#18 – From the Trenches - MSP Sales Engine & Direct Mail (Alek Pirkhalo)

Most MSP owners don’t fail because they can’t deliver service—they stall because they never build a repeatable growth engine. They “try sales” for a season, it doesn’t work fast enough, and they retreat back into referrals and firefighting. In this From the Trenches episode of the BMK Vision Podcast, Alek Pirkhalo (Co-Founder of Safe Point) joins Josh Peterson for a candid, operator-level conversation about what it actually takes to professionalize marketing, stabilize sales, and stop treating growth like a mood.

This isn’t a discussion about clever copy or the latest automation tool. It’s about the leadership decision underneath all of it: whether you’re willing to treat sales and marketing as a non-negotiable operating system. Alek describes the cycle many MSPs repeat—running “appointment setter experiments,” giving up, leaning on referrals—until they confront the real constraint: you can’t scale on accidental demand. The breakthrough is not a personality hire. It’s planning, budget discipline, and a multi-channel approach that creates consistent touches and measurable momentum.

If you’re an MSP owner trying to build a pipeline without burning out your service team, struggling to justify marketing spend, or feeling stuck between “we’re profitable” and “we’re scalable,” this episode will land because it names the hard truth: growth requires structure—especially when it feels expensive.

Why do MSPs “try sales,” fail, and retreat back to referrals?

The common story is, “Sales didn’t work.” The more accurate story is, “We ran sales as a short-term experiment and expected a long-term system to emerge.” Alek describes Safe Point’s own cycle: they hired appointment setters, churned through early attempts, and eventually gave up—leaning on referrals for years. Referrals are a gift, but they are not a strategy. They are not controllable, schedulable, or forecastable.

The deeper takeaway is that sales doesn’t become reliable when you find the right person—it becomes reliable when you commit to repetition long enough for learning to compound. That means shortening the “break” between attempts, making iteration continuous, and accepting that early-stage sales effort often feels like wasted motion until the system tightens.

• Sales failure is often an inconsistency problem, not a talent problem
• Referral-only growth creates comfort while quietly limiting scale
• Momentum comes from repetition, not resets

What does it mean to treat marketing like an obligation instead of an option?

Alek makes a statement most MSP owners resist: 10% of revenue is not yours. It belongs to sales and marketing. Until that becomes an operating assumption—like payroll taxes or insurance—you’ll keep evaluating growth spend as if it’s discretionary. And that guarantees the same outcome: you only invest when things feel safe, which is exactly when you’re least motivated to do the hard, disciplined work.

The point isn’t to waste money. It’s to stop treating growth funding as “profit” and start treating it as fuel. You can allocate it immediately, or bank it while you plan, or even use it to create acquisition optionality—but you have to acknowledge it as a required allocation if you want controllable demand.

• Healthy margins can be a mirage when marketing spend is underfunded
• Marketing budgets create optionality: pipeline, brand, and even acquisitions
• Discipline beats urgency-driven spending every time

How do you build a multi-channel MSP outreach strategy that doesn’t feel chaotic?

The mistake isn’t “using too many channels.” The mistake is running channels as disconnected activities. Safe Point’s approach is to coordinate touches—email, outbound calling, LinkedIn, direct mail, and live events—through one organizing system, with timing and planning. The value of direct mail, in Alek’s framing, isn’t nostalgia; it’s differentiation and repetition. It’s another touchpoint that increases recognition and creates a reason to respond.

When multi-channel is coordinated, it stops feeling like random marketing noise and starts functioning like a machine: planned campaigns, timed sequences, tracked responses, and consistent follow-up rules. The owner’s role shifts from “doing marketing” to designing the system that makes marketing and sales observable.

• More touches isn’t the goal—coordinated touches are
• Direct mail works when it’s a measured touch, not a Hail Mary
• Events build trust by demonstrating leadership, not pitching services

Why do automation tools fail inside MSPs—even when the tool is “good”?

The quiet killer in most MSP marketing stacks is not tool quality—it’s ownership. Alek highlights a reality most owners learn the hard way: tools like HubSpot can be powerful, but they demand management time. If you assume you’ll “just do it yourself,” the system decays because the business always has louder emergencies. Then you blame the tool when the real issue is that the tool never had a dedicated operator.

Mature MSP growth requires accepting that software platforms are not “set and forget.” They are systems that require stewardship. Whether that’s a part-time resource, a specialist, or a structured internal role, someone must own the configuration, reporting, and continuous improvement—or your database turns into a permanent workaround.

• Tools don’t create systems—ownership does
• “I’ll manage it myself” often becomes “we never really used it”
• Consistency requires a person accountable for the platform

Episode highlights

• 00:03:45 – The moment Alek decided he would never be valued enough as an employee—and committed to ownership.
• 00:08:48 – The clean partnership split: technical leadership vs. admin/marketing/financial operations.
• 00:14:55 – The sales cycle MSPs repeat: try, fail, retreat, then restart—why persistence is the real differentiator.
• 00:17:08 – “10% of revenue is not yours”—reframing marketing spend as obligation, not profit.
• 00:19:22 – Why sales/marketing funding creates optionality—including acquisition-driven growth.
• 00:24:26 – Coordinating direct mail, HubSpot, outbound calling, and live events into one planned system.
• 00:27:27 – Thought leadership and education as a growth lever—AI/automation topics that create trust and expansion work.
• 00:28:32 – Direct mail as “another touch”: differentiated outreach that’s cost-effective when automated and measured.

About the guest: Alek Pirkhalo

Alek Pirkhalo is the Co-Founder of Safe Point, an MSP focused on modern IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, and automation. Alek leads marketing, sales, and financial operations—bringing a systems-driven mindset to building a scalable growth engine through disciplined planning, multi-channel outreach, and consistent execution.

Connect with Alek Pirkhalo on LinkedIn →

Frequently asked questions

What’s the biggest reason MSP sales efforts fail?
Most MSPs treat sales as a short-term experiment instead of a long-term system. Without consistent repetition, measurement, and process ownership, results never compound.

How much should an MSP spend on marketing?
A practical rule discussed in this episode is allocating roughly 10% of revenue to sales and marketing—treating it as an operating obligation rather than discretionary profit.

Does direct mail still work for MSP marketing?
It can—when it’s part of a coordinated multi-channel strategy and used as one measurable “touch,” not a standalone tactic hoping for miracles.

Why do tools like HubSpot fail inside MSPs?
Because tool adoption requires ownership. Without dedicated time and accountability for management, the platform decays and becomes harder to unwind later.

Related resources from Bering McKinley

• Building a scalable MSP sales process that actually closes
• If you’re nailing every sales call, you suck at sales
• Top indicators that your MSP needs a sales consultant

Want to continue the conversation?

If you’re an MSP owner trying to build a repeatable pipeline, fund growth with discipline, and operate sales and marketing like a real system—not a seasonal initiative—explore the Vision operating system or apply to be a guest on the podcast.

👉 Apply to be on the BMK Vision Podcast
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