FOR B2B FOUNDERS WHOSE GROWTH HAS STALLED SOMEWHERE BETWEEN $1M AND $15M
Fractional CRO: Marketing and Sales Report to Me, and the Number Is Mine. It Has Been for 27 Years.
All of your revenue answers to one person, so the number has nowhere to hide: both heads report to me, I report to you, and I fix what's broken on both sides, in one order.
I've run marketing and sales in every revenue role I've held since 1999. Before I went fractional, I was a chief revenue officer, and the quarterly board meeting was mine.
Remote, month to month, and every month you'll know what you're paying for.
Free: a week of analysis, a one-hour report-out, and an action plan you keep. I take one a week, because each one is a week of my time. NDA on request.
As Seen In
TechCrunch
Forbes
Inc.
Fast Company
Hired to fix revenue
It grew every time
2020
Fractional CMO & CRO
2–6×
Pipeline · 6 years
2018
Chief Revenue Officer
+300%
2 years
2015
VP of Sales & Marketing
+107%
2 years
2014
EVP Sales & Marketing
+300%
1 year
2006
VP Channel & Business Development
+600%
8 years
1999
Global Sales Director
+400%
7 years
$1B+
Revenue at companies where I led revenue teams
27 years
Carrying quota, never missed
−40%
Churn, averaged across my fractional clients since 2020
Marketing Says the Leads Are Good. Sales Says They're Garbage. You're the Only One Who Can Settle It.
I've sat in that meeting. Marketing puts up a dashboard with the form fills climbing. Sales puts up the pipeline, and it's going nowhere.
And the company still missed the quarter. If it's the second quarter in a row, you've now heard both explanations twice.
Neither dashboard shows what happens between them. Marketing's job ends when the form is filled in. Sales' job starts when a rep decides the lead is worth a call.
Good leads fall into the space between those two moments, and each team thinks the other one has them.
So every fix lands on one side: more budget for marketing, more reps for sales, a new leader for whichever side lost the last argument. The argument survives the hire, and it comes back to your desk.
You know you need both teams. You also know neither one is where you want your week to go.
And you're the one who has to explain the miss. Both teams can show you it wasn't them.
Marketing and Sales Don't Meet Anywhere on Your Org Chart. Except You.
Draw it. Marketing runs down one side: you, your head of marketing, their team. Sales runs down the other: you, your head of sales, the reps.
Two peer lines. It's the standard way to build a company your size, and it has one consequence nobody chose.
Sales says marketing sends junk. Marketing says sales doesn't follow up. Each side has a case, and the only place the two lines meet is you: the person in the building with the least time to referee it.
It Isn't a People Problem. It's Where the Lines Meet.
A chief revenue officer moves the meeting point down one level. Your heads of marketing and sales both report to one person, and that person reports to you, so the revenue number has one owner and nobody left to blame.
And with one person over both teams, the whole order finally has one owner. It's one piece of a bigger framework. Over 27 years of running marketing and sales, I built one way of deciding what gets fixed first. I call it the RevenueEngine™: four fixes, always in the same order, so every dollar goes to the fix that comes next. I've used it in every revenue role I've held since 1999, at companies that did more than $1B in revenue while I led their revenue teams, and revenue grew in every one, somewhere between 107% and 600%.
The first two are marketing's and the last is sales'. The third runs from getting in front of buyers who don't know you yet to the moment a rep picks up the lead. That's the handoff, and in a company built on two peer lines, both teams have a hand on it: marketing is supposed to deliver leads, sales is supposed to find its own.
So each team fixes its own end, in whatever order suits it. Those are out-of-order fixes, and you're the one refereeing them.
As your fractional CMO or VP of Sales, I'd fix one team's half of it. As CRO, I do the fixing on all four, in order, and the handoff is mine end to end.
Not every company I've worked for needed all four fixed. Every one of them needed them in that order.
Five Ways to Restart Growth From Both Sides, and Whose Number It Is in Each
Me
Promote one of your leaders
Keep running it yourself
Hire a full-time CRO
Hire another fractional
If one of your own leaders is ready, promote them. If the company can carry a full-time executive and wants one in the building, hire one. I'm the answer when the argument between marketing and sales is costing you quarters, and neither of those is true yet. The full comparison with full-time →
Marketing, Sales and Renewal Answer to Me, and So Does the Blame
Who reports to me. Your head of marketing and your head of sales, and your head of customer success where your org chart allows it. Where they stay with you, onboarding, renewal and expansion still run to my plan and on my dashboard.
Everyone still runs their team day to day. The direction, the plan and the call when they disagree are mine. I report to you.
The number that's mine. Revenue, end to end: from the first time a buyer hears of you to the signed contract, and on through the renewal and the expansion. Renewal is in it because renewal starts at the sale: the customer sold the wrong thing is the one who leaves.
Not marketing's form fills and sales' bookings as two scores that can both look fine while the company misses. One.
One plan, and the handoff built. A single revenue plan and budget across both functions, and one set of definitions under it (what a lead is, when it becomes sales' problem, what "qualified" means), written down and agreed by both teams before anybody is measured on them.
Then the handoff gets built rather than negotiated: routing, follow-up rules, what happens to the ones sales sends back, and the loop that tells marketing why. The stretch between the two teams stops being a debate and starts being a process with one owner.
One meeting, and the slide your board reads. A weekly revenue meeting with both leaders in it, on one dashboard. The argument that used to reach your desk happens in front of me, with the data on the screen, and gets settled there.
And the revenue section of your board deck, with the forecast behind it. I've run the board meeting as a chief revenue officer. You can hand me that slide.
The rules your teams sell by and get paid by. The sales motion: stages, gates, qualification and a forecast with a definition behind it, built into your CRM, configured and working, not specified for somebody else to interpret.
Pricing and packaging: what you charge, how it's packaged, what a rep can discount, and who approves the deal that goes past it. I build it and I own the recommendation; the price your company puts its name to is yours to sign.
And the comp plans: when marketing is paid on leads, sales on closed deals and customer success on tickets closed, you've funded the argument three ways. I redesign them so everyone is paid on the same number.
Your people, and what they keep. The people calls on both teams: hiring, development, and the hard conversation when one is needed, with you told before anything happens, never after. I direct your people and develop them rather than replace them.
The ones who stay learn to think like people with scars. They had it in them. They just didn't have the playbook.
And the marketing and sales playbook is documented on your systems, in your CRM, your Drive and your wiki, yours whether or not we keep working together.
Every Month Starts the Same Way
The deliverables and the dates, agreed at the start of each month and written down, that you hold me to. That list is how you'll know what I'm doing.
What isn't in it
- Being on site: every engagement is remote.
- Hours: I don't sell them, count them or report them.
- Production (design, video, development): I direct it; I don't manufacture it.
- Custom code and integrations: I don't write or build them.
- Ad spend, software and contractors: billed to you by the vendors, not marked up through me.
- Product: stays with whoever runs it now.
Ninety Days to a Number Nobody Can Hand Off
It starts after WeekZero™, once we both know where it's breaking and what gets fixed first.
One Org Chart
Day one, we agree the first month's deliverables and dates, in writing. Both leaders report in. I read the pipeline end to end (where leads come from, where they stall, what sales does with the ones it doesn't want) from the inside of both teams' meetings and on real sales calls.
By day 30: one definition of a lead and of a qualified opportunity, agreed by both teams; and one weekly revenue meeting in place of two.
The Handoff
I build it, and the one dashboard both teams are measured on. If WeekZero™ found the break upstream, in who you're for or what you're saying, I fix that before I build the handoff, and the dates move with it, because nothing downstream holds without it.
The Number
I put the sales motion into your CRM, then pricing, discount rules and the renewal motion, and move the comp plans onto one number. Then your next board slide, and the plan for next quarter with an owner on every line.
Month to Month
Every month opens with the deliverables and dates we agree and closes with you checking them. The team runs more of it themselves; the playbook gets longer.
And we both know what the end looks like: one of your leaders ready to take the role, or a full-time CRO hired into a revenue organization that already runs as one team.
Day one, two teams bring you two numbers. Day ninety, your board sees one.
I Carried the Bag, and I Wrote What Was in It
I've been on both sides of the argument at the top of this page. For 27 years I carried a quota, in sales roles and in marketing roles, and never missed it.
And I wrote what the reps carried into the room: sent only to accounts showing buying signals, the outreach I write gets reply rates of 12% to 20% across more than 960,000 B2B emails a year, two to five times the 3.4% to 5.8% benchmark.
Five companies, marketing and sales as one number. Every one grew somewhere in here. Where's yours today?
One person. No associates, no bench. The person you evaluate is the person both your leaders report to.
$156,000 a Year at Most. A CMO and a Sales Chief Start at $670,000.
Hire a marketing chief and a sales chief and you're at $670,000 to $930,000 a year once base, bonus, taxes, benefits and the search fee are counted, plus equity for each, and you've rebuilt the two peer lines that started the argument.
One full-time chief revenue officer costs $400,000 to $700,000 or more on the same basis, plus 1% to 2.5% of your company, and the search takes three to six months before anyone starts.
$9,000 to $13,000 a month.
That's $108,000 to $156,000 a year, with your heads of marketing and sales reporting to me and me reporting to you: at least $514,000 a year less than the two executives, and under the floor of a full-time CRO at every point in the range.
Other fractional CROs charge $10,000 to $18,000 a month for the standard role, and $18,000 to $25,000 and up for a heavy one. Mine starts below their standard role and tops out in the low half of it, with both teams reporting to me, not hours a week.
Theirs is priced by the hours a week you get, twelve to twenty at the standard rate, with a capped bonus on KPIs they control in the market's standard deal. A KPI the person being paid controls is one they can move without revenue moving.
Mine is priced on what I own: no hours to divide it by, and no bonus, because the revenue number is mine either way.
Where you land in that range depends on how much has to be rebuilt rather than directed and how many products and segments are running at once, not on what you've raised. What moves the price →
The terms. Month to month, paid in advance. No minimum term, no notice period, no equity, no severance, no bonus.
Remote: I'm in your meetings, your CRM and your documents, not your building. Hours are never billed, never counted, and never the basis for what you pay. You're paying for what I own, and it's written on the org chart above.
If marketing is the only side that needs a leader, that's the fractional CMO role at $5,000 to $7,000 a month, with your marketing team reporting to me and your head of sales still reporting to you: Fractional CMO →
If only your sales team needs a VP of sales, that's Fractional VP of Sales, also $5,000 to $7,000 a month: your sales team reports to me; your head of marketing stays a peer, reporting to you. Fractional VP of Sales → And WeekZero™ comes before any of it, and costs nothing.
Doing nothing has a price too. Another year of settling the argument yourself.
Free: a week of analysis, a one-hour report-out, and an action plan you keep. I take one a week, because each one is a week of my time. NDA on request.
When Not to Buy This
I'd rather say this now than after you've paid.
Your head of sales can't report to anyone but you. Maybe they built the company with you. Maybe they'd leave. Either way, that's the actual decision on this page, and it needs making before the price does.
If the answer is no, look at the marketing role, where your head of sales keeps reporting to you and only your marketing team reports to me: Fractional CMO →
Only marketing is broken. If your sales team is running fine and marketing just needs a leader, you'd be paying to fix a handoff that isn't broken. The marketing role costs less, and your head of sales stays with you.
Only sales is broken. If marketing sends leads worth calling and your reps still aren't turning them into deals, you'd be paying to fix a handoff that isn't broken.
That's a VP of sales. Your sales team reports to me; your head of marketing stays a peer, reporting to you: Fractional VP of Sales → If you'll keep running sales and want someone to tell you what to fix while your team does the fixing, that's Advisory →
Your customers don't love you yet. If you're still finding out whether the market wants what you built, a revenue organization scales the wrong thing faster. Find out who it's for first.
You want someone on site. Every engagement is remote. If the situation needs a person in the building, buy that instead.
You want your plan carried out. I run it on data, and sometimes the data will disagree with you. If what you need is someone to execute a plan that's already decided, I'm the expensive wrong answer.
You won't let me talk to your customers. The free week includes conversations with customers you've won and lost. If that's off the table, I'm the wrong fit.
If one of these is you, WeekZero™ still tells you what to fix first.
Fractional CRO Questions Founders Ask Before Their Head of Sales Reports to Someone Else
“My head of sales won't report to a fractional.”
Some won't, and it's better to find that out before I start than after.
Here's what changes for them: they stop defending their number in a room where marketing is explaining why it isn't marketing's fault. What doesn't change: they run their team. For a sales leader who's tired of arguing about lead quality, it means somebody above both teams owns the leads, and the definition of one.
But have that conversation with them before I do. If you can't, that's worth knowing on its own.
“Is my team being replaced?”
No. I direct your team; I don't bring my own, because I don't have one. The people who stay get a playbook and someone who's made the mistakes they're about to make. The job is to leave them able to run it without me.
“We can't afford you and everyone we already have.”
Sometimes that's right, and then it's a question of timing, not of cutting people to make room for me. I don't need a clean slate; I build on the team you have.
WeekZero™ comes first either way, and costs nothing. If the budget can't carry both yet, it'll show you which fix to start with, and whether your team can do the fixing with my advice (that's Advisory) or needs me to do it.
“How much of you do we actually get?”
You get the deliverables and dates we agree at the start of every month, written down, and you hold me to them. I manage my time; you manage me. What I'm working on is on that list, with a date next to each line.
“We've hired people before who said they'd fix this.”
Did they tell you how before they started? The order I'd fix it in is published on this site, and WeekZero™ applies it to your company before you've paid anything. If you disagree with the plan, you find out while it's still free.
“Now that we know what's wrong, we can do it ourselves.”
Sometimes you can, and the plan is yours to keep either way. But you don't know what's around that next corner, and you'll be back to where you are right now. What you're paying for is judgment when that corner comes, from someone who's already made that mistake on somebody else's number.
“If the number's yours, will you take a bonus on it?”
No. A bonus on revenue pays me for deals that were already closing when I arrived, and it pulls me toward whatever closes fastest this quarter instead of what builds the next four.
The number being mine means I answer for it: when it misses, you hear it from me first, with the reason and what changes next month. And you can end this at the end of any month, which is a sharper incentive than any bonus.
“What if it doesn't work?”
Then you don't renew next month. I don't work on long-term contracts, and I don't guarantee outcomes. Nobody honest does. What I can do is make the number mine, and tell you about a miss before you go looking for it.
“What happens when you leave?”
That's the point of the whole thing. Either one of your leaders grows into the role or you hire a full-time CRO into a revenue organization that already runs as one team, so they walk into a job instead of a rebuild.
If it's a full-time hire, I help write the job description and sit in on the interviews, so they're hired against the real job. The playbook, the process and the dashboards stay on your systems either way.
Fractional CROs: What They Are, Who Reports to Them, What They Cost
What is a fractional CRO?
A chief revenue officer you engage month to month instead of hiring full-time.
What makes it a CRO rather than a sales leader is the reporting line: the heads of marketing and sales both report to the CRO, customer success reports to them or runs to their plan, and the CRO reports to the CEO, so one person owns revenue from the first time a buyer hears of you through renewal and expansion.
Some people use the title for a sales-only role. Before you hire one, ask who would report to them, and whether customer success and pricing are in it.
What does a fractional CRO do?
Runs marketing and sales as one team. That means one revenue plan and one budget across both functions, one definition of a lead and a qualified opportunity, a handoff between the teams with one owner, a sales process built into the CRM, renewals and expansion, pricing and discount rules, comp plans that pay everyone on the same number, a forecast the board can use, and the people decisions on every team.
The good ones also leave it documented, so the company can take it back.
How much does a fractional CRO cost?
In this market, $10,000 to $18,000 a month for a standard engagement and $18,000 to $25,000 and up for a heavy embedded one, sold by the hours a week. A full-time CRO costs $400,000 to $700,000 or more a year fully loaded, plus 1% to 2.5% equity.
Mine is $9,000 to $13,000 a month, remote and month to month, with your heads of marketing and sales reporting to me, priced on what I own rather than hours I attend.
What's the difference between a fractional CRO and a fractional CMO?
The reporting lines. A fractional CMO sits over marketing, and the head of sales is a peer who still reports to the CEO. A fractional CRO sits over both, and the two heads report to the CRO. Same person, one level higher. If what's broken is inside marketing alone, that's the other role: Fractional CMO →
What's the difference between a CRO and a VP of sales?
A VP of sales runs the sales team and carries the bookings number. A CRO sits above sales and marketing both and carries the revenue number end to end, including the handoff between them, and renewal and expansion after the sale.
If your problem is inside the sales team, you need a VP of sales, and I take that role too: Fractional VP of Sales → If it's between the two teams, you need someone over both.
When does a company need a CRO?
When marketing and sales report separately to the CEO, and every argument between them ends up on the CEO's desk. When form fills pile up and sales doesn't follow them up, or follows them up and doesn't close, and each team has a dashboard that says it's fine.
And before you hire a second senior leader on either side, because hiring into two peer lines builds the argument in.
Should I hire a fractional or a full-time CRO?
Full-time when the company can carry $400,000 or more a year plus equity, wants someone in the building every day, and has a revenue organization stable enough to hand them. Fractional when it can't yet, or when the organization needs rebuilding first.
A full-time CRO hired into a working system starts by running it instead of inventing it: The full comparison →
How long does a fractional CRO engagement last?
Mine is month to month with no minimum term. It ends when one of your leaders is ready to take the role, when you hire a full-time CRO into it, or at the end of any month you decide.
Can a fractional CRO work remotely?
Yes. Every engagement I run is remote. Recent engagements have been across the US and in Europe. I'm in your meetings, your CRM and your documents, not your building.
Do you take equity?
No. No equity, no severance, no notice period.
Before You Hire a Fractional CRO, Find Out Whether It's Your People or Your Org Chart
It's called WeekZero™. Other firms charge to find what's broken. The closest published price is a demand agency's six-week revenue assessment: $35,000. Mine takes a week, and it's free.
Before you spend anything, I'll spend a week reading your revenue the way someone who's carried a quota for 27 years reads it: your numbers, your pipeline, and conversations with you, the people who run your marketing and your sales, and your customers: deals you won and lost, and prospects who bought and who didn't.
Then an hour with you: here's what's broken, here's the order I'd fix it in, here's the action plan. It's yours to keep, whether you hire me or not.
Sometimes it says you need one person over both teams. Sometimes it says only marketing needs a leader, or only your sales team needs a VP of sales, and the other head keeps reporting to you, which costs less.
Sometimes it says you don't need me at all. I'll tell you which.
Free: a week of analysis, a one-hour report-out, and an action plan you keep. I take one a week, because each one is a week of my time. NDA on request.
I work with B2B companies between $1M and $15M whose customers already love them.