AH Alastair Hall

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Fractional Sales Director for UK B2B businesses. Real sales leadership, one or two days a week.

For owner-led businesses and post-seed founders who need a real Sales Director but cannot yet justify the £150k full-time hire. The job description is the same. The cost, footprint, and contract are not.

The gap most founders fall into

There is a stage in nearly every B2B business where the founder has been the de facto Sales Director for too long, the team has grown to four or five reps, and the wheels are starting to wobble. Forecasts are unreliable, deals stall in stages no one can name, comp plans no longer motivate the right behaviour, and the founder's evenings are eaten by deal reviews and pipeline anxiety.

The honest answer is that the business needs a Sales Director. The cash flow answer is that it cannot yet support a £120,000 to £180,000 full-time hire, plus equity, plus bonus, plus National Insurance, plus the £15,000 to £25,000 recruitment fee, plus the six-month learning curve before that person earns their keep.

Fractional sales leadership closes that gap. You get the same calibre of decision-making, the same level of operating rigour, the same team coaching, and the same board-ready reporting, at one or two days a week of engagement. The footprint matches the size of the team. When the team grows, the footprint grows with it.

Who this is for

  • UK B2B businesses turning over £1m to £10m, with one to ten sellers
  • Post-seed and Series A founders who are still personally running sales
  • Owner-led businesses where the founder wants their evenings back
  • Companies where a full-time SD's workload genuinely fits in one to two days a week
  • Teams who need a board-ready forecast and cannot currently produce one

Who this is not for

  • Sales teams of twelve-plus people growing fast (you have outgrown fractional)
  • Pre-product-market-fit businesses with no repeatable sales motion yet
  • Companies looking for an SDR or BDR (fractional is leadership, not delivery)
  • Anyone hoping a part-time leader will personally close deals for you

What I actually do as your fractional Sales Director

The shape varies, but the spine of every engagement is the same. I take ownership of these areas from week one and run them in the same way I would as a full-time hire.

Pipeline and forecast

A weekly pipeline cadence that everyone in the team understands. Deals scored on a consistent rubric, not on a rep's optimism. A forecast you can take to your board and defend, and a Monday pipeline meeting that gets shorter and more honest over time.

Team coaching and deal reviews

One-to-ones with each rep, deal reviews on the biggest in-flight opportunities, and call-listening on a rolling basis. The job is to lift the team's average, not to step in and close.

Comp plan, quota and incentive design

A comp plan is a behaviour engine. I review what you have, identify what it is actually incentivising (often not what you intended), and either tune the existing one or design a new one with you. Same for quota design and SPIFs.

Sales process and playbook

A documented sales process that every rep follows, from first touch through to closed-won and onboarding. Stage definitions everyone agrees on. A playbook your next rep can read on day one and ramp from.

Hiring, scorecards and onboarding

When you are ready to add reps, I write the scorecard, sit in on interviews, and design the 30-60-90-day onboarding. The cost of a bad sales hire is enormous; the cost of getting hiring right pays for the fractional engagement many times over.

Board, investor and shareholder reporting

A monthly sales pack you can drop straight into your board update. Forecast, pipeline, win rate, average deal size, sales cycle, team productivity, hiring plan. No more cobbling it together at 11pm the night before.

How an engagement runs

  • Discovery (week 0). A 30-minute call, then a one-page proposal with the scope, days per week, and exit terms.
  • Onboard (weeks 1–2). CRM walk-through, ride-along on key deals, one-to-ones with every rep, founder alignment on the first 90-day priorities.
  • Operate (ongoing). Weekly pipeline cadence, monthly forecast, quarterly business review. I show up on the same days every week so your team knows when to expect me.
  • Exit. We agree exit terms upfront. Most engagements run three to twelve months as a starting point; many continue longer if they are working. Either way, your team and documentation are designed to stand alone after I leave.

Fractional vs full-time vs advisory

Three flavours of sales leadership, three different problems they solve. The honest comparison:

OptionBest forFootprintTypical commitment
Fractional Sales Director 1–10 sellers, founder-led, need ongoing leadership 1–2 days per week 3–12 months rolling
Sales Advisory Specific project (pipeline rebuild, comp plan, playbook) Fixed-scope project 4–12 weeks
Full-time Sales Director hire 12+ sellers, fast growth, need full-time leadership 5 days per week 2+ years

Many businesses pass through all three stages over a few years. Advisory project to fix the immediate problem. Fractional to professionalise the function. Full-time hire once revenue and team size justify it. I happily help with the transition at each step.

Working with AI in a fractional role

A modern fractional Sales Director should be able to wire in the AI tooling your team needs, not just talk about it. I spend most weeks inside Claude, Outlook, Salesforce and a few of the major outbound platforms. If your engagement could benefit from AI for Sales workflows, we can combine the two.

FAQ

Common questions about Fractional Sales Director.

What does a fractional sales director actually do?
They lead your sales function for one or two days a week. That usually means owning pipeline, forecast, team coaching cadence, hiring scorecards, and the conversations you currently have with your founder or board about whether sales is on track. The Sales Director job description, applied two days a week, by someone who has done the role at scale before.
When is the right time to hire a fractional sales director?
When you need leadership-quality thinking but cannot yet justify a £120–180k full-time Sales Director (plus equity, bonus, NI and recruitment fees). Usually that is founders still doing sales themselves, businesses with one to ten sellers, or companies where the Sales Director's day-to-day workload fits in one or two days a week.
How does fractional compare to a full-time Sales Director?
You get the same calibre of decision-making at a quarter to a third of the all-in cost. The tradeoff is you do not have the SD in the room every hour of every day. For most SMEs and post-seed founders, that tradeoff is a clear win until the team is large enough to justify full-time.
How long is a typical fractional engagement?
Three to twelve months as a starting point. Most run longer if they are working and end cleanly if they are not. We agree the exit terms before we start.
Do you work with our existing sales team and managers?
Yes. The job is to make your existing team better, not to replace them. I coach your reps, support your managers, and step on the floor when the situation needs it.
What if we eventually want to hire a full-time Sales Director?
That is often the right answer. A common path is fractional now to professionalise the sales function, then a full-time hire when revenue and team size justify it. I help write the scorecard, sit in on interviews and handle the transition.

Want to talk about whether fractional fits your team?

A 30-minute call. Bring the bit of your sales motion that is annoying you most, and we will see whether fractional is the right answer (or whether something else fits better).

Book a 30-minute call [email protected]