Fractional sales director jobs · hire a fractional sales director, or hire a sales director for good

Fractional sales director jobs: what the seat owns

A fractional sales director runs sales, not a review of it. The usual scope: the sales plan and the targets under it; the pipeline and the weekly forecast; the sales process from first call to signed contract; hiring, coaching and managing the sellers; the commission plan; and the CRM data the board relies on. The difference from a sales consultant is ownership. A fractional sales director is named on the leadership team and answers for the number between visits.

The family of fractional sales roles

The same part-week seat carries several titles. If the job is building a first team under a founder, hire a fractional head of sales. If one leader must own sales, marketing and customer revenue together, hire a fractional CRO. If the seat is empty and needs someone full-time for a fixed term, see interim sales director jobs. A permanent board-level appointment runs through CRO recruitment. For what the role covers day to day, read what a sales director does or the sales director job description.

What fractional sales director jobs pay

A fractional fee is the day rate times the days worked. Exec Capital, a firm that sells fractional sales leadership, publishes £500 to £1,000 a day for a fractional sales director, commonly four to twelve days a month. Those are a provider’s figures, not a survey; every candidate on our shortlist states their own rate. For the full-time comparison, IT Jobs Watch puts the median advertised salary at £100,000 for a sales director and £75,000 for a head of sales, from IT-sector permanent job ads. See sales director salary for base and OTE in more detail.

Fractional sales leadership: which seat, and which leader

Fractional sales leadership is the umbrella for every senior sales seat held part of the week: head of sales, sales director, VP of sales and CRO. What joins them is ownership. A fractional sales leader sets the targets, runs the pipeline review and manages the sellers, rather than writing a report and leaving.

People often search for the best fractional sales leader. There is no league table, and we would not trust one. The right leader is the one whose record matches your sales motion: founder-led selling handed to a first team, a team that has stopped hitting target, an enterprise deal cycle, or a channel through partners. Ask each candidate for a business like yours that they left in better shape, and call the CEO.

Some searchers want a commission-based sales leader. For an employee, commission is a contractual term, and Acas notes it can count towards the National Minimum Wage. For a leader working through their own company, any link between pay and results is a term agreed between the business and the leader. Either way, a leader paid only on closed deals has little reason to fix the pipeline, the hiring or the CRM. Most briefs are better served by a day rate for the leadership work.

IR35 and fractional sales directors employed part-time or through a company

A fractional sales director is either employed on a part-time contract or works through their own limited company. The label does not settle the status: GOV.UK notes that a person may be an employee in employment law but have a different status for tax purposes. Where the sales director works through their own company, the off-payroll working rules (IR35) may apply.

A medium or large client makes the status determination. For a small client outside the public sector, the worker’s own company decides; HMRC sets out the size tests in its guidance for clients. Status turns on how the engagement runs in practice, so set out control, substitution and the days in the contract and then run it that way. Our IR35 guide sets out the tests.

One more rule a new sales leader should own from day one: outbound calling and email to businesses are covered by PECR. The ICO’s business-to-business marketing guidance explains that live calls must be screened against the TPS and Corporate TPS, and that UK GDPR applies to a named contact’s personal data even in a business context.