GrowthStack Advisory / Fractional Sales Leadership
Fractional sales leadership for B2B startups, a senior operator for ninety days.
The outbound engine gets built, run and handed to your team, by the two people who scoped it.
Fractional sales leadership means a senior operator runs your sales development function on a defined engagement instead of a full-time hire. With GrowthStack that is a 90 day cycle, from $2,000 a month: the outbound engine is built, run and handed to your team with the playbooks and reporting intact. It suits Seed to Series A teams whose motion is not proven yet, because a full-time VP hire assumes a working process exists to scale. Shobhit Gupta ran this in-house for ten years. At GoComet he scaled the SDR team from 10 to 23 and lifted output from 2 to 6 SQLs per rep per month, and at Locus he helped create more than $20M in opportunities.
What a fractional engagement actually covers
The word gets used loosely, so here is the scope in plain terms. A ninety day cycle covers targeting, messaging, the sending infrastructure, the qualification standard, the reporting, and the coaching that makes the first three stick.
- Targeting. The account list is rebuilt from your last twenty wins and losses, with disqualifying criteria written down, ending in a named list rather than a document. How that is built.
- Messaging. Written per segment and per persona, not per campaign, and tested one variable at a time so a number that moves has a known cause.
- Infrastructure. Sending domains, authentication, warmup and list hygiene, because a deliverability problem reads exactly like a copy problem. The checklist.
- Qualification. A written standard two reps can apply identically, which is the single change behind most of the conversion numbers above. BANT, MEDDIC or your own.
- Reporting. Stage by stage, by source and by rep, so the funnel can be diagnosed rather than described.
- Coaching and hiring. If you are about to make a first SDR hire, or scale past the point one manager can coach properly. When to hire, and the SDR team build engagement.
Who this is for
Three situations, and they are the three GrowthStack is usually called into.
- You have inbound demand and no system behind it. Leads arrive, response is slow, qualification is inconsistent, and conversion sits well below what the volume should produce. This was Easyship and WorkStore. Inbound lead conversion.
- You have no outbound motion at all. Markets, ICPs, personas, messaging, tooling and the outreach engine have to be built from zero. This was NuVista AI.
- You have an outbound team that is not producing. Activity is fine, output is not. The fix is meeting quality, follow up discipline and reporting rather than more dials. This was ConvertCart.
Typically Seed to Series A, founder-led sales or a team of one to eight reps, in B2B SaaS and technology, including companies selling into the UAE and Gulf. Sectors with delivered work behind them include logistics and supply chain, AI, e-commerce technology and consumer technology channels, across India, South East Asia, the Middle East and the United States.
Fractional, agency, or a full-time hire
Three ways to solve the same problem, and they fail differently.
- A full-time VP of Sales assumes a working motion already exists to scale. At senior compensation, a hire made before that is true costs six to twelve months of runway, and the person is usually blamed for a process that was never written down.
- An SDR agency rents you activity and keeps the asset. Output stops when the contract does, because the playbook, sequences and learning leave with them.
- A fractional engagement builds the system inside your business and transfers it. Slower to start than an agency, considerably cheaper to keep, and the thing you are left with is an asset rather than a dependency.
The longer version, including cost shape and time to first pipeline, is in SDR agency vs GTM consultant vs in-house.
Who does the work
Both founders, on every engagement.
Shobhit Gupta spent ten years running sales development in-house before advising on it from outside: Head of Global SDR and Revenue Operations at Locus, where MQL to SQL conversion moved from 10% to 25% and $20M in opportunities were created; Global Sales Development and Revenue Growth Leader at GoComet, scaling the SDR team from 10 to 23 across the US, India and South East Asia and lifting output from 2 to 6 SQLs per rep per month. He owns targeting, positioning and the qualification standard.
Ruchi Mittal owns delivery. Chief Operating Officer at LocalOye, the Tiger Global and Lightspeed backed marketplace she helped build from an idea to operations in five cities, then Director of Inside Sales at Locus alongside Shobhit, then Customer Success Manager at Apollo.io, which means she has seen the sales intelligence layer from the vendor side rather than as a licence most teams half use. Sequences in market, toolstack and workflows, data hygiene, and the weekly operating rhythm are hers.
What the engagements produced
- Easyship. Subscription conversions up 20% and roughly $100,000 in pipeline, within the first month.
- WorkStore. Paid media lead qualification 5% to 30% and approximately ₹15 lakh closed, within two months.
- NuVista AI. An outbound engine built from zero covering markets, ICPs, personas, messaging, tooling and outreach, producing roughly $50,000 in revenue plus additional qualified opportunities.
- ConvertCart. Meeting no-show rate reduced from 44% to 15%, LinkedIn added as a channel, and campaign and rep level reporting strengthened.
The full case studies, including what was actually done in each.
Who this is not for
- You need someone to own closing, quota and AE management. That is a fractional VP of Sales, and it is a different specialism. This work is sales development: targeting, messaging, qualification and outbound execution.
- The motion is already proven and you just need headcount. Then hire. A fractional engagement builds the system a full-time hire will run; if that system already works, you are paying for something you have.
Not sure which applies? Run the outbound model fit scorecard, which takes a couple of minutes.
Frequently asked questions
What is fractional sales leadership?+
A senior sales leader who runs your sales development function part-time, on a defined engagement, instead of joining full-time. At GrowthStack that means a ninety day cycle in which the outbound engine is built, run and then handed to your team with the playbooks, sequences and reporting intact.
Is this the same as a fractional VP of Sales?+
No, and the difference matters. A fractional VP of Sales usually owns the whole revenue function including closing, quota and AE management. GrowthStack specialises in sales development: targeting, messaging, qualification, outbound execution, SDR hiring and coaching, and the reporting underneath. If your gap is at the top of the funnel, that is the right specialism. If you need someone to own closing and forecast, you want a different hire.
When is a fractional sales leader better than hiring full-time?+
When the motion is not proven yet. A full-time VP of Sales hire assumes there is a working process to scale, and at senior compensation a failed hire costs six to twelve months of runway. Hire full-time once the qualification standard is written, the message has a reply rate you can explain, and someone can be measured against a repeatable process. Before that, a fractional engagement builds the thing the full-time hire will run.
How is this different from an SDR agency?+
An agency rents you activity and keeps the asset. When the contract ends, the playbook, the sequences, the data and the learning leave with them, so output stops. A fractional engagement builds the same system inside your business and transfers it, which is slower to start and considerably cheaper to keep. The full comparison is in SDR agency vs GTM consultant vs in-house.
How long is a typical engagement?+
Ninety days. That is one full attribution cycle, the shortest window in which the data can tell you whether the motion works. Shorter diagnostic engagements are available for teams that want a system audit before committing.
Who actually does the work?+
Both founders. Shobhit Gupta owns targeting, positioning and the qualification standard. Ruchi Mittal owns delivery: sequences live in market, the toolstack and workflows configured, data hygiene, and the weekly operating rhythm. The two people who scope the work are the two people who do it.
Related reading
Engagements start at $2,000 per month, after an optional $750 GTM diagnostic. See how pricing works, what is not included, and the notice terms.
Terms. A 90 day initial commitment is recommended, after which the engagement moves to a monthly model with 30 days’ written notice. Third-party software, data, domains and email infrastructure are paid by you and stay yours, so the engine does not leave when the engagement does. GrowthStack does not guarantee a fixed number of meetings, opportunities or revenue. Full pricing and terms.
Tell us where the funnel leaks
Thirty minutes is enough to tell you whether it is a targeting, execution or qualification problem, and what it would take to fix.
Where the question is whether to hire at all rather than who should lead, start with founder-led sales.
Written with AI assistance from Shobhit Gupta’s notes and client work, then reviewed and edited by Shobhit Gupta on .