For founders turning over £1m to £15m
Fractional Commercial Director for Founder-Led Businesses
You’re the reason the business works. That’s also the problem.
When every commercial decision runs through you, growth has a ceiling, and it’s your capacity. A Fractional Commercial Director embeds in your business to build the infrastructure that lets revenue grow without you at the centre of everything.
The role
What a fractional commercial director actually is
A Fractional Commercial Director is a senior commercial leader embedded inside your business, not a consultant who visits occasionally and hands you a report, and not a full-time hire you’re not ready to justify yet.
Fractional means embedded. It means 1–2 days per week inside your business, working on the commercial problems that matter most: how you’re positioned in the market, how your pipeline is structured, how deals get closed, and how the business builds the systems that make growth repeatable.
The difference from a consultant: a consultant diagnoses and advises. A Fractional Commercial Director owns the outcome. They don’t just tell you what to fix, they build it with you.
"Senior commercial leadership, without the £120k+ full-time salary."
Signs it is time
When it is the right move
01
Every commercial conversation goes through you
Pricing decisions, key client relationships, new opportunities, if any of it stalls when you’re not available, you’re not running a business. You’re running a job with employees.
02
You've hired salespeople and it hasn't worked
Not because they were the wrong people, but because there was no commercial infrastructure for them to operate in. No playbook, no pipeline system, no defined process. A sales hire without infrastructure fails almost every time.
03
Revenue has plateaued and activity isn't fixing it
You’ve tried more outreach, more networking, more effort. The numbers don’t move. At some point more activity stops working, what changes the trajectory is fixing what’s underneath.
04
You're growing but the business feels fragile
Revenue is up but it’s founder-dependent, relationship-dependent, or concentrated in a handful of clients. Growth that isn’t structural isn’t reliable, and fragile growth is stressful to manage.
05
Your team can sell, but only with you in the room
The moment you step back, conversion drops. That’s not a team problem, it’s a commercial infrastructure problem. The system should work without you present for every deal.
06
You know what needs fixing but don't have the time
You’ve diagnosed the problem yourself (positioning, pipeline, process), but delivery keeps pulling you back. The issue isn’t insight. It’s bandwidth and execution.
The remit
What they own day to day
The scope varies by business and by what the diagnostic reveals. But across most engagements, a Fractional Commercial Director is working across four areas.
Commercial Positioning
How the business is understood in the market. Whether the proposition attracts the right buyers at the right price, or forces price-led conversations. Getting this right changes everything downstream.
Pipeline Architecture
Building the system that generates and moves opportunities through a defined process, so pipeline isn’t dependent on who the founder knows or how hard the team is pushing this month.
Sales Infrastructure
The playbooks, processes, and tools that let your team convert consistently without needing a senior commercial leader in every room. This is what makes a sales hire actually work.
Commercial Rhythm
The cadence, metrics, and decision-making structures that give you visibility into what’s working, what isn’t, and where to focus. Running the business on instinct stops working at Plateau 4.
London and Liverpool, working with founders across the UK.
Fees
What it costs
The Commercial Diagnostic
£4,000 + VAT Fixed Fee
Two weeks. Your plateau confirmed, the root cause, a stakeholder map and a prioritised 90-day plan. £2,000 is credited if further work follows within 30 days.
Fractional Commercial Director
£2,500 to £4,500 + VAT a month
One to two days a week. Minimum three months, then month to month unless agreed otherwise. Starts with a two-week diagnosis.
Fractional at £2,500–£4,500 per month for one to two days a week, against a full-time commercial director at £90k–£130k salary plus employer NI, pension, recruitment fees and a three-to-six-month hiring process
Every engagement starts with a two-week diagnosis, so the work is grounded in evidence, not assumptions.
Compare
Fractional vs the alternatives
How a Fractional Commercial Director compares with the three options founders most often weigh up.
The process
How it works
Step 1: Diagnosis
It starts with a diagnosis. Every engagement begins with two weeks of diagnostic work. Before anything is built, we need to understand where the commercial infrastructure is breaking down and what matters most to address first. This produces a clear remediation roadmap that shapes the fractional engagement.
Step 2: Engagement
We agree the focus and the cadence: Based on the diagnosis, we agree where to focus first and how many days per week make sense. Most engagements run at 1–2 days per week. The scope is fixed at the start of each quarter and reviewed as progress is made.
Step 3: Fractional
Embedded, not advisory: The fractional engagement is working time, not consulting time. That means being inside the business, working on real problems, building real assets, and having real commercial conversations, not producing reports for someone else to action.
Step 4: Review
We measure what changes: Every quarter we review progress against the original diagnostic. What’s been built, what’s shifted commercially, and what the next priority is. The engagement continues as long as there’s meaningful work to do, and stops when it’s done.
Further reading
Read more on fractional commercial leadership
What the role is, how it differs from the alternatives and when a founder-led business needs one.
What the role is
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
How much does a fractional commercial director cost in the UK?
Typical UK engagements run between £2,000 and £6,000 per month depending on scope and days. Addoli engagements are £2,500 to £4,500 per month for one to two days a week. A full-time commercial director costs £90,000 to £130,000 in salary alone, before employer NI, pension and recruitment fees.
How many days a week does a fractional commercial director work?
Usually one to two days a week, embedded in the leadership team rather than sitting outside it. Enough time to own the commercial agenda; not so much that you are paying for presence rather than progress.
What is the difference between a fractional commercial director and a consultant?
A consultant advises and leaves. A fractional commercial director owns outcomes: they sit inside the business, build the infrastructure, coach the team and are accountable for the commercial number moving.
How quickly can an engagement start?
Typically within one to two weeks of a diagnostic call. There is no recruitment process, no notice period and no onboarding lag; the first month usually covers stakeholder mapping and commercial diagnosis so the work starts from evidence rather than assumption.
Is a fractional commercial director engagement inside IR35?
A properly structured engagement through a limited company, defined by deliverables rather than hours and with the director controlling how the work is done, typically sits outside IR35. Both parties have obligations, so take professional advice on your specific situation.
What size of business is fractional right for?
The model fits best between roughly £1m and £15m revenue: big enough that commercial leadership is the constraint, not yet big enough to justify a full-time executive. Below that, The Commercial Diagnostic is usually the better first step.
Honest fit
Not right for everyone
The fractional model works well in specific circumstances. Outside of those, it’s not the right fit, and I’d rather tell you that upfront than start an engagement that doesn’t deliver what you need.
- Your business is pre-revenue or below £1m turnover
- Founders looking for a short-term boost rather than structural change
- Businesses that need execution resource, not commercial leadership
- You've already decided what the solution is and need someone to implement it
- Budget is the primary filter for every decision you make
- You're not willing to look honestly at how the business currently operates
What they say
“Tom took the time to fully understand what we wanted to achieve and knew how to get us there. I learned so much from working with him, and it really transformed the business. He could empathise with my frustrations, and put solutions in place from day one that helped both me and my team.”
The right starting point is a conversation, not a proposal.
If you recognise the situations on this page and want to understand whether a Fractional Commercial Director is the right move, get in touch. We’ll talk through where you are, what’s driving the stall, and whether there’s a fit.
Or start with the free 7 Plateaus Assessment if you want to understand your commercial position first.