How to build a BDR program at an MSP

A BDR program pays off when your account executives have open calendar time and a clear target client. Build the case from the value of one held meeting, pay for meetings that become pipeline, hire for the skills the job uses every day, and document the system so it runs without you. I built the BDR program at Five Nines Technology Group from scratch. This is the method.

When does an MSP need a BDR, and when should it wait?

Hire a BDR when your account executives (AEs) can take more meetings than they get. Wait if they cannot.

A BDR creates meetings. If your AEs are already full, or your close process is shaky, more meetings add cost and no revenue. Check these first:

• You have a written target client profile, so a rep knows who to call.
• Your AEs close a steady share of the meetings they run.
• Someone owns coaching, and has the hours to do it each week.
• Your CRM records every call and meeting.

If two or more are missing, fix those first. A new hire will copy whatever habits the team already has.

How do you build the business case for a BDR?

Start with what one held meeting is worth, then work backward to the meetings a BDR must book to cover their cost.

The formula:

Value of one held meeting = average deal gross profit x meeting-to-close rate

Pull both inputs from your CRM. If you lack a clean close rate, build one from your own stage-to-stage conversion data. I built a funnel calculator on documented stage-to-stage conversion rates, so coverage targets and activity requirements come from math.

Here is an example with hypothetical round numbers. Use your own.

Then add the ramp. A new BDR produces little for the first stretch, so add those months of cost to the year-one total. Decide up front how long you will wait before judging the hire.

The business case is a range. Run it at a low and a high close rate, and hire only if the low case is survivable.

How should you design BDR incentives?

Pay for meetings that turn into real pipeline. A bonus on raw meeting count teaches reps to book anything.

Build it in four steps:

1. Write a definition of a qualified meeting. Name the contact's role, the company size, the problem discussed, and the agreed next step. Put it on one page.
2. Let the AE accept or reject each meeting. Set a deadline for the decision and require a reason for any rejection.
3. Pay on accepted meetings. Add a second component for meetings that become opportunities.
4. Review rejections weekly. Look for patterns in what gets rejected and why.

Watch for two failure modes. Reps book meetings with people who have no authority, and AEs reject good meetings to protect their own calendars. A weekly review of rejected meetings catches both.

Keep the plan short enough that a rep can work out their own pay on paper.

How do you hire BDRs who can do the job?

Hire for the work a BDR does all day. Have each candidate show you those skills, and score every candidate on the same sheet so you can compare them fairly.

The skills to see:

• The opener and the first ten seconds
• Discovery questions
• Handling an objection
• Asking for the meeting

What does a BDR need on day one?

A first-week hire needs scripts they can run, a call flow they can follow live, answers to common objections, access to the tools, and a scorecard that shows how they are doing.

This is what I built:

• A BDR pitch guide and call scripts in plain language, written so a first-week hire can run them.
• Decision-tree call scripts. My Call Script System has four, for healthcare and specialty prospecting. Each has A/B-tested openers, role-based pitches, an objection library, and a booking cascade.
• A click-through call flow for each script. The rep works from it live on the phone. The goal is a first-month rep who sounds like a tenured one.
• Technology access. Give the rep the CRM and the calling tools on day one. Waiting on logins wastes the first week.
• A scorecard. The rep sees their own numbers from the first day.

Write scripts around the contact's role, since a CFO and an IT director care about different things. Keep an objection library, and add to it each time a rep hears a new one.

How do you measure a BDR program week to week?

Track activity, meetings, and meeting quality every week, and compare each to a pace for the days worked so far.

I run a live sales dashboard with AE and BDR scorecards. It uses day-prorated weekly pacing, so on Tuesday a rep is measured against two days of target and not five. It also uses weighted period scoring, which gives more credit to the actions that lead to revenue.

Start with these weekly numbers:

• Calls and conversations
• Meetings booked
• Meetings held
• Meetings accepted by the AE

Also track what happens after the meeting: opportunities created and deals closed. Those are slow to arrive, so review them monthly. Compare them with the conversion rates in your funnel model. If the BDR hits activity targets and pipeline stays flat, the problem is usually the qualification definition or the target list.

How do you hand off a BDR program so it runs without you?

Turn every part into a document or a tool, then give an owner to each one. The program should keep running when the person who built it walks away.

My program scaled to more than ten meetings a month. The company then moved prospecting to the account executives, and the scripts, call flows, and scorecards went with them. The steps that make a hand-off like that work:

1. Write down the qualified-meeting definition, the pay plan, and the hiring scorecard.
2. Keep scripts and call flows in a shared place, with one owner for updates.
3. Give managers a dashboard so they see pace without asking for a report.
4. Run the weekly review with the new owner, then let them lead it.

Hand-off is a test of the build. If the AEs can hire, train, and score a rep using only your documents, the program is repeatable.

About the author. Steven Bartz is Director of Sales at Five Nines Technology Group, a managed IT partner in Lincoln, Nebraska. If you are deciding on a first BDR hire, use the Connect link at the top of this page, send me your target client profile and current close rate, and I will show you how I would run the math.