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The Power of Fractional Chief Revenue Officers: Boosting Sales and Revenue Without Breaking the Bank

What is a Fractional Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)?

A fractional chief revenue officer (CRO) is a part-time CRO who focuses on sales strategy, revenue growth, and sales optimization. Fractional CROs are experienced sales and revenue generation leaders who offer services to companies in blocks of time per month. In recent years, many new businesses, as well as businesses that are transforming or pivoting, have benefited greatly from working with fractional CROs to help lead them through this transformation journey without breaking the bank for the business. 

The Benefits of Hiring a Fractional CRO

There are many benefits for small and medium sized businesses to hiring a fractional CRO to help drive business growth today and in the future. Those benefits include: 

  •      Increasing Sales Performance: Leveraging expertise to improve sales strategies and drive results.
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  •      Revenue Growth Strategies: Developing effective plans to maximize revenue generation.
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  •      Sales Team Optimization: Assessing and enhancing your sales team's productivity and efficiency.
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  •      Budget-Friendly Solution: Saving costs compared to hiring a full-time C-Level executive.

How Fractional CROs Can Transform Your Sales Process for Success

One of the first things that a fractional CRO will audit is the sales funnel and customer acquisition strategy that supports the sales team. In analyzing the sales funnel, the CRO should identify gaps and implement strategies to improve conversion rates at each stage.

Utilizing analytics, personal interactions with the members of the sales team, and information about closed and lost opportunities, will provide valuable insight to helps make informed decisions and optimize future sales performance.

The fractional CRO will also introduce proven processes and sales methodologies to enhance customer acquisition and retention.

Finding the Right Fractional CRO

Finding the right fractional CRO is not always easy, but it can be one of the best investments a business can make. When searching for a CRO, consider their relevant expertise, proven track record, and past achievements and outcomes to ensure they align with your business goals. Their values, communication style, and ability to integrate seamlessly into your team are also important.

One costly and common mistake to avoid is only looking at fractional CRO candidates that might be from within your industry. While their experience is relevant and they should have a network, oftentimes, the best candidates come from an entirely new background. CROs who are not institutionalized in the industry offer a refreshing new perspective, tend to be much more willing to be more disruptive and innovative, and will make decisions in the best interest of the company instead of worrying about taking risks within their network.

How Much Does a Fractional CRO Cost?

Remember, hiring a fractional CRO and business strategist can provide your business with the expert guidance it needs without the full-time price tag. In many company's, the CRO is one of the most highly paid if not the highest paid employee. The compensation structure of a full time CRO typically includes a large base salary, incentive and bonus plans, and ownership.

Fractional CRO's can save small businesses a lot of money.  Generally speaking, the cost depends on the requirements, the total number of hours required per month, and the desired outcome. Some fractional CRO's will offer 1/4 time or 1/2 time options or a set number of hours, while others will offer subscriptions. Therefore, it is hard to provide a standardized price, but you should expect that you could save between 50% - 80% off the overall annual compensation for a full time CRO.

Investing in a Fractional CRO

Fractional CROs often make a quantifiable impact really quickly, which brings motivation and excitement to all company stakeholders and great CRO's are always in demand. According to Linkedin, the average full-time CRO tenure is between 1.5 - 1.9 years and is referred to as the "C-Level ejection seat". With such a high turnover, hiring a fractional CRO on a long term contract makes sense and shows stability to investors, shareholders, and team members. And again, it enables small businesses to maximize their limited resources.

More than ever, businesses need to do more with less, and fractional CROs enable Founders and CEOs to benefit quickly from their sales leadership skills and experience to boost sales, optimize revenue, and achieve sustainable growth.