Fractional sales leader for founder-led companies
Founders and CEOs who need help with Sales.
You sell into a committee. The founder is still doing most of the selling. That is who a fractional VP of Sales is for. A full-time VP is more cost and risk than the work justifies. I work with emerging technology sold into the enterprise. Retailers, manufacturers, brands, and DTC are the rooms I know best. They are proof, not a wall. The gate is a buyer that purchases through a committee — not a vertical.
Based in Scottsdale, Arizona. In person across Greater Phoenix first, then remotely with teams selling into the US and Canada — wherever they are headquartered.
Emerging technology a large organization has to be convinced to trust.
Examples, not a gate: B2B software and SaaS, ecommerce, order management, AI and agentic systems, computer vision, robotics, supply chain, point of sale, omnichannel, and other enterprise-sold technology. If the buyer can swipe a card and go, I am not the partner. If the buyer needs a champion, a technical gate, finance, InfoSec, and procurement to get to yes, I am. Selling software to retailers and brands? I am a fractional VP of Sales for retail technology companies, and that sale has its own page.
Retailers, manufacturers and brands buy through committees
The VP with the problem, the IT leader who owns it, the end users who need it, the business leaders, the developers who have to own it, the CTO, InfoSec, finance, procurement. A pilot before a rollout. An RFI or RFP when you least want one. A partner ecosystem that decides who gets in the door.
I’ve sat across those tables for 30+ years — same enterprise motion, any vertical that buys that way. Kroger, Procter & Gamble, Luxottica, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bass Pro Shops, Sherwin-Williams, Callaway from the vendor side. At Toshiba’s single largest client globally, I worked from inside the retailer’s own technology headquarters.
The founder is still the sales department.
Typically 11 to 85 employees, startup through Series B. Also a later-stage founder who is still the closer. Also a company in a product pivot. Also a team that hired one or two sellers who are not yet winning.
It’s a fit if
- The founder is in every deal that closes — and out of every deal that doesn’t.
- Your deals are complex: multiple stakeholders, a security review, sometimes an RFP.
- You have a pilot or two and no repeatable path from pilot to rollout.
- You’re deciding whether to hire a VP of Sales and would rather know before you spend a full-time salary finding out.
- You want someone to run the motion with you, not a deck.
- A launch, a raise, a US market entry or a trade show is coming, and nobody is in place to sell into it.
It isn’t if
- You want a lead-generation agency or an outsourced SDR team.
- You sell a low-touch product that doesn’t need an enterprise process to buy it.
- You want a workshop and a deck.
You made the shortlist. You still lost.
You know this one. The committee liked you. The demo won. Then the incumbent, procurement, InfoSec and a VP who never took a meeting each got a last look, and the deal went to the safer choice.
Down-select is a milestone. It is not a close. The close is the two weeks after — when a competitor tries to take you out for being too small, too new, or not connected enough. That stretch is a different job from the one that got you shortlisted, and most emerging-technology companies lose it.
How it happened
- You sold a champion, not the enterprise. They loved the product. They forwarded email. When it counted, they could not spend political capital.
- Your business case lived with a director. Great relationship. Real pain. And they could not buy — they didn’t have the power, and nobody senior could stand in front of finance and say why the spend existed. So technology was eventually asked to kill it for them.
- The technical reviews arrived as surprises. Architecture, InfoSec, DevOps, the developers who have to live with your APIs. Each buys something different. Each can veto. You met them one at a time, late.
- Procurement started when legal sent the redline. The security packet, the references, the implementation plan, the commercial structure — assembled while the buyer waited. You looked small because you were behind.
- The incumbent didn’t beat your demo. They beat you on relationship and risk. Ten years in the account. A VP who takes their call. And a quiet question asked of that VP: too small, won’t be here in three years, the same four people who built it will implement it. You had a fan. They had a friend.
What was missing
Someone who knew, on a given Tuesday, where the deal was inside their building. Not the last meeting — the conversations after it. Which architect was writing the evaluation. Whether InfoSec had the packet or was waiting on a control they hadn’t named. Whether procurement’s path quietly favored the incumbent. Whether the sponsor would still walk the case upstairs.
Someone running the response machine so the buyer never felt the size of your company: product, SE, security, services and the founder coordinated once, on purpose, answering in hours.
Someone keeping a power sponsor armed. The page they can forward. The risk answers they can give in a hallway. The reason the smaller logo is the less risky choice.
Value is built in the business, defended in technology, and decided upstairs. Keeping that story coherent as it travels is deal operations — and most emerging companies never staff it. They staffed a closer, or they staffed the founder.
The test
If you can name the line-of-business owner, the economic buyer, the technical reviewers, the paper process, and the person who will defend you when a competitor calls you small — down-select is a checkpoint. If you can’t, you are not in late stage, whatever the CRM says.
A fractional VP who has lived in those buildings costs more than a mid-level seller and less than a lost seven-figure cycle.
Tell me about the last deal you lost.
Check every line that’s true today.
This is where we’d start. Each line is something I’ve fixed inside a founder-led company — and something we can fix together.
Two or more checked is the conversation. On the call I’ll give you a straight read on where the deals are actually breaking and what I’d do about it — before anyone commits to a retainer.
That’s the conversation.
Investors, boards and CFOs
If you sit on the board or hold the check, an advisory engagement or a market-position review gives you an independent read on the sales function — in numbers, not adjectives.
Exhibiting at NRF’s Big Show?
You’re exactly the founder/CEO I’m looking to meet. If you sell emerging technology into retailers and brands, let’s talk at the show.
Is a fractional VP of Sales for me?
Who is a fractional VP of Sales for?
A founder or CEO who is still the sales department, selling B2B software or other emerging technology into a buyer that decides by committee. Typically 11 to 85 employees, startup through Series B, no VP of Sales in seat. If a champion, a technical review, InfoSec, finance and procurement all have to say yes, the role fits. If your buyer can swipe a card, it doesn’t.
Do you only work with retail technology companies?
No. Retail, brands, manufacturing and DTC are where most of my 30+ years happened, so I know those rooms best. The gate is the committee sale, not the vertical. Companies selling software into retailers get a page of their own because that sale has its own calendar and its own gates.
We already have one or two sellers. Is it too late for a fractional VP of Sales?
It is usually the right time. A seller who is not yet winning is the most common reason founders call. The fix is rarely the seller; it is the motion they were dropped into — no qualification standard, no committee map, no cadence. I build that with you and coach the seller inside live deals. That is the case for a senior sales partner rather than another rep.
Do you work with companies in Phoenix and Scottsdale?
Yes, in person. I am based in Scottsdale and meet Greater Phoenix founders across the table for deal reviews, customer meetings and board sessions. The in-person version is here. Everyone else gets the remote engagement, across the US and Canada.
We are deciding whether to hire a full-time VP of Sales. Can you help before we spend the salary?
That is one of the best reasons to call. I will tell you whether the motion is ready for a full-time leader, and if it is not, what has to exist first. If it is, I run the search, the interview loop and the first ninety days so the hire does not fail on arrival. Your first sales hire: a leader or a rep? covers the sequence, and getting out of founder-led sales covers what has to exist before anyone can take the deals from you.
Do you work for investors and boards?
Yes. An advisory engagement or a market-position review gives an investor, board or CFO an independent read on a portfolio company’s sales function, in numbers rather than adjectives. How I work.