Services

Fractional CRO for B2B tech startups and scale-ups

A part-time chief revenue officer for B2B software and tech companies: revenue plan, forecast, board reporting, pricing and hiring, led by Daniel Rock.

Led by Daniel Rock, two-time Chief Revenue OfficerMonthly retainer

A fractional CRO is a part-time chief revenue officer: a senior revenue executive who owns your revenue plan, pulls sales, marketing and customer success toward one number, runs the forecast and reports to the board. Rock Growth Partners steps into that role for B2B software and tech companies that need an experienced revenue executive but aren't ready to hire one full-time. Daniel Rock, a two-time Chief Revenue Officer, leads every engagement himself.

What's included

  • Revenue strategy and the annual plan. Who you sell to next year and what it takes in pipeline, people and pricing to hit the number, written down as a plan your leadership team can work from.
  • Sales, marketing and customer success pulling in one direction. One plan and one set of targets for every team that touches revenue, with clear handoffs from first lead to renewal.
  • Forecasting, pipeline reviews and the few metrics worth tracking. A forecast you can explain line by line, pipeline reviews that end in decisions, and a short list of numbers everyone watches. Honest forecasts beat optimistic ones, so that's the kind you'll get (why honesty is the most commercial move in sales).
  • Board and leadership reporting. A revenue view the board can read quickly and that stands up to hard questions. Daniel has sat in a lot of board meetings explaining the number, and builds the reporting with those questions in mind.
  • Pricing and packaging, including AI products and add-ons. What you charge, how you bundle it and how to price AI features. Daniel has designed pricing for AI product modules.
  • Hiring and developing your revenue leaders. Writing the roles, interviewing with you and onboarding the people who'll lead sales, marketing and customer success, then coaching them until they can run it without us.

AI comes as part of the role. We build and run AI sales tools ourselves, and once the fundamentals (ideal customer, stages, discovery and the forecast) are in place, we'll put AI where it takes the busywork off your sellers so they can spend more time being human with buyers. Bigger builds sit under AI for revenue teams.

Who it's for, and when it's the wrong call

Most of the companies we work with are B2B software and tech businesses between their first sales hire and scale-up, typically seed to Series C, or founder-funded businesses of a similar size. A fractional CRO tends to fit when:

  • You're still closing most deals yourself and need a sales motion someone else can run.
  • You've found traction and need pipeline, process and a forecast you can trust while you hire.
  • Your board wants an experienced revenue voice at the table, or a steady hand between full-time hires.

It's the wrong call in a few cases, and we'd rather tell you that up front:

  • You mainly need someone to run the sales team day to day. If marketing and customer success are in decent shape, a fractional CSO or VP Sales is a better fit.
  • You have one specific problem to fix. A pricing question or a go-to-market audit is a fixed-scope revenue consulting project, with no ongoing executive needed.
  • You're ready to hire a full-time CRO, and can. Then hire one, and we'll help you do it well.

A fractional CRO also shouldn't take the founder out of early deals. Founders stay involved even with a sales leader in place, because early buyers want to hear from the person with the most at stake (buyers still want a human). We build the team and process around you so your time goes to the conversations that need you.

How an engagement runs

Every engagement follows the same four steps, so you always know when we'll step back.

  1. Intro call. Where you are, what's in the way and whether we're the right fit. If we're not, we'll say so.
  2. Diagnose. We dig into your pipeline, team, process and numbers, then agree a written plan with outcomes you can measure.
  3. Build and run. We get stuck in alongside your team: leading, fixing, hiring and reporting, with regular check-ins against the plan.
  4. Hand over. When the job's done, or you're ready for a full-time leader, we help you hire, write down what we built and step back.

We plan the handover from the beginning, because a fractional leader should be working toward the day you don't need them. For a closer look at the opening stretch, read what a fractional CRO does in the first 90 days.

Who you'll work with

You'll work with Daniel directly, and you won't be handed to someone junior after the first meeting. He came to sales from IT and has spent 20+ years leading B2B tech sales and revenue teams in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the US. He's been a Chief Revenue Officer twice:

  • SuiteFiles, 2022 to present. Doubled ARR at a PE-backed SaaS platform. Opportunity-to-close up from 18% to 41%, average revenue per new customer up 124%. Stood up the US go-to-market motion.
  • Nomos One, 2020 to 2022. Joined a post-restructure fintech with a team of 16. Revenue up 35% in year one, and from operating losses to operating profit.

He builds his own AI sales tools on LLM APIs and MCP, including an AI outbound engine and a marketing intelligence dashboard, and wrote Curiosity: How to Be Human When Selling in the Age of AI. The approach behind all of it: get interested in people, be honest with them, and help them decide well.

What it costs

Fractional CRO work runs on a monthly retainer scaled to what the business needs. You don't take on the salary, benefits, bonus and equity of a full-time executive.

We also don't invest money. You pay us for leadership, and the growth comes from what we build with your team.

Common questions

What does a fractional CRO do?

A fractional CRO does a chief revenue officer's job part-time. That means owning the revenue plan, leading sales, marketing and customer success, running the forecast and reporting to the board. With us it also covers pricing and packaging, putting AI to work in the sales team, and hiring the revenue leaders who'll take over. You get senior revenue leadership without the full-time cost or commitment.

What's the difference between a fractional CRO and a fractional VP of Sales?

Scope. A fractional CRO owns the whole revenue number across sales, marketing and customer success, along with the annual plan, pricing and board reporting. A fractional VP of Sales builds and runs the sales function day to day: process, reps, quotas, pipeline and the weekly forecast. If your main gap is a sales team that needs building and managing, start with a VP of Sales.

When does a startup need a fractional CRO instead of a full-time one?

When you need an experienced revenue executive but aren't ready to hire one full-time. It usually fits companies between their first sales hire and scale-up, or a board that wants a steady hand between full-time leaders. A full-time CRO is the right hire eventually. When you're ready, we write the role, run the interviews with you and onboard your new hire, so the handover is clean.

How much does a fractional CRO cost?

Fractional CRO work runs on a monthly retainer scaled to what the business needs. There's no salary, benefits, bonus or equity, as there would be with a full-time executive. The written plan we agree after looking at your pipeline, team, process and numbers sets out the outcomes we're working toward, so you can see what the retainer is for.

How soon will we see results from a fractional CRO?

We won't promise a date, because it depends on what the diagnosis finds. What you get first is a written plan with outcomes you can measure, agreed with you once we've dug into your pipeline, team, process and numbers. From there we report against that plan in regular check-ins, so you can see the progress, or the lack of it, as it happens.

Can a fractional CRO work remotely?

Yes. We're based in Birmingham, Alabama, and work with teams across the US and further afield. Most of it happens remotely, with time on-site when it makes a difference. Daniel has led revenue teams in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the US, so a team spread across time zones is familiar ground.