FOR B2B FOUNDERS WHOSE GROWTH HAS STALLED SOMEWHERE BETWEEN $1M AND $15M
Fractional VP of Sales: I Run Your Sales Team, and Its New Revenue Is My Number. I Haven't Missed a Quota in 27 Years.
Your sales team reports to me, and I build what it's missing before the close: who your reps go after, what they say, and how outbound feeds them. Your head of marketing keeps reporting to you.
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
3×
Lead-to-opportunity conversion, averaged across my fractional clients since 2020
You're Still the Best Closer You Have. In My Experience, That's Where Growth Stalls.
You built the first sales team yourself. You hired people who could sell, taught them how you sell, and for a while it worked. Then the company got bigger than your calendar, and you couldn't be on every call anymore.
So now you hear about your deals in the forecast meeting instead of being in them. Every one is closing next month, the same ones as last month, and the only ones that close are the ones you got on a call for.
The CEOs who call me start the same way. They don't get it. They thought they hired reps who could close, so why is nobody closing a deal unless the CEO does it for them?
And nobody, marketing or sales, is bringing new deals into the top of the pipeline, so the reps keep working the same few over and over. When there's no deal on the table, nobody's told them what to do instead.
Their managers can't tell them either. So they ask me the question on that button: what does my sales team do all day?
The forecast said this was the quarter. It said that last quarter too.
You've Tried the Fixes. None of Them Built What Comes Before the Close.
I'm rarely the first fix a CEO has tried. Usually it's been one train wreck after another:
- A sales consultant who brought a playbook from somewhere else. It didn't match how your company needs to sell, so nobody used it.
- A fractional VP of sales from a network, sold by the hours a week, who left when things got tough and the pipeline wasn't growing.
- A full-time VP of sales who brought the way they sold at their last company. It didn't transfer, and you ended up back in the deals.
- Your best rep, promoted. Every great rep doesn't make a great leader, and every great leader isn't always your best rep.
- A new CRM, so you could see what was happening without being on every call. Too often it gets botched, and you end up running two: the old one and the new one, and they never meet in the middle.
Some of them fixed a piece. But nobody built the plan for who your reps go after, what they say, and where next month's deals come from. It isn't written down because it never existed.
And your reps don't want to be lazy. Without direction, a quiet day makes them just as uncomfortable as it makes you.
That's the part I build first: the outbound that books your reps' meetings, what they say on a call, and one way to review every deal, so you can see where each stands without asking. Then the way your team closes, tested on live deals until every rep can run it without you on the call.
That plan is 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%.
As your fractional VP of sales, I do the fixing on outbound and sales. Positioning and messaging stay with your head of marketing, and the free week checks them before I start. Building a sales team on a go-to-market pointed at the wrong buyer is an out-of-order fix.
Not every company I've worked for needed all four fixed. Every one of them needed them in that order.
Sales teams don't improve overnight, and expecting it sets your team up to fail and you up for one more letdown.
Taking over a sales team in this spot is always hard. You'll keep the reins tight (and you should).
One fix at a time, where you can watch. So I earn trust a little at a time. I find the fix that pays back the most, make it where you can watch, show you whether it worked, and only then start the next.
Five Ways to Restart Growth From the Sales Side, and What Each Costs You
Me
Promote your top rep
Keep running sales yourself
Hire a full-time VP of sales
Hire another fractional VP of sales
If your top rep is ready, promote them. If the company can carry a full-time VP of sales and wants one in the building, hire one, and hire them into a sales process that already works, so they walk into a job instead of a rebuild.
I'm the answer when deals still close only when you're on the call, and neither of those is true yet. The full comparison with full-time →
Your Sales Team Answers to Me, and I Answer for New Revenue
You approve every change first. We agree each one before it reaches your reps, and I don't start the next until you've seen whether the last one worked.
Who reports to me. Your sales team: the reps, your SDRs or BDRs, and whoever manages them. I direct them; they sell. I report to you.
Who doesn't. Your head of marketing. They stay your direct report and keep running marketing: the team, the budget, the agencies. We're peers, the way a full-time VP of sales and a marketing chief would be.
Your sales team reports to me, and I report to you. Marketing stays yours.
The number that's mine. New revenue, closed by your team. It's the team's number. I take no accounts of my own, and I join deals the way a full-time VP of sales does, when a deal needs a sales executive in it.
When the number misses, you hear it from me first, with the reason and what changes next month.
Outbound, and the handoff into sales. Your SDRs or BDRs and the outbound they run: who they write to, what they say, and what a meeting has to be before it goes to a rep. Then the handoff itself, so a booked meeting arrives with what the rep needs and doesn't sit.
A marketing pipeline review. Marketing teams are rarely held to one. Rarely.
I'll push for one from the first month, run the same way as the sales review, with your head of marketing running it and me in the room. It needs your backing, and it doesn't change who runs marketing.
How a deal gets qualified and worked. One way to sell: the stages a deal moves through, what has to be true before it moves, and how each deal gets reviewed, so your reps know which deals will close, and you can see it without asking.
Built into your CRM. With your team, I set up the stages, the fields and the dashboards, and we switch them on together. The playbook lives on your systems (your CRM, your Drive, your wiki), and it stays yours whether we keep working together or not.
Your reps, and how they're paid. Coaching on live deals, a development plan for each rep, and the hard conversation when one is needed, with you told first. And the sales comp plan, designed so reps are paid for the deals you want them chasing.
The leader after me. When it's time to hire a full-time VP of sales, I write the job description with you and sit in on the interviews, so they're hired against the real job.
Every Month Starts With a Written List, and You Check It
The deliverables and the dates, agreed at the start of the month and written down.
What isn't in the role
- Marketing: the team, the budget and the agencies stay with your head of marketing. If the problem is between the two teams, that's the other role, with marketing and sales reporting to me and me reporting to you: Fractional CRO →
- Being on site: every engagement is remote.
- Hours: I don't sell them, count them or report them.
- Custom code and integrations: I don't write or build them.
- Software and contractors: billed to you by the vendors, not marked up through me.
One Lever at a Time, Starting With the One Costing You the Most Deals
It starts after WeekZero™, once we both know sales is the problem.
Where Your Deals Come From
Day one, we agree the first month's deliverables and dates, in writing. The sales team reports in.
I go through every open deal with the rep who owns it, the deals you've won and lost lately and where each one came from, and I ask for a marketing pipeline review, run like the sales one.
By day 30 you know what your team does all day, where your best deals come from, which open deals look real, and the fix I'd make first. Your reps have a plan for their days, so they know what to work on when there's no deal on the table.
The First Fix
In my experience it's almost always how your reps find and open deals: who they go after, what they say, and how outbound feeds them. Whatever it is goes into your CRM, the reps run it on live deals, and you see whether it moved before we touch the next one.
A Close Every Rep Can Run, Once the First Fix Holds
Usually that's the close: how a deal gets closed once it's real, built into one process, tested on live deals and refined until it sticks. If the first fix hasn't held yet, we stay on it.
If the comp plan is pulling reps toward the wrong deals, it gets redesigned here, for you to sign off. Every rep has a development plan, 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 aim is deals that close without you on the call. Long playbooks don't make better playbooks, so I keep yours short enough that your reps actually open it.
And we both know what the end looks like: someone on your team ready to lead sales, or a full-time VP of sales hired into a process that already works. If it's the second, I'll help you write the job description and sit in on the interviews.
By day 90 you've watched every change run on live deals. Then you decide whether there's a month four.
I've Built or Rebuilt the Sales Team at Every Company That's Employed Me
I've had a quota on me for 27 years and never missed, most of it in leadership. I've been the rep writing down why a deal was lost, and the executive deciding what to do about it.
I've run marketing and sales in every revenue role I've held since 1999, so it's the same record whether you hire me for marketing, for sales or for both.
Every company where I've led revenue grew somewhere in here. Where's yours today?
It's one person, with no associates and no bench behind me, so the person you evaluate is the person your sales team reports to.
A Full-Time VP of Sales Starts at $360,000 a Year. I Top Out at $216,000.
A full-time VP of sales at a company your size costs $360,000 to $520,000 a year once salary, commission, taxes, benefits and the search fee are counted, plus equity. The search takes three to six months. And if the hire doesn't work, you also pay for the months of sales you lost finding out.
$10,000 to $18,000 a month.
That's $120,000 to $216,000 a year, remote, with your sales team reporting to me and your head of marketing still reporting to you. Even the top of the range is $144,000 under the floor of a full-time hire.
Most fractional VPs of sales are sold by the hours a week, with $6,000 to $10,000 a month in the middle of the market. I take over your sales team and answer for its new revenue, the job you'd otherwise hire at $360,000 or more a year, so I start about where their middle ends.
You're paying for the job, and there's no commission on top, because the team's new revenue is my number either way.
Where you land in that range depends on how much has to be built rather than directed, never on what you've raised. What moves the price →
The most this can cost you is one month. Each month is paid in advance against a written list of deliverables and dates, and if the list wasn't delivered, you stop at the end of the month. No minimum term, no notice period, no equity, no severance, no commission.
Remote: I'm in your deal reviews, your CRM and your documents, not your building. Hours are never billed, never counted, and never the basis for what you pay.
If the analysis shows the fix is in marketing, or between your two teams, I'll tell you which role fits and what it costs, before you've paid me anything.
Now price the alternative. Another missed quarter while you find out.
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.
Marketing isn't sending sales anything worth closing. If your reps are working hard on leads that were never going to buy, a better sales process closes the wrong deals faster. Fix what comes in first.
That's the CMO role, with your marketing team reporting to me and your head of sales still reporting to you: Fractional CMO →
Marketing and sales are blaming each other. If the fight is over who owns the handoff, who follows up, and who gets blamed when a deal is lost, the problem is the space between the two teams, and one role can't fix it from one side.
That's the CRO role, with marketing and sales reporting to me and me reporting to you: Fractional CRO →
You want advice, not a leader. If your team can do the fixing and you want someone to tell you what to fix and check your calls before you make them, that's Advisory: Advisory →
Your customers don't love you yet. If you're still finding out whether the market wants what you built, you'd be building a process around a guess. Find out who it's for first.
You need more reps, not a VP of sales. If every rep already sells the same way, the forecast holds, and you simply have more demand than people, hire reps.
You want someone on site. Every engagement is remote. If the situation needs a person in the building, buy that instead.
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.
Fractional VP of Sales Questions Founders Ask Before They Hand Over Their Sales Team
“We've tried this before. Why would this be different?”
Maybe it won't be, and you'll know fast. I don't start with an overhaul. I start with the fix that pays back the most, make it where you can see it, and show you whether it moved.
If it didn't, you stop at the end of the month. You're out a month, not a year.
“I'm still the one closing our biggest deals.”
Then keep closing them while we build toward a team that doesn't need you to. I'll be in those deals the way a full-time VP of sales would be, never with accounts of my own. First where your deals come from, then how your reps close them, with the aim that it works without you.
“Is my sales 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. If the budget can't carry both yet and your team can do the fixing, Advisory is the other way to work with me: I tell you what to fix, and they fix it.
“My head of marketing won't want a pipeline review.”
They don't have to like it on day one, and they run it, not me. In my experience, marketing is rarely held to one. It's where we both see what's coming, and where they hear, in the room, what happened to everything they sent over.
For a marketing leader who's tired of hearing "the leads are bad" with nothing behind it, that may be the first time anyone in sales has shown their work. It needs your backing, and it lands better if they hear about it from you first.
“How much of you do we actually get?”
You won't get a timesheet from me. You'll get the list we agree at the start of each month, a date next to every line, and you hold me to it.
“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 can end up back 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.
“Will you take a commission on the deals?”
No. A commission pays me for deals that were already closing when I arrived, and it pulls me toward whatever closes this quarter instead of the team that closes the next four.
The number being mine means I answer for it: when it misses, you hear it from me before you go looking for it. And you can end this at the end of any month, which is a sharper incentive than any commission.
“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 happens when you leave?”
That's the point of the whole thing. Either someone on your team grows into leading sales or you hire a full-time VP of sales into a process that already works.
If it's a full-time hire, I help write the job description and sit in on the interviews. The process, the playbook and the dashboards stay on your systems either way.
Fractional VPs of Sales: What They Do, What They Cost, When You Need One
What is a fractional VP of sales?
A sales executive you engage instead of hiring full-time. The sales team reports to them, and they report to the CEO.
The head of marketing stays a peer, reporting to the CEO, and the fractional VP of sales sits exactly where a full-time one would. Before you hire one, ask two things: who would report to them, and which number they'd answer for.
What does a fractional VP of sales do?
Runs sales. That means building the go-to-market that brings your reps deals (who they go after, what they say, how outbound feeds them), deciding how a deal is qualified and worked, building it into the CRM, coaching and developing the reps, designing how they're paid, and helping hire the leader who comes next.
The good ones leave all of it documented, so the company can take it back.
How much does a fractional VP of sales cost?
In this market, $4,000 to $15,000 a month, with $6,000 to $10,000 in the middle, sold by the hours a week. A full-time VP of sales at a company under $15M costs $360,000 to $520,000 a year fully loaded, plus equity.
Mine is $10,000 to $18,000 a month, remote and month to month, with your sales team reporting to me, priced on what I own rather than hours I attend.
Is a fractional sales leader the same as a fractional VP of sales?
Not always. I've seen the title used for everything from a part-time sales manager to a sales executive running the team.
What matters is the same two questions: who reports to them, and whether the number is theirs. In my role, the sales team reports to me and the team's new revenue is mine.
What's the difference between a fractional VP of sales and a fractional CRO?
The reporting lines. A fractional VP of sales sits over sales, and the head of marketing is a peer who still reports to the CEO. A fractional CRO sits over both, and the two heads report to the CRO.
If what's broken is inside sales, you need a VP of sales. If it's the handoff between marketing and sales, you need someone over both: The fractional CRO role →
Should I hire a fractional VP of sales or a fractional CMO?
Hire for the side that's broken. If good leads are coming in and not closing, it's sales.
If the reps are working hard on leads that were never going to buy, it's marketing: The fractional CMO role → If you can't tell which, that's what WeekZero™ is for.
What's the difference between a fractional VP of sales and a sales consultant?
A consultant advises on the sales process or builds a piece of it, then leaves it with your team. A fractional VP of sales runs the team: the reps report to them, and the number is theirs.
Does a fractional VP of sales carry a quota?
Not a personal one, if they're running the team. A VP of sales answers for what the team closes, and joins deals where a deal needs them. Mine works that way: no accounts of my own, no individual quota, and the team's new revenue is my number.
Should I hire a fractional or a full-time VP of sales?
Full-time when the company can carry $360,000 or more a year plus equity, wants someone in the building every day, and has a sales process stable enough to hand them. Fractional when it can't yet, or when the process needs building first.
A full-time VP of sales hired into a working process starts by improving it instead of inventing it: The full comparison →
When does a company need a fractional VP of sales?
When deals still close only when the founder is on the call. When every rep sells a different way and the forecast is a guess.
When you've promoted your best rep and they haven't grown into managing. And before you hire a full-time VP of sales into a process that doesn't exist yet.
How long does a fractional VP of sales engagement last?
Mine is month to month with no minimum term. It ends when someone on your team is ready to lead sales, when you hire a full-time VP of sales into it, or at the end of any month you decide.
Can a fractional VP of sales work remotely?
Yes. Every engagement I run is remote.
Recent engagements have been across the US and in Europe. I'm in your deal reviews, 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 VP of Sales, See What Your Sales Team Does All Day
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.
I'll spend a week inside your sales: the pipeline, the outbound, the CRM, and the deals you've won and lost and where each one came from. I'll talk to you, to whoever runs sales and marketing, and to your customers and prospects, the ones who bought and the ones who didn't.
Then an hour with you: what your team does all day, where your deals come from, the first fix I'd make and the order I'd make the rest in. The plan is yours either way, and it may tell you that you don't need me.
Sometimes it says sales needs a VP of sales. Sometimes it says the problem starts in marketing, which is a different fix. 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.