5 Reasons to Bring in Fractional Revenue Leadership

Fractional leaders are strategic advisors who fill the gaps in a company or a way to leverage external experience to reach the next stage of a company’s growth – in a part-time capacity.

Sounds great. But fractional or part-time leadership often gets a bad rap. The main objections being that they’re not dedicated to the vision of the company, they’re expensive, ROI is difficult to determine, and they’re not hands-on. 

All right, fair. Don’t work with those people. They are not great Fractional Leaders. Just like if you were hiring someone in a full-time capacity, do your due diligence. I won’t go as far as to say that all Fractional Leaders are experts that can roll up their sleeves, have worked with your stage of company dozens of times, or can call on more external resources and expertise to move the company forward. But that’s what you should look for.

Obviously, this is what Skaled does. We provide Fractional Leaders and resources for Revenue Strategy, Operations, and Enablement. We believe that the leader you need now, the leader that can get you from Series A to B or B to C, the leader you need to build a new team or go-to-market is 95% of the time not going to be the same person. 

So how do you hire someone when you know you’re going to go through all these stages, or you have someone in place already, but it’s not their area of expertise? This is where a fractional resource is the smart choice.

Learn more about Skaled’s Revenue Strategy and Fractional Leadership services.

What Does a Fractional Revenue Leader Do?

Some of this I mentioned, but let’s get specific on what a Fractional Revenue Leader actually does. For the purposes of this article, I’m talking about two types of revenue leaders: a Fractional Sales or Sales Development Leader (VP, CSO, sometimes a Director) and a Fractional RevOps Leader (VP or CRO), but you could apply these scenarios and 5 reasons to other types of revenue leaders as well (Marketing, Customer Service, etc.). 

A fractional revenue leader is someone you bring in when you have essentially one of three needs:

• You need a highly specific area of expertise for your growth stage.
• Staying up to date with current technology and innovation is important to the growth of your company.
• You have a temporary need (new product or project, leader just quit, leader out on leave).

I’m going to get into all of this in more depth, but without knowing the special cases, stages, and projects of everyone reading this article, think of a Fractional Revenue Leader in terms of these three needs, and then it’s about finding the one with the right expertise and background for your use case and organization.

What Does a Fractional Revenue Leader Not Do?

A Fractional Revenue Leader is not a consultant. Or, let’s say they’re not a traditional consultant. Many fractional revenue leaders work as independent contractors or for a revenue consultancy like Skaled. But here is the key difference between ar Fractional Revenue Leader and a traditional consultant. 

A Fractional Revenue Leader is a specialized expert who can instantly step up and embed themselves in your organization in a part-time capacity and drive initiatives forward. They’re embedded in your team for as long as you need, with a second goal to leave your organization with a clear path to continue executing on when their time is done. 

A traditional sales or revenue consultant is an experienced leader with the skills to identify and assess the gaps in your organization in a part-time capacity and put together a roadmap for success… but that’s it. They’re hands-off and leave the initial and final execution of the roadmap in the hands of your team. I think this is part of why Fractional Leaders get the bad rap of not caring. They do, but if execution is in the hands of the company they’re consulting for, there is only so much they can do.

Which is why Skaled offers true Fractional Revenue Leadership. We care about the results and success of the organizations that we work with, and we know the only way to do that is to embed ourselves in the organizations as part of the team.

So Fractional Leaders are not what you would consider traditional consultants. They are also each very specialized for industry, growth stage or revenue goals, and an organization’s technology class (rudimentary vs. advanced).

5 Reasons to Bring in Fractional Revenue Leadership

REASON #1 - TO BRING IN A FRACTIONAL REVENUE LEADER: THE LEADER YOU NEED RIGHT NOW

There are a number of different studies that show the average tenure of a VP of Sales or CRO, all under 2 years and right around 1.5. This can be due to hiring a full-time senior role too quickly, hiring the wrong type of VP for the stage you’re currently at, and several other mistakes organizations make when hiring their first VP. 

But the most common mistake I see organizations make is not hiring the leader they need for right now. It’s rare to find a senior sales or revenue leader that can hack it at a fast-past, rapid-growth startup and take a company from $1 to $10 million, $10 to $20 million, $20 to $100 million, etc. It takes a different mix of strategy vs. tactical, leadership vs. management, and big picture vs. technical skills.  

And the cost associated with hiring the wrong person and the disruption to the team when they leave can be millions. 

For the leader you need right now, a Fractional Revenue leader is the right choice in a few scenarios:

• The expertise you need for the next 6 to 18 months to (1) get you to your next round of funding, (2) support a new initiative or establish another team, and (3) build your first go-to-market motion. 
• Maybe you just let your previous leader go and need someone to step in ASAP so the team doesn’t lose momentum. 
• A Fractional Revenue Leader is even an option if you know a leader is going to be taking an extended period of time off and you need someone to take care of things while they’re out. 

REASON #2 - TO BRING IN A FRACTIONAL REVENUE LEADER: BUILD AND ROLL OUT SPECIFIC INITIATIVES LIKE SALES PROCESSES, TECHNOLOGY, AND HIRING

I’ve said this before. Do not hire a VP of Sales to document your process or build out your tech stack. If you don’t already have those two things, you’re not ready for a full-time sales leadership hire, and that VP will not have the hands-on knowledge to run these two initiatives AND will have too many other things on their plate.

Bringing in a Fractional Leader to build your playbooks and processes is going to be more efficient and effective because they’re not going to have 100 other initiatives to deal with. As for building your core tech stack… I love my sales leaders, but most of them have not kept up with the explosion of technology and AI. They know at a high level what the tech stack does, but all the moving pieces, integrations, new features, consolidations: You need someone where this is all or most of what they do.

For hiring, I’ll say it’s on a case-to-case basis. But an effective use of Fractional Leadership that people don’t take advantage of is after working with the Fractional Leader for whatever the stage was, they can help you find that full-time hire that will be right for your business at the next phase.

REASON #3 - TO BRING IN A FRACTIONAL REVENUE LEADER: FOCUSED ON PERFORMANCE AS MUCH AS STRATEGY

This is the big one. Like I said before, a Fractional Revenue Leader is not someone that comes in, assesses, and gives you a 200-page document on what to do next. 

Fractional Revenue Leaders focus on building the strategy for what your organization is trying to achieve in the next 6-18 months ($5 million ARR, next round of funding, 2nd sales development arm, overhauling the current sales process, etc.), and they are closely tied to the results.

You may be thinking that a full-time VP or CRO is, of course, also tied to results. But they are too far removed from performance and the day-to-day – as they should be. They’re not going to listen to calls and demos or review sequences. But if that’s what you need to figure out why pipeline is down and deals aren’t getting over the finish line – hire a fractional resource.

REASON #4 - TO BRING IN A FRACTIONAL REVENUE LEADER: THEY CAN CALL UPON A BROADER NETWORK OF RELATIONSHIPS AND RESOURCES

I like to say that organizations are always looking for the “Messiah hire.” Someone who can build the foundations of their go-to-market strategy AND build reporting and dashboards AND manage a team AND make sure that team is as productive as possible with the right technology and automation, etc. It’s too much.

Another benefit of working with a Fractional Revenue Leader like Skaled is that they’ll have their own small team of experts to tap into for SFDC reporting and dashboards, sales engagement admin and content support, or vetted partners for sales development, hiring, and technology. 

They’ll also have their own templates. This may not seem like a big deal at first, but imagine someone coming in with half the playbook already built, all the reporting you’re looking for, and the talk tracks and sequences they already know work. Now it’s a big deal.

REASON #5 - TO BRING IN A FRACTIONAL REVENUE LEADER: OPERATIONS SUPPORT

I’ve mentioned this in a number of different scenarios in this article, but I’ll solidify it with this. Sales is one of the only departments within an organization that believes everything has to be done in-house. If you have the budget to hire multiple full-time people to cover the cleanliness and optimization of your tech stack and review how buyers flow from Marketing to Sales to Customers Success and/or Account Management and Expansion – great. But if not, get the same level of expertise or more with part-time support. 

Doing more with less is not just a trend from 2022 bleeding into 2023. Keeping your team as productive as possible through technology and removing bottlenecks will require a person or two with this type of background, and it’s probably not going to be a traditional, full-time sales leader.

Skaled’s Fractional Revenue Leadership

It’s the first week of May. The fiscal year is almost halfway through, and I know from talking to dozens of CEOs and VPs every week that revenue organizations are struggling to balance short-term revenue needs and long-term business initiatives. 

Leaders and teams are being pushed to do more while resources are being cut or pushed to do more with the same amount of resources. 

If you want to balance the short-term and long-term while not increasing budget or overwhelming your team – fractional resources and expertise should at least be something you learn more about.

If you know me, you follow my content, you know Skaled, this is what we do. Book some time with me next week, and the least you’ll get out of the call is what I would advise you to focus on and how to balance short-term and long-term needs to generate more business this year.

Book time with Jake