STAGEONE GTM
Consultant, fractional CRO, or your first VP of Sales?
They are not substitutes and they solve different problems. The question is whether the system is missing or the person running it is.
STAGEONE GTM
They are not substitutes and they solve different problems. The question is whether the system is missing or the person running it is.
THE SHORT ANSWER
A consultant builds the system and leaves. A fractional CRO runs your team part-time and stays. A VP of Sales owns the number permanently. Choose by asking whether your problem is that the system does not exist, or that nobody is running the one that does.
Most companies get this wrong in one direction. They hire a person to solve what is actually a missing system, then conclude eighteen months later that the person was the problem.
THE THREE OPTIONS
| OPTION | COST | WHEN IT IS RIGHT |
|---|---|---|
| Go-to-market consultant | $15,000 to $60,000, fixed, once | The motion is undocumented, stages mean different things to different people, or the team is about to grow past what two good reps can carry. Ends on a date. |
| Fractional CRO | $8,000 to $25,000 a month, ongoing | A working system exists but nobody senior is running it, and the number does not yet justify a full-time hire. Continues as long as you pay. |
| Full-time VP of Sales | $180,000 to $300,000 base plus variable | The number is big enough and stable enough to justify permanent ownership, and there is a documented motion for them to run. |
THE SEQUENCING ERROR
It is the most expensive mistake in B2B sales and it is almost always made for a good reason. Revenue is flat, the board wants a plan, and hiring a VP of Sales is a visible, defensible action.
Then the new leader arrives to find no written stage definitions, no ideal customer profile anyone agrees on, and two reps hitting for reasons nobody can articulate. They are being measured on a system that does not exist. Eighteen months later they leave, the conclusion is that it was a bad hire, and the company starts the search again.
I made this mistake myself, and it cost two people their jobs before I understood that I had hired good reps against a playbook that only existed in my head. Most of what I build now traces back to that.
If you are about to open a VP of Sales req, the cheapest thing you can do first is find out whether there is anything for them to run. That is what the Six Reads is for, and it is free.
WHEN I AM THE WRONG ANSWER
I do not run sales teams. Not a fractional seat, not interim, not part-time leadership. If what you need is a senior person in your pipeline reviews every week making calls about deals and people, that is a real need and I am not it. Bolster and Go Fractional both list people who do exactly that.
What I do is narrower. I rebuild the part of the system that is short, install it in your tools, train your team on it, and leave on a date that is in the contract.
Sometimes, but rarely at the same time. Running a team is a full calendar of pipeline reviews, deals and people problems. Building a system is project work that requires uninterrupted blocks. A person doing both usually does the first and postpones the second.
A fixed-scope consulting project generally runs $15,000 to $60,000 once. A fractional CRO generally runs $8,000 to $25,000 per month ongoing. A full-time VP of Sales in the US typically costs $180,000 to $300,000 in base salary plus variable, plus the ramp time before they are productive.
You give a new leader a number, a team and no documented motion, and then evaluate them on results that depend on a system nobody built. This is the most common and most expensive sequencing error in B2B sales, and it usually costs eighteen months and two good people.
If you are not sure which of the three you need, that is a reasonable thirty-minute conversation and I will tell you honestly if it is not me.