Compare TAM vs vCIO Work Before You Hire Either Role

Give Each Role a Result It Owns

I'd write the jobs as actions. The TAM inspects the environment against your agreed standard and records the gaps. The vCIO uses that evidence to help the client decide what to fund and when.

Don't advertise for strategic synergy. Ask for a finding another technician can check and a recommendation a client leader can decide on. Those are outputs you can inspect.

The client still owns its business decision. A technical finding doesn't authorize a purchase, and a planning conversation doesn't authorize an engineer to change a system. Keep approvals visible when the work passes between people.

Dan Mallard's hiring preference supports this distinction. He favors account managers who can connect technical recommendations to client leaders' business plans, rather than making selling the main selection criterion. That's his view on consultative ability, not a reason to remove the commercial judgment the job needs.

Carry a Finding Through to a Decision

Say a hypothetical assessment finds client equipment outside your agreed standard. The TAM records the affected assets and the evidence. The finding needs a clear technical consequence, with uncertainty stated where the assessment cannot establish it.

The vCIO then asks how that consequence affects the client's work. A replacement could need to fit an office move or another planned investment. The conversation should establish the business priority before the MSP promises a delivery date.

Record the outcome even when the client doesn't approve the recommendation. Capture the decision maker and the next action under your exception process. An unanswered recommendation stays unresolved; it doesn't become an accepted exception because the presentation ended.

When the client authorizes work, send it through normal scoping and approval. The delivery owner checks what the quote covers before scheduling. The TAM checks the resulting environment against the standard rather than assuming that an invoice proves the gap is gone.

Choose the First Hire From the Missing Work

Hire for an observed gap you can describe. Don't choose the title that looks more senior. A slash in a job title is cheap; the second job still needs time.

I'd start with a TAM when the technical standard has no reliable owner. Look for assessments that haven't been completed or findings that lack enough evidence to support a recommendation. While that person takes over alignment work, you as the owner must explicitly carry the business conversation or assign it to someone with the capacity and ability.

I'd start with a vCIO when the technical work is owned but client decisions aren't progressing. Inspect whether recommendations connect to the client's plans and reach the person who can approve them. Keep a named technical owner in place so the new hire has something sound to discuss.

If both jobs are uncovered, cost the whole arrangement. You can phase the hiring, but you can't treat the unfilled job as free capacity. Write down what you'll do yourself and what existing work you'll stop or transfer to make room.

Ray J. Green recommends defining observable outputs and day-to-day work before publishing a vacancy. Use that hiring practice here. Show candidates the result the role must produce, then assess whether they can explain how they'd get there.

Fund the Job Before Calling It Affordable

Use the MRR ratios to plan staffing, then check the actual work and your budget. They aren't break-even guarantees or automatic hiring triggers. A book can reach a model staffing ratio while still carrying poor margins or unusually demanding clients.

The US model uses a $70,000 annual TAM salary and a $90,000 vCIO salary. At its 1.25 burden factor, those become $87,500 and $112,500. These are planning assumptions, not local salary offers.

Check the full cost of the proposed arrangement against your delivery budget. Include the owner work you're retaining in the role plan without charging the same time twice. If you move an existing employee, account for whoever will pick up their previous work.

In the model, both account roles sit in delivery labor and report to the owner. It adds no service-manager share for them; the owner's time sits in the owner salary. Don't add a layer to your cost calculation that the model hasn't staffed.

Keep Other Jobs From Swallowing the Hire

The service manager doesn't carry account management in this model. Keep that responsibility assigned to the account roles. Otherwise your role plan quietly asks the person managing the desk to cover a second function.

Keep new-business hunting separate too. A vCIO may identify work an existing client needs, but a new-logo quota is a different job. If you're hiring a hunter, budget and manage that role on its own terms.

Don't make the TAM the default engineer for every finding. Technical assessment and implementation need distinct ownership even when the same qualified person does a particular task. Schedule that task against real capacity rather than counting an assessment hour and a delivery hour as the same available hour.

Make the Split Visible on the Board

What does this split do to the board on Monday morning? It should tell the team who takes the next action when an assessment produces work. I'd check the handoffs before adding another meeting.

• The TAM owns the finding, supporting evidence, and technical follow-up against the agreed standard.
• The vCIO owns taking the recommendation to the appropriate client decision maker and recording the outcome.
• The delivery owner owns the approved scope and the schedule for implementation.
• The MSP owner owns funding the roles and assigning any responsibility the current team cannot cover.

Test that assignment on an actual recommendation. Follow the record from assessment to the current decision or delivery state. If it stops, name the missing action and owner before deciding that another hire is the answer.

Use those gaps to finish the vacancy brief. State the output the new person will own and the handoff they'll receive. Then show who keeps the other role covered on the day the new hire starts.