Your sales comp plan has one job—most MSPs get it wrong

This article was written by Ray Green, CEO of MSP Sales Partners.

Every few weeks, an MSP owner asks me some version of the same question: “How should I pay my new BDR?”

And almost every time, they answer it before I can. “I want to put them on commission tied to closed deals,” they say. “That way, they’ve got skin in the game.”

I stop them right there. Here’s why.

Your comp plan has one job

If you can’t name the exact behavior your comp plan is designed to incentivize, scrap it. Pay your rep a straight salary and call it a day.

I mean that literally.

Your sales comp plan has one purpose: to change behavior. It’s a communication tool—an asynchronous, systematic way of telling your sales rep exactly what you want them to do. If it doesn’t do that, it’s not just useless; it’s actively creating misalignment in your business.

I’ve designed a lot of comp plans over the years: simple ones with straight commission and a few step-up tiers, and wildly complex ones with pools, team-contingent payouts, and lead distribution logic baked in.

The lesson I come back to every single time is the same: What behavior does this get me?

That’s the question, and it’s one most MSP owners skip past entirely.

Instead, they look at what everybody else is paying. They try to match it, bake it into the plan. Then, three months later, they find out they’re either paying for behavior they don’t want, or they’ve got a pissed-off rep who isn’t making any money.

The BDR commission mistake

Back to the MSP owner asking about his BDR.

The logic sounds reasonable on paper: if I pay them on the outcome, they’ll set better appointments because they’ve got skin in the game. They’ll qualify harder. Their interests will be aligned with the company’s.

This virtually never works the way you think it will.

Here’s the question: What is the exact behavior your BDR can change on a phone call, based on whether or not the deal eventually closes?

Think about it. They make 50, 70, 100 dials a day, trying to set appointments. What can they do differently, in that moment, that determines whether the deal closes six weeks later?

You might say, “Well, they’ll qualify better.”

Maybe. But it’s 2026. You have AI. You have a million enrichment tools. If someone isn’t in your market, they shouldn’t be on the list to begin with. Qualification at the point of a cold call isn’t really the lever you think it is—and the marginal qualification you’d get from tying it to closed-deal commission is not worth what you’ll pay for it.

Beyond setting the appointment and making sure the prospect shows up, what does the BDR control?

Very little.

The closer runs discovery. The closer builds the proposal. The closer delivers the presentation, asks for the sale, gets the contract signed, and collects payment. The BDR isn’t touching any of that.

Paying them on the outcome of the deal doesn’t change their behavior. It creates misalignment.

How that misalignment shows up

There are two failure modes here, and I’ve seen both more times than I can count.

Scenario one: mediocre BDR, killer closer.

Your BDR is barely setting appointments. They’re missing activity targets. They’re underperforming on the only numbers that should matter to them. But because you’ve got a phenomenal closer who can manufacture deals out of weak opportunities, the BDR is getting a windfall in commission anyway.

Now you’ve got an underperformer making good money while missing every leading indicator. You’re paying for something you’re not actually getting.

Scenario two: killer BDR, weak closer.

Your BDR is crushing it. Setting appointments hand over fist. Getting prospects to show up. Doing exactly what you hired them to do.

But the salesperson taking those meetings couldn’t close the front door if they tried. So, your BDR is putting up numbers on the scoreboard, hitting every leading indicator you set, and not making the money they should because the deals aren’t closing.

How long do you think you will keep that BDR?

Both scenarios trace back to the same root cause: you paid for something outside the BDR’s control.

What to actually pay BDRs on

Here’s the better question. Can the BDR influence whether the prospect shows up to the meeting?

Yes. They can run a confirmation call. They can send an email. They can fire off a text. They can do real work between when the appointment is booked and when it happens, to make sure the prospect shows up.

That is within their control. That’s a behavior you want. That’s something worth incentivizing.

Set appointments and sat appointments. Pay on those. Stop trying to align your BDR to outcomes they can’t move.

The one question that designs every comp plan

These are just examples, but the principle behind them is universal.

Every element of your sales comp plan—the salary-to-commission ratio, the commission tiers, where you set the goals, whether you’re incentivizing reps to sandbag or to maximize—should start with one question:

What behavior am I incentivizing by doing this?

If you can’t answer that for every line item in your plan, the plan isn’t designed. It’s just numbers on a page.

Here’s why this matters so much for MSP owners specifically: a well-designed comp plan is one of the highest leverage moves you can make in your business.

You do the deep work once. You sit down, you do the analysis, you get the design right, and it pays dividends for years. That’s leverage. Output-to-input ratio, in your favor.

A poorly designed plan does the opposite. It produces misalignment for years, until you finally tear it up and start over.

Your action step this week

Pull up your current sales comp plan. Take every element of it—base salary, commission percentages, kickers, accelerators, tier breakpoints, all of it—and run each one through this question: What behavior am I incentivizing by paying this way?

If you can answer clearly for every line, you’ve got a real plan.

If you can’t, you’ve got some redesigning to do—and you just found one of the highest-leverage projects you’ll put on your calendar this quarter. For more sales advice, check out why simple sales presentations close the deal.