Fractional VP of Sales for B2B SaaS companies selling to the enterprise
Self-serve got you here. The enterprise plays by different rules.
Most SaaS sales advice is written for high-velocity, low-touch selling: more sequences, more SDRs, more demos. That works until your best deals start needing six people to say yes. Then the motion that got you to your first million stops working, and nobody on the team has sold a committee deal. I have spent 30+ years in that second kind of sale, through the whole move from on-premise to SaaS to composable. This page is what changes when a SaaS company moves upmarket, and what I do inside it as a fractional VP of Sales.
Based in Scottsdale, Arizona. I work in person across Greater Phoenix and remotely with founders across the US.
Volume selling and committee selling are different jobs.
The shift is not bigger deals. It is a different sale with a different buyer, a different calendar and different ways to lose.
- One champion becomes a committee. The user who loves you is now one vote among IT, security, finance, legal and procurement.
- Thirty days becomes two quarters. Security reviews, vendor onboarding and budget cycles set the pace, not your sequence.
- Product-led proof stops being enough. Usage in one team doesn’t fund an enterprise contract. A business case does.
- Discounting stops working. Enterprise buyers don’t stall on price. They stall on risk and on who owns the decision.
- The forecast breaks. Stage-by-activity forecasting can’t see a deal with no economic buyer in it.
Founders feel this as deals that “should have closed” and didn’t. The fix is a motion built for the committee, not more activity.
Security, procurement and legal are part of the sale.
None of these is a surprise to an enterprise buyer. Each one surprises a startup, because the startup meets them one at a time, late, while the deal waits.
- Security review. SOC 2, pen tests, data handling, SSO and the questionnaire. Have the packet ready before the first technical call.
- Procurement. Vendor onboarding, insurance, references and the MSA redline. Learn their process in discovery, not after the verbal yes.
- Legal. Liability caps, data processing terms, auto-renewals. Decide your standard positions and your walk-aways before you negotiate.
- Architecture and IT. SSO, provisioning, integrations, data residency. The CIO’s office decides whether you fit the stack or fight it.
Answering these before they are asked is the single fastest way a small SaaS company starts to look like an enterprise vendor.
Hire for the sale you have, not the company you want to be.
The most expensive mistake in early SaaS sales is hiring a big-logo seller into a company with no motion. They are not bad sellers. They have never had to build the playbook they are used to running.
I write the job specs, run the interview loop, design the comp plan and set the hiring order — usually a senior builder before any SDRs, and a first-line manager only once there are people and a motion to manage.
I also coach the first sellers inside live deals, so the qualification standard and the committee map become habits rather than slides.
The full argument is in the first sales hire: a leader or a rep.
SaaS before it was called SaaS, and through every model since.
I sold early hosted and on-demand commerce at ATG and Demandware, enterprise software at hybris, Adobe and IBM, B2B commerce at commercetools and composable SaaS at Kibo, then rebuilt the go-to-market of an AI company as VP of Sales. On-premise, hosted, pure SaaS, managed services and hybrid models, sold to large and careful buyers.
Most of those companies were young when I joined and large when I left. That is the stage most founders call me about.
Where I sold it from
Fractional VP of Sales for SaaS founders.
I help you run the sales motion and bring you in only where the founder is the difference. For a B2B SaaS company moving upmarket that usually means:
- An enterprise ICP and a qualification standard the team applies the same way you would.
- A committee map and dated next steps on every real deal. MEDDPICC where it helps, plain language where it doesn’t.
- The security, procurement and legal packets built once, before the buyer asks.
- Pricing and packaging informed by what real deals told you, not what the website says.
- Job specs, the interview loop, comp plans and the hiring order for the first sales roles.
- A forecast built on evidence that a board will believe.
B2B SaaS sales, answered.
When should a SaaS founder bring in a fractional VP of Sales?
When deals need a committee to say yes and every one of those conversations still runs through you. Revenue is a weak signal. The real trigger is committee complexity. When do you need a VP of Sales is the longer answer.
Do you run product-led growth or outbound SDR programs?
Not as the main job. I work on the committee sale: qualification, the deal, the forecast and the people selling. I will tell you whether outbound fits your ACV, and design it if it does, but I don’t run volume programs.
Is MEDDPICC right for an early-stage SaaS company?
The ideas are. The full framework is often too heavy for a three-person team. I usually install a short qualification standard — the buyer, the problem, the trigger, the budget owner, the decision date — and grow it into MEDDPICC as the team and deal sizes grow.
What if our first VP of Sales didn’t work out?
That is common and fixable. Usually the hire was asked to invent a motion rather than run one. Your VP of Sales didn’t work out covers what to do next.
Are you a full-time hire in disguise?
No. I am a fractional VP of Sales: senior, part-time, inside your deals for as long as the work needs it, then handed over, handed back or kept running as advisory. Services explains the shapes.
Notes from inside these deals.
When do you need a VP of Sales?
When do you need a VP of Sales? Not full-time yet, but sooner than you think. The deal signals, your three options, and when to hire a fractional VP of Sales.
Your VP of Sales didn't work out. Now what?
Your VP of Sales didn't work out. Here is why it usually wasn't the person, what to do in the first two weeks, and the two moves that make it worse.
Your first sales hire: a leader or a rep?
Should your first sales hire be a leader or a rep? Usually neither, yet. The answer depends on whether a motion exists, and most founders hire before it does.
Other industries I work in: Retail technology · AI & computer vision · B2B companies in any industry · eCommerce & order management · Point of sale & store technology · Supply chain & logistics technology
Thirty minutes. Bring the enterprise deal that should have closed last quarter.
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