How to Scale an MSP Sales Team in 2026 | Nick Ford

In this episode, Nick Ford, US Sales Manager at Sherweb, shares practical lessons on scaling an MSP sales team and evolving from individual contributor to effective leader. He also outlines what MSPs must prepare for in 2026, from consolidation trends to AI monetization and Microsoft ecosystem changes.

Key Insights:

Why sales leaders must abandon the “hero closer” mindset and build a culture of accountability and data-driven management.

How MSP acquisitions and platform growth are reshaping competition and opportunity in the channel.

Why AI services and Microsoft CSP changes will require MSPs to rethink value delivery and profitability.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to Tal Tech with Rob Scott.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Hello, and welcome to the show. I'm your host, Rob Scott, and today I have a very special guest, Nick from SureWeb. Nick is the sales manager for the U.S. and a good friend of mine, and somebody I've known for many years, and one of the main reasons that Monger chose SureWeb to be the only North American distributor for our solution. So, Nick, so happy to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Ah, super excited to be here. Thank you so much. It means a lot. Thank you for saying that. We're really excited to start this partnership and be here today. So I'm I'm thrilled.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Well, before we start, why don't you tell the audience what it's like to grow up in Canada and your origin story?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Well, you traverse through hills and hills of snow and fight off moose. Uh any, you know, no, but so I grew I grew up in Sherbrooke, and that's actually where Sherweb's founded. Um, so I grew up in the small town. Uh, and it's interesting because there's not a whole lot that's that's that's going on in in Sherbrooke technology-wise, typically, and and and it's it's definitely grown since then. But um, you know, with with what it's like growing up there, small town, you know, farm area, uh, a lot of French. I was in the English pocket, you know, not a whole lot of options. And so I was, you know, very fortunate to be able to hop on with SureWeb um, you know, when I did.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Well, you know, one of the things that I think is so great about Quebec is that you guys speak English and you speak French, and it's really great. And I would say that it's been a great learning experience for us to launch our first international translation into French to help serve our joint partners in Canada. That's been an interesting journey for me. But I want to talk about your path from the small farms and a small town to being the uh sales manager for the biggest market in Sureweb by far is the United States. So tell us about your professional journey.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yeah, so I mean, I I I knew I loved sales when I was a kid, uh, wanted to figure out how to make money, uh, you know, shoveling driveways, taking out garbages for people. Uh and then one year at our when I was in high school, the vending machines decided to stop selling unhealthy food. And so it was all, you know, fruit and this and that. And, you know, so there's a market for selling uh candy bars. And so I would import candy bars from the US and I'd I'd sell them at a markup um in in high school. And so I really thought that was an exciting kind of entrepreneurial aspect to it. And then um, you know, as I as I went through and went through school, I I thought I wanted to go to graphic design because that's what my dad did. Um really got bored, uh switched over and decided I wanted to go back in sales because that's really what I like doing, and you know, kind of trying to build my own thing before it was was super fun. Um, so when I when I moved over from many other jobs selling cell phones and and and diamond etching blades and you you name it, um, I'd always heard about SureWeb. And when I came on board, I I didn't have the experience they were looking for. Um didn't have technology sales outside of selling cell phones for Rogers, which is uh kind of like an ATP over in in Canada. And uh so what happened when I go when I got there, they said, Hey, do you know how to support hosted exchange? I said, No. They said, Do you know how to support you know Microsoft Office? I said, no. And they said, Do you speak well in French? And I said, No. And they said, So, you know, why should we hire you? And I said, because I'm gonna make sure that our customers, you know, feel feel that they're supported and and and I'm gonna get the answer for them. And so when I came on, I came on the support side and I learned quickly that I wanted to get into sales. And so what I would do is I would prioritize all the salespeople's tickets. And I made friends with them and I networked with them and I tried to upsell clients, and they'd call me for web hosting and I'd say, What about email? You should be really considering this. And so then kind of naturally progressed, and Shreweb gave me a chance, and I was uh, you know, 20-year-old, no idea what I was doing. Um, got set up my first time in sales and learned about a sales funnel, officially uh started, you know, just the grind there and worked my way through many different roles. I was uh uh our our entry-level sales, I was partner sales, I was biz dev. I took on a team lead role, and now I'm the manager uh for the for the U.S. sales team. So I've seen us grow from a few hundred people over to you know, pushing pushing a thousand. So it's been an exciting journey.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

That is exciting. What a great story. And now, you know, you're not an individual contributor. You've got to execute through your team and through leadership. What would be the top two or three words of wisdom that you would give to a sales manager who's got a team, maybe a smaller team of one or two, and trying to find the way into really getting good at managing a sales team? What are some of the tricks and tools that you use to make sure that your team uh stays ahead of quota and and meets their goals?

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Well, I'd say, I'd say I'll answer the first one about, you know, kind of learnings. Well, what got you here won't get you there. Uh, biggest mistake I ever made was trying to get people to do things the way that I did and and trying to act as an individual contributor versus acting as a leader with my team. And I've made a lot of mistakes, I'm sure. Back in the beginning, I had a lot of people that that that would would have choice words for me as a manager back then, you know. And so uh you learn a lot doing it that way and kind of kind of getting tough. So I'd say anybody that's getting into it, you know, that that came from individual contributor going into management, um, it it's a whole different mindset. Uh get to know the data, really understand the data, how that's leveraged, understand your impact to the business, what's the book that you're running, and and and how does that contribute to the overall arching goal of SureWeb or sorry for your business. Um don't worry necessarily on your number alone. Uh, you have to look at how it impacts the greater good, even if your quota is only specific to one team. Like I can't just care about the US. I have to care about the impact of SureWeb overall. Um, you know, that's that's that's gonna be be super, super important. And uh you have to be absolutely diligent and tough in sales. Um, you know, you you you expect big things, you got to hold your team accountable. And if you are in a management role, you have to manage. Um so you have to set targets, KPIs, you have to push your team to hit them. You have to make sure that you're treating them with respect, have empathy, but you also have to push them in the right direction. Um, but you can't do the work for them. So that would be, you know, really what I would say is my biggest learning as far as tips and tricks. Um, I'm I'm a firm believer that there's no silver bullet. Old school, you gotta, you gotta just do what's worked forever, right? And that's create an environment, create a culture with your team, one of winning, one of I got your back, let's do it together. One of I expect you to do things and you can expect me to be there to support you. Uh hold a high bar for accountability and a high bar for what you what you want them to be able to do. Uh, show up for them, but you gotta also be quick to make a decision. You want them to be quick to come in. If it doesn't fit, you gotta make some tough calls. If it does fit, you gotta put them in the right position. Um, and uh that'd be kind of what I would say. It's not flashy, you know, it's not a not a fancy tool that we're using. Um, pick up the phone, call your customers, you know, help your team do that. Awesome. Yeah, I agree with all that.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

You you talked about the mindset shift change from an individual contributor to a leader. What were the two or three things that you brought in as an individual contributor that you had to let go to embrace the mind shift of a sales leader?

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Oh, that's good. I like that one. So, my biggest one, so part of Evolve, you know, we we talk about goals, right? Every year we set something, and and one of my biggest ones was I gotta get out of the hero mentality. I need to stop trying to get in and win deals. Um, I love working with partners, I love working with with with MSPs, and and and I've had great opportunity to work with some great ones and have still have great relationships. Letting go of that's important. And uh stop trying to come in and close on behalf of my team, um, stop interrupting them, let them run their calls and give feedback afterwards. That was honestly the biggest, the biggest challenge for me because as an individual contributor, I was so used to I'm just gonna run this into the ground as quickly as I possibly can. Um, I'm gonna do everything for my partner. I'm gonna uh I'm gonna, you know, sell this deal, right? And so I had to let that go. I had to push that aside. Um, and uh, you know, ego too. You you you can't you don't you don't get the wins. Your team gets the wins and you you take the losses. So uh, you know, you're responsible no matter what happens, but you can't take credit for, and you should never take credit for what your team is doing, because at the end of the day, I'm only successful if my team's out there doing what they need to do. Um, and so, you know, the team that we have right now, you know, they know that uh that I got their back. Um, but I'm gonna highlight them, you know, any chance I can get. So individual contributor, rah-rah, look at me, and I'm gonna go in and get it done. You gotta kill that, you gotta move on uh and and and and focus on supporting your team.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

As you look forward to 2026, and we sit down again next year. I hope you'll come back and and we can reflect. Uh, how will the world of managed services be different in 12 months than it is today?

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Um I think there's gonna be uh I think the bigger MSPs that are buying people are gonna get a lot bigger. Um so that's gonna continue. I think acquisition is gonna keep going. Multiples are going up, so so you know it's kind of slowed down for a little bit, right? But we're starting to see things shift. Um we're noticing a lot more platform MSPs getting created. Uh so I see that, you know, recurring, coming up again and again. Uh, I think that I don't think it'll I don't think it'll change in a year, but my my assumption is that we'll see more MSPs realize that they have to jump into I need to deliver value and service before I can get to the dollar. And that's really tough. And nobody's really figured out yet how to how to properly quantify and scale like AI, right? And we're here all day. Uh, I was at Microsoft Vent recently, all they talked about was it uh was AI, agentic, all this sort of stuff. But I've yet to meet somebody who's been able to scalably go out there and offer it and sell it. And the parties that I'm noticing they're doing well, they're going out there and delivering value, they're helping their customers, but they're not, you know, they haven't figured out how to charge it. And I think that shift, I don't think people have agreed with that yet. So um the ones that are really gonna get out ahead are gonna are gonna start to realize it, I think, in a year. Um, and then lastly, I would say is we're gonna start really feeling that pressure of that Microsoft change. So we've seen it with Microsoft raising the the direct CSP requirements, um, raising your thresholds to to go out and get incentives. And if you're not navigating that as an MSP, even though you might be saying, look, my profit margins and my managed services, my profit margins are over here. This is, you know, I need to have Microsoft in here because everybody's on it. Um, if you're not paying attention to that, in a year from now, you're gonna be so far behind and you're gonna miss out on so many opportunities to make money with it, you might get left behind as well. So I think people are gonna start to realize that in a year. I do think it's gonna take a minute to get there. Um, and it's too bad because uh there's there's there's an opportunity right now to take advantage of it. But uh yeah, I'd say those would be my my my three predictions.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

And and as far as you personally, do you have any um uh personal goals that that if we were a year ahead from now and we sat down, you would say I'm there were one or two things that I decided to do today that would get me to those goals. So I'll be right here on this podcast again. So we'll see how this goes. Ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. The always well sense of humor, Nick from SureWeb. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Thank you so much. You've been listening to Talk Tech with Rob Scott, brought to you by Monger. Monger is the first mover in providing contracts as a service solution specifically designed for IT managed service providers. Their staff-enabled legal solution is based on industry leading templates that are customized for each client and periodically updated to ensure that FSPs always have the latest protection that is legally compliant.