When to Hire a CRO

You’re growing. Pipeline is (mostly) healthy. Your reps are selling, marketing’s humming, and customer success is doing their best to retain and expand.

But you—the founder or CEO—are still the glue.

You’re reviewing deals. Patching process gaps. Jumping into pricing calls. And worrying about whether that ambitious revenue number next quarter is actually realistic.

At this stage, many leaders ask:
“Should I hire a CRO?”
But what they often need first is a Fractional CRO.

Let’s break down the difference—and how to make the right call.

What a CRO Actually Does

A Chief Revenue Officer is not just a glorified Head of Sales. They’re the architect of your go-to-market machine. Great CROs:

• Align sales, marketing, and customer success into one cohesive revenue engine
• Translate business goals into clear pipeline, headcount, and GTM strategies
• Build the hiring roadmap, compensation models, onboarding flows, and coaching systems
• Own forecast accuracy, stage progression, and revenue health
• Partner with product and finance to ensure growth is scalable and predictable

They’re not just hitting the number. They’re building the system that hits the number—consistently.

Why You Might Not Be Ready for a Full-Time CRO (Yet)

Here’s the truth: hiring a CRO too early can backfire.

• You overpay for someone who’s too senior to build but too impatient to operate
• You get a visionary who lacks the tactical playbook to fix what’s broken
• You misalign expectations—hiring for strategy when what you need is structure
• You bring in someone without proven experience in your stage or vertical

And worse? You miss the window to build foundational systems that make CRO-level work possible in the first place.

When a Fractional CRO Makes Sense

At KORE Strategies, we step in as Fractional CROs when:

• The founder is still the de facto VP of Sales
• Sales hiring hasn’t resulted in consistent pipeline or quota attainment
• Forecasting is guesswork
• Sales and marketing are misaligned (or operating in silos)
• Leadership wants scale but lacks the process to support it

We bring the systems, playbooks, and coaching to bridge the gap between founder-led selling and a scalable GTM engine.

What a Fractional CRO Brings to the Table

Here’s what we focus on in the first 90–120 days:

1. Revenue Operating System (RevOS)
   We build (or fix) the four cornerstones of scale:

• • ICP & Persona alignment
  • Sales process & messaging
  • CRM & tech stack optimization
  • Coaching & performance metrics

2. Team and Org Structure
   We define GTM roles, design hiring plans, and create onboarding systems that shorten ramp and improve retention.

3. Pipeline & Forecast Discipline
   We implement pipeline reviews, forecast cadences, and CRM hygiene standards that drive accuracy and predictability.

4. Cross-Functional Alignment
   We align sales, marketing, and success around shared metrics, handoff points, and revenue goals.

5. Operational Leverage for the CEO
   You stop being the bottleneck. We install leadership infrastructure that runs without you reviewing deals at 10 p.m.

When You’re Ready for a Full-Time CRO

A full-time CRO makes sense when:

• You’re $10M+ ARR and planning to scale across segments, geos, or products
• Your GTM engine is mostly built and now needs orchestration at scale
• You need a senior operator to drive board-level strategy and execution alignment
• Your VP layer is in place and just needs one leader to unify and drive performance

In other words: the house is built—you now need someone to manage the estate.

Real-World Example: From Fractional to Full-Time

One SaaS company brought us in at $6M ARR. They had a small sales team, no formal enablement, and a founder handling every forecast.

In 4 months:

• Installed a RevOS across sales and marketing
• Shortened ramp time by 42%
• Improved win rates by 23%
• Built a data-driven hiring and onboarding system
• Enabled the CEO to step out of deal reviews entirely

At $11M ARR, we helped hire and onboard a full-time CRO—into a system built to scale.

That’s the handoff point.

Final Thought: Don’t Hire a Title. Build the System First.

Hiring a CRO before your GTM foundation is in place is like putting a pro driver behind the wheel of a car without brakes. It’s not a leadership problem—it’s a systems problem.

At KORE Strategies, we help founders and CEOs bridge the messy middle—so when you do bring in a CRO, they walk into a machine, not a mess.

Ready to scale your sales org the smart way?

Contact me to explore Fractional CRO support and build your GTM engine—before you hire the driver.