Each engagement type is designed to match what a company actually needs, not what it assumes it needs before the diagnosis happens. The right entry point depends on where you are.
You have revenue leadership in place. You're not missing a CRO or a VP of Sales. What you're missing is a clean outside read. Someone who can go into your pipeline independent of the explanation that's been circulating internally and tell you what's actually there.
This is a bounded, fixed-scope analysis: pipeline composition by stage, deal velocity mapped against historical closed-won patterns, conversion rates at every handoff, and a deal-level read with your revenue team to surface what the CRM isn't capturing. Two to three weeks. Written findings. One debrief session with leadership.
The deliverable isn't a report. It's a diagnosis: what your pipeline is actually telling you, what's carrying more or less risk than its stage assignment suggests, and the three to five highest-leverage actions ranked by impact.
Companies with an existing CRO or VP of Sales who want an independent second opinion before committing to a course of action. Boards that need an outside read. Founders who've lost confidence in the pipeline number but can't articulate exactly why. The lowest-risk entry point into working with Revenue Forge.
Wider scope than the pipeline review. The full revenue motion: ICP accuracy built from closed-won data rather than marketing assumptions, comp plan behavior mapped against what reps actually do, conversion at every stage, team structure, sales-to-CS handoff, and the leadership dynamics sitting underneath all of it.
This is the engagement for when you don't have a clear picture of why things aren't connecting. Fixes have been tried. The team has good people. The motion exists. But the number keeps coming in light and nobody at the leadership level can give you a clean explanation that holds up under two follow-up questions.
The output is a specific, prioritized diagnosis: the three things causing the revenue problem, ranked by leverage, with concrete next actions. Not a slide deck. Not a strategy document. A diagnosis, the kind that tells you exactly what to do first and why.
Companies where the fixes haven't worked and fresh eyes are needed before another six months of effort goes in the wrong direction. Companies mid-transition (new product, new market, new ICP) where the old motion stopped fitting and nobody's said it plainly yet. Companies about to make a major hiring or restructuring decision who want to understand exactly what that person will inherit.
Embedded, ongoing revenue leadership. Forecast calls, pipeline reviews, team coaching, leadership meetings. Real accountability for the motion over time, not a playbook handed off and forgotten. The diagnostic work happens in the first thirty days as the foundation for everything that follows.
This is not a fractional placeholder while the search runs, though it works for that. The value is in an experienced operator who sees the whole machine: how the revenue motion connects to product decisions, CS performance, finance, and leadership dynamics, and can act on what they see. Most fractional operators are function-specialized. This engagement is business-specialized.
Six-month minimum. Thirty-day notice after the minimum clears. Expenses reimbursed separately. The relationship is long enough to matter. A six-week engagement barely has time to complete the diagnosis.
The founder who built sales themselves and needs to transition to a team without watching it fall apart. A VP promoted from within who needs a peer-level operator to catch what they can't yet see. A company between VPs that needs real coverage (not a placeholder) while the search runs. A company where the revenue team has good people but the motion isn't connecting and no one senior enough to fix it is in the room.
The lightest-touch engagement. You have strong revenue leadership in place and you don't need someone embedded. You want ongoing access to senior judgment as a sounding board. A standing call, async availability, and a second opinion when it matters, from someone who's been in the room at every stage of what you're building.
This is peer-level pressure testing, not consulting. The value is in having someone who will tell you what they actually think: the pipeline number, the hire you're considering, the comp plan change that seems obvious but might not be. And won't soften it to protect the relationship.
The CRO or VP who wants a senior operator to pressure-test their thinking on an ongoing basis. A founder who came out of a diagnostic or fractional engagement and wants to maintain the relationship at lower intensity. A company executing well that wants a regular check-in from someone who knows what the wheels falling off looks like.
The right entry point depends on where you are. But the path from there is usually clear.
The pipeline review surfaces what's wrong at the deal level. When findings reveal the problem is upstream (ICP, comp design, team structure), the sprint is the natural next step to map the full picture before deciding what to fix first.
The sprint produces a diagnosis. The fractional engagement is where you fix it. Clients who complete the sprint and move to fractional already know exactly what the work is, which makes the first thirty days dramatically more productive than any cold engagement.
When a fractional engagement ends, whether the team is ready or a full-time hire is in place, the advisory retainer is the natural step-down. Maintains the relationship, keeps the outside read active, without requiring the full-time commitment.
The first conversation will tell us. It's a diagnostic session. By the end of it you'll have a clear read on what's actually needed and which engagement fits.
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