Your AE Should Still Be Hunting

If you've got a BDR setting appointments and an outside sales rep closing deals, here's a question that comes up constantly with MSPs: Should your AE also be generating their own pipeline? In a perfect world, here's the ideal setup: your setter fills a third to half of the AE's calendar, and the AE fills the rest themselves. Why not just have marketing and the BDR handle it all? Multiple reasons. BDRs turn over—it's often an entry-level role with higher volatility, and you don't want your pipeline to have that same volatility. Different channels work at different times, and you need consistency when one isn't performing. But here's the bigger reason most people overlook: when your outside rep is hunting, they're doing R&D for your entire business. They're hearing objections, questions, what competitive offers look like, what prospects say at the beginning of the cycle. Sales is a massive source of research and development if you just listen. Plus, I want my reps to stay hungry—Andy Grove said "success leads to complacency, only the paranoid survive." If appointments just show up on their calendar, they'll complain about lead quality and take it for granted. This episode breaks down why consistency, redundancy, hunger, and real-world intel make this approach essential for building a sales machine that doesn't rely on any single channel or person.