The order book is full of the wrong terms. Growth should fund itself.
French companies often sell well and still run short of cash, because the commercial engine was built to win orders and not to win them on good terms.
Why French order books disappoint
Flat sales or thin margins are the symptom. Underneath, it is usually one of these:
Pricing has not been tested
Fixed once, defended ever since, and worn down by discounts that nobody tracks.
Large buyers set the terms
Payment, volume and penalty clauses are conceded one by one, because the sales team has no walk-away position.
Deals move only when pushed
A deal advances only when someone pushes it, so the forecast is guesswork.
Export is run by goodwill
Export sales go to whoever has a contact, with no territory plan behind them.
A fractional CRO or CMO rebuilds the way the company sells, from positioning and pricing to negotiation discipline and pipeline, in a form someone other than the founder can operate. Embedded under a services agreement, accountable for the figure rather than for a document.
Who this is for, and who it is not
Best for
- Revenue that has plateaued after the early channels ran their course
- Marketing spend going out with little pipeline you can trust coming back
- Sales and marketing pulling apart, with no one owning the number
- A founder still carrying the commercial engine personally
- A new segment or market that needs a proper go-to-market motion
Not for
- A single campaign or asset an agency could deliver and hand back
- A business with no product-market fit or revenue to build on yet
- A tactical execution gap a specialist hire would fill
- Teams unwilling to give one operator ownership of the number
How a commercial brief runs
The engine is rebuilt by someone who has done it before, with us reviewing the engagement as it runs.
Chosen for how you sell
Direct sales, distribution, retail or tenders: we brief for your route to market and search for it.
Peers who have sold the same way
Pricing, tenders and distribution each have specialists in the collective the executive can call on.
A handover, not a restart
Should your commercial lead move on, the account plans and the brief stay with us, and the next person starts from them.
Able to sell in French
French buyers negotiate in French, and so must the person leading your sales team.
From diagnosis to revenue momentum
A structured engagement that moves from diagnosis to a working pipeline within months.
Commercial diagnostic (weeks 1–2)
Audit your current position, spend, attribution, pipeline, ICP definition, competitive positioning, team capability — and which commercial gap is the real constraint.
Strategy and sign-off (weeks 3–4)
A clear, actionable go-to-market strategy with prioritised channels, 90-day milestones, and commercial KPIs.
Execution begins (month 2–3)
Channel activation, team direction, agency management, content and campaign deployment.
Ongoing commercial review
Monthly pipeline tracking. Continuous optimisation. Your commercial leader stays accountable for revenue outcomes.
Do you need a fractional CMO, a CRO, or something else?
Revenue plateaus for different reasons. The right operator depends on where the commercial system is breaking.
The right commercial leader leads revenue growth: CMO, CRO, or both.
Revenue growth usually starts as a commercial leadership problem, but delivery and unit economics often decide the outcome.
Revenue leaders from
