Once a week, same time, same format. I recommend Monday morning so you start the week with everyone aligned and focused. Keep it to 60 to 75 minutes. Cover news and updates, a client win or five-star review (this matters more than you think for morale), pipeline numbers, and what each person is working on. End on a high note. A consistent agenda means people come prepared and you actually get through it.
Daily Huddle: 15 minutes every morning. Wins from yesterday, activity numbers, what’s on the schedule. This is where you spot problems early, before they become expensive. Keep it short and keep it consistent.
Weekly Marketing Check-In: 30 to 60 minutes with just your marketing person. This is where they bring questions, roadblocks, and anything that needs your input. Train them to save non-urgent items for this meeting instead of interrupting you throughout the week. It keeps things organized and keeps you sane.
Monthly One-on-Ones: Private, 30 to 60 minutes, with each person on your team. Review performance, give specific feedback, and for salespeople, build the plan backwards from their goal. Document the conversation. You’ll want that record.
Five Reasons MSP Sales Departments Fail
Before I wrap up, here are the five dysfunctions I see kill MSP sales departments before they ever get off the ground. Be honest with yourself as you read these:
- Hiring the wrong person. No relevant experience, no phone skills, no track record of performing under a quota. Hope is not a hiring strategy.
- No quota. A salesperson without a defined goal is just an expensive employee. Set the target before they start.
- No training. You can’t hand someone a role and expect them to figure it out. Give them the scripts, the process, the playbook.
- No accountability. Measuring performance without consequences is just data collection. If nothing happens when someone falls short, you’ve told the whole team that hitting the number doesn’t matter.
- Giving salespeople non-sales work. If your SDR is building lists, stuffing envelopes, or doing admin work, they’re not making calls. Making calls is the hardest part of the job. The minute there’s something easier to do, they’ll do it.
Imitate Before You Innovate
One last thing, and this applies whether you’re managing a new SDR or a seasoned marketing hire.
New people love to come in with their own system, their own way of doing things. Encourage them to learn the process first. Master it. Prove they can get results with it. Then, once they’ve earned that, invite the conversation about how to make it better.
You don’t want a pilot improvising at 30,000 feet. You want someone who follows the checklist, lands the plane safely, and then tells you what they’d improve on the next flight. That’s the kind of person worth keeping.
Building Your Sales And Marketing Team (Part 2)
