You sit down at your desk after hours of meetings - finally ready to hunker down and start your executive tasks for the day… then a chat message pops up. It’s one of your sales reps requesting urgent support on their new deal. And just like that, 30 minutes pass and you are now behind on your work.
Every Revenue Leader, Founders included, can attest to this happening. Frequently.
Sales leadership is a duty that can spring up at any time of day, and it often does not share the same no-rush luxuries as other leadership roles. Unlike website design projects, sales activities are time-sensitive and more closely tied to revenue - something that businesses of any size should prioritize.
Sales is also a high-touchpoint department, with Sales Managers reporting that 30-55% of their time is dedicated to people management (Harvard Business Review)
For this reason, an executive overseeing their sales team can quickly find themselves short on time and unable to complete the critical functions of their business.
Truth is, companies operating with 1 - 3 salespeople typically do not require an entire sales hierarchy to support this team, but the work the team creates can still be too much for one executive to handle.
In the past, this meant one of two things for executives of young and growing companies: 1) Onboard a full-time VP of Sales for upwards of $180,000 in salaries, or 2) continue to manage sales operations themselves and sacrifice their ability to focus their time elsewhere.
In short, executives had to choose between taking on a massive new expense or giving up the most valuable time within their company (theirs).
The emergence of Fractional work in recent years seemingly addresses this dilemma for a number of markets, such as startups and SMBs, by offering a middle-ground alternative to the traditional models above.
Fractional Sales Leaders (or “Fractionals”) serve as an alternative to the typical VP of Sales role at these smaller organizations. They assume the same leadership responsibilities, execute the same strategies, and integrate into the organizational hierarchy just as their counterparts would.
The major difference?
They aren’t paid for the title that they hold. They are paid for the work that they do.
The term “Fractional” describes the nature of the engagement. Smaller companies who may not need a full-time executive overseeing sales, but do require an expert whose sole focus is to drive growth, may find this arrangement particularly convenient for their strategic goals.
Excluding the obvious benefits, below we’ve highlighted 7 lesser-known reasons why a Fractional Sales Leader may be the right hire for your business.
Fractionals do more than just mobilize sales teams and help them drive pipeline. They are responsible for their own revenue targets, too - meaning they are in deals, speaking to prospects and capturing revenue potential for the business themselves.
Whether your expertise is in sales or not, there is a chance that your team could be performing better with a more structured training environment. But who has the time to come up with all the materials and learning plans? A Fractional likely does.
Equipped with sales modules, live training programs and validated results to back it up, when you hire fractional sales leadership you also hire a dedicated coach for your sales team.
Sales operations, sales processes and sales materials require regular upkeep and optimization. These responsibilities alone can eat up the better part of a quarter for a busy executive.
Hiring a Fractional, you can delegate key sales leadership projects - without having to worry about quality, and with certainty that your sales team always gets the best odds of success.
Ever review your sales rep’s pipeline and notice that it has barely changed since the last review session? This is because salespeople get stuck, or begin to deprioritize open opportunities in favor of new ones.
Fractionals often bring a wealth of deal development experience, having had the privilege to sell in multiple industries or within multiple organizations, to help your team better drive their pipeline. Working with a seasoned leader, sales reps can quickly overcome roadblocks, develop more effective strategies and reduce overall deal time.
The sales landscape is changing. New sales tech, strategies and tools are launching daily, and sales teams are now more supported than ever before in their pursuit of revenue (if you enable them to). However, oversupplying your team can also backfire, costing you more in overhead and potentially creating confusion within the team. So you have to know how to thread the needle.
A well-versed Fractional has likely set up dozens of enablement stacks over their career - ensuring your team is appropriately equipped while returning the greatest ROI for your budget.
Not all data is created equal - and this rings particularly true in sales. To make better decisions around growth, companies need to become intimately familiar with what sales activities are driving the growth.
Fractionals are responsible for sales data collection and analysis, and are able to deliver more precise optimizations, reduce bottlenecks and detours, and streamline a company’s growth using data-driven strategies.
Sales are a core function of any business, and partners and investors know it. Having a well-oiled revenue engine, built and led by a strong sales leadership team, serves as an asset to your business and to its partners by delivering value to all key stakeholders.
Every business will reach their Crossroad at different stages. Some may need to hire more technical staff early on, leaving sales expansions for higher levels of revenue, while others may be more sales-centric, requiring strong sales leadership to drive the earliest stages of revenue growth.
To know when to hire for your business, you should first consider your key business metrics such as Cash Flow, Profits & Losses (P&L’s), your customer’s Lifetime Value (LTV) and churn. These metrics will help you determine when is the soonest possible opportunity to delegate sales leadership to a Fractional.
On the other hand, it is also important to consider the amount of missed revenue potential that can be attributed to an unoptimized sales model, an unstructured sales team, or a lack of dedicated sales leadership that would otherwise get more deals through the pipeline in less time.
Luckily, Fractionals come at a “fraction” of the cost of a full-time VP of Sales and are flexible, accommodating the needs of any startups or SMBs in need of sales leadership.
Startups and SMBs no longer have to make a risky choice between hiring the right Sales Leadership to achieve growth, or saving on major costs at the expense of the Founders’ time. Instead, they can leverage a new alternative in Fractional Sales Leadership to drive revenue with predictability while also optimizing for productivity. Of course, this decision is still one that should be made with great consideration as hiring leadership typically requires planning and commitment. That said, it is up to the executive team to determine their own expected return on investment and perform their due diligence when adding to their leadership team.
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