#5 CRO vs VP Sales

The Chief Revenue Officer (“CRO”) position is relatively new.

It started as a way to elevate the VP of Sales to the C-suite - perhaps as a way for the CEO to elevate the importance of sales to the company’s future.

There used to be few differences between the CRO and VP Sales responsibilities. Most of these orgs had CMOs, too.

But as the CRO position has matured, it typically differs from a VP of Sales in a number of ways:

• It is typically a position created after a company has found product market fit, usually after a Series B or C.

• They come into the organization, analyze each part of the sales funnel and put systems and processes in place to make all revenue generating activity more efficient to successfully scale the company.

• They are more data-driven and operationally focused vs. deal-making experts.

• VPs of Sales are usually great at managing a team of individual contributors with a variety of personalities to help them effectively navigate deals to close.

• Sales VPs are early employees responsible for acquiring the majority of the early customer base. As the pipeline scaled beyond their bandwidth and the company started generating healthy cash flow, they could be promoted and hire a team to take on existing pipeline while generating more opportunities.

Generating new opportunities, and developing a repeatable sales motion (i.e. packaging and pricing) tends to be the most difficult part of scaling a company.

While these early Sales VPs are truly great at being creative with the resources at their disposable to bring on new customers in the company’s early days, they are less effective once the business needs to manage their unit economics to successfully scale.

Sustainably filling the top-of-the funnel with enough qualified opportunities for long-term business growth becomes the most difficult part of the equation. The early VP relied on his rolodex and relationships for the business they brought in, which is not sustainable.

As the CRO analyzes and improves efficiencies at all funnel stages, expertise in building a lead generation program is the most important piece.

As cold outreach becomes less effective, it is imperative that CROs become experts in all lead-generation models. This includes marketing and product-led growth.

With this shift marketing will no longer report directly to the CEO, but instead will report to the CRO. Structurally, the CRO will oversee marketing, sales and customer success.

It might be tempting to think that product will report into the CRO over time with the proliferation of PLG. However, a VP of Product or CPO with a unique blend of technology and business acumen should remain as the bridge between tech and revenue acting as a partner and not a subordinate.