[Home](https://stoneforgegroup.com/) · Fractional CRO Sarasota

Sarasota · Bradenton · Lakewood Ranch

# A fractional CRO in Sarasota, for owner-led businesses.

James Walls leads the revenue practice at Stoneforge – setting the revenue strategy, building the system that runs it, and developing the team that delivers it. Owner-led businesses from $1–20M across Sarasota, Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, Venice and North Port. From $3,000 to $12,000+ per month, on a thirty-day notice.

Sarasota, Florida · [(941) 231-1971](tel:+19412311971) · [Talk to Us](https://stoneforgegroup.com/contact/)

01 What this is for

Deals stall at the proposal and go quiet. Winning work still depends on you being in the room. Growth has flattened while the effort has not, and the pipeline is full of things that look alive on paper and are dead in reality.

**Pipeline.** Every live opportunity the business is working on, with where each one has actually reached. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#pipeline)

The common cause is rarely the one you would name first. It is usually that the way work gets won lives in your head – done differently every time, on instinct, never written down and never taught. Which means it cannot be handed to anyone, and every deal routes back through you.

A [Fractional Revenue Leader](https://stoneforgegroup.com/fractional-cro/) takes that seat: senior revenue leadership, embedded in the business, without the cost of a full-time hire.

You may have seen the same seat called something else – a fractional chief revenue officer, an outsourced CRO, a part-time CRO, or a fractional sales leader. Same work, different label.

02 Sound familiar?

**“Send me a price” keeps turning into silence.** Half the time that sentence is the politest way a buyer has of ending a conversation that was never going to move.

**Every real deal still needs me in the room.** Which caps the business at the number of rooms you can be in.

**The forecast looks fine and the month does not.** A pipeline full of deals that are alive on paper and dead in reality will do that.

**Forecast.** A forward view of what the numbers will do, built from what the business knows now – work already won, work likely to be won, costs already committed, and the timing of both. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#forecast)

03 What the seat actually holds

**The revenue strategy.** Where growth actually comes from, decided rather than assumed – which segments, which work, which relationships, and what the business stops chasing.

**The system that runs it.** Pipeline, qualification, cadence and measurement, visible to everyone rather than held in one head. A business where the way work gets won is written down is a business that can grow past its owner.

**Qualification.** Deciding, on evidence rather than optimism, whether an opportunity is real – whether something is genuinely pushing the buyer to act, whether the people who can decide are involved, and whether the work fits what the business does well. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#qualification)

**The team that delivers it.** Experts who never chose selling, made able to carry a deal without being turned into salespeople. That is a different job from hiring a closer, and it is usually the one that was actually needed.

04 What it costs

## Four partnerships, sized to where the business actually is.

The revenue seat runs as four partnerships, and the one that fits follows from how much of the winning still routes through you. Every one runs on thirty-day notice.

01

### Bedrock

A pipeline you can trust.

The business today Work is won on the owner's instinct and relationships

Leadership cadence Weekly sales cadence with everyone who sells

Monthly investment $3,000 – $4,000

02

### Cornerstone

A method the team can carry.

The business today A team sells, but every deal that matters still routes through the owner

Leadership cadence Weekly cadence plus team development

Monthly investment $4,500 – $6,000

03

### Keystone

A revenue function that stands on its own.

The business today Several people or service lines win work

Leadership cadence Embedded in the leadership team

Monthly investment $7,000 – $9,000

04

### Capstone

Revenue that builds enterprise value.

The business today Revenue has to be provably transferable – scaling, financing or exit ahead

Leadership cadence Full executive seat

Monthly investment From $12,000

Within each range the investment reflects the size of the team in the rhythm and the cadence of meetings. [What each partnership solves, and how we partner →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/fractional-cro/#partnerships)

05 Where you are standing

Before the pipeline or the team, there is a question about position. There are three places an owner can stand in their own business, and the one you are standing in decides what is possible next.

In front of it

### Every hit lands on you first.

It feels like leadership. But you've become the wall the business can't get around.

Beside it

### Shoulder to shoulder – still leaning.

Feels like partnership. But take a week off and you feel it wobble.

Behind it

### The last line of defense, not the first.

The business takes the hit without you – and you choose where you stand.

06 Built for how businesses here actually sell

The businesses on this coast that fit this seat win high-value, considered work through relationships – law firms, contractors, specialist trades, professional services. The people carrying the deals are experts at the work, and selling was never the job they trained for.

So the work is not a script or a quota. It is a pipeline everyone can see, a qualification standard that gets applied honestly, a standing weekly rhythm, and enough structure that an expert can carry a deal without becoming a salesperson.

07 An owner in Sarasota, in his own words

“This is my first Business Coach and I am very happy we met. Kristina and James have been very helpful in direction of our business and understanding our financials. Also they have been instrumental in preparing myself for winding down my hours from 60 hrs to and a start of 50 hrs with further reduction of hrs coming. Highly recommend! Thank you Stoneforge”

**Bob Friedman · Owner, Ace Electric, Sarasota**

“Two months later, Kristina and James have helped me to institute protocols allowing me to see where my time is being wasted, how I can leverage technology and people to do the jobs that I should not be doing, and how to set up my marketing to reach the people that can help me grow my business. If this is what they have accomplished in just two months, I am excited to see where I am in one year!”

**Peter Pike · Owner, Pike Law Firm, Bradenton**

Both of those are two-seat engagements – the revenue side and the financial side together. The rest of the outcomes are on [the proof page](https://stoneforgegroup.com/proof/).

08 What the engagement produces

A pipeline everyone can see, and a qualification standard that gets applied honestly rather than optimistically. Deals that are dead get called dead early, which is uncomfortable for a fortnight and then hands back more capacity than anything else does.

A way of winning work that lives outside your head – written down, teachable, and carried by the people already doing the work. That is the difference between a business that can grow past you and one that cannot.

And a standing weekly rhythm, which is the spine of it. Not a meeting for its own sake, but the point at which the pipeline gets looked at honestly and next week gets decided.

09 Look at your own selling first

The [owner-led sales scorecard](https://stoneforgegroup.com/scorecard/) is a free seven-area read on how the business wins work. Nothing is saved, no email is asked for. If you would rather start with one live deal, [the five-stage deal guide](https://stoneforgegroup.com/tools/five-stage-deal-guide/) walks it through the five stages and shows you the first gate it cannot clear – which is where it is actually stuck.

Not sure whether the block is the selling or the numbers? [The 30-second test](https://stoneforgegroup.com/where-its-stuck/) sorts that quickly.

10 Questions owners ask

## What does a fractional CRO do that a sales coach does not?

A coach develops the people. A Fractional Revenue Leader owns the whole revenue system: where growth actually comes from, the pipeline and qualification that runs it, and the development of whoever is carrying deals – usually experts who never chose selling.

The distinction that matters in practice is accountability. This is a seat in the business, not a series of sessions.

## What does it cost, and why is it less than other fractional CROs?

Engagements run from $3,000 a month to $12,000 and above, in [four partnerships](https://stoneforgegroup.com/fractional-cro/#partnerships) sized to where the business actually is. All of them are on a thirty-day notice. No long contract.

Look up what a fractional CRO costs and the numbers you will see quoted usually start around eight or ten thousand a month and run well past twenty. Those are real numbers, and they are the right numbers – for a business several times the size of yours, with a sales organization underneath the seat. A seat has to be sized to the business it sits in. Capstone, at the top of our range, is the engagement those published numbers describe, and it is priced like it.

**Fractional CRO.** A chief revenue officer's seat, held without the full-time cost. [Full entry →](https://stoneforgegroup.com/glossary/#fractional-cro)

## We are not a sales business. Does this still apply?

It usually applies more. The businesses we work with in Sarasota and Bradenton win work through relationships and expertise – law, construction, professional services, specialist trades. The people winning the work are the engineers, the lawyers, the estimators and the owner, none of whom chose selling as a career.

That is the situation this seat is built for, rather than a floor of quota-carrying reps.

## What happens in the first month?

Diagnosis, done with you rather than to you. A structured look at how the business actually wins work, then the pipeline walked deal by deal, asking of each one the two questions that keep it honest: why now, and what changed for them?

Deals with no answer are not deals yet, however good they look in the forecast. Finding that out early hands you back capacity you did not know you were burning.

## Do you work in person, or remotely?

Both, and it depends on what the work needs. The standing weekly rhythm runs remotely because that is what keeps it regular. Sitting in on a client meeting, or working through a pipeline with the team in the room, is better done in person – and Sarasota, Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, Venice and North Port are all a manageable drive.

## What does a fractional CRO mean?

A fractional CRO is a chief revenue officer embedded in your business rather than employed full-time. Fractional means the seat is real and the hours are a share of the week.

The scope is the whole revenue engine – strategy, the pipeline and qualification system that runs it, and the development of whoever carries deals. That is broader than a sales manager and it is a different job from a coach, who improves individuals without owning the outcome.

11 Talk to James

Fifty minutes on your business, with the person who would hold the seat, ending in a plain read: what we would look at first, and whether this is the right fit. If it is not, we will say so and point you elsewhere.

[Talk to Us](https://stoneforgegroup.com/contact/) Sarasota, Florida · [(941) 231-1971](tel:+19412311971)