Before You Hire Another CRO: Why Sales Leadership Keeps Failing
- Neil Plant
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
The pattern repeats with predictable regularity.
Revenue growth stalls. Board becomes concerned. CEO loses confidence in the CRO - Sales VP. Search begins for replacement. New leader is then hired with impressive credentials and bold plans. Eighteen months later, the cycle starts again.
The average tenure for a CRO in a SaaS business? Roughly 18-24 months. For Sales VPs, even shorter - it's like managing Manchester United.
But here's the question nobody seems to ask: if you didn't diagnose why the last one failed, how will you know what the next one needs to succeed?
The Diagnosis Gap
Boards and CEOs conclude their sales leader "wasn't the right fit" or "couldn't scale." They move quickly to replacement, convinced the problem is solved once the new hire starts.
What they rarely do is examine the actual system that sales leader was operating within.
Revenue misses targets.
Pipeline coverage looks weak.
Win rates decline.
The board attributes this to leadership failure. But they don't investigate whether territories are designed properly, compensation aligns with desired behaviours, managers can actually coach, or product-market fit is solid for all segments being pursued.
Sometimes they even hire sales leadership before they've properly defined their ideal customer profile for example - asking someone to scale a go-to-market motion they haven't finished designing.
Without this investigation, you're hiring someone to inherit the same broken system that defeated their predecessor.
The System Failure That Looks Like People Failure
Our diagnostic work consistently reveals that commercial underperformance splits roughly 60% system and process failures versus 40% capability gaps.
Which means when your sales leader appears to be failing, there's a 60% chance they're actually fighting broken organisational design rather than lacking competence.
What does this look like? A CRO / Sales VP inherits account structures that exist on paper but have no operational clarity. Or compensation plans that reward activity over outcomes. Or product-market fit challenges that sales can't overcome through execution. Or a customer base the previous leader oversold to, creating retention and expansion problems.
These are system failures. But boards diagnose them as leadership failures because it's easier to replace a person than redesign a system.
What Boards Should Do Instead
Before you conclude your sales leader needs replacing, run forensic diagnosis on the commercial organisation.
Ask different questions:
What's changed in our market position?
How are territories designed?
Does compensation drive the behaviours we need?
Where specifically is performance failing?
What patterns distinguish success from failure?
This investigation often reveals the sales leader is performing reasonably within a fundamentally constrained system. The solution isn't replacement. It's system redesign, potentially with the current leader who already understands the business.
Sometimes it does reveal genuine leadership gaps - can these be taught? But even if not, the diagnosis tells you what capabilities your next hire actually needs rather than guessing based on impressive CVs
Use this Hiring Sequence
If you do need to replace sales leadership, diagnosis should inform the search:
Diagnose comprehensively. What's working? What's broken? Where are the system failures versus capability gaps?
Define the role precisely. Don't write generic job descriptions. Define what this specific business needs right now.
Assess against diagnosed needs. Hire for someone who can address your specific challenges, not impressive pattern matching.
Set them up properly. Share the diagnostic findings. Establish realistic timelines. Provide authority to address root causes, not just symptoms.
This will dramatically improve your success rates because you're matching capability to actual need.
Moving Forward
If you're a board member or CEO looking at underperforming revenue, resist the urge to immediately replace sales leadership. Start with diagnosis.
Understand the system. Identify root causes. Then decide whether the issue is the person, the system, or both.
If you're hiring sales leadership, invest in diagnosis first. Then hire someone specifically capable of addressing those challenges.
If you're a newly hired sales leader, insist on diagnostic assessment in your first 90 days. Get evidence. Build strategy on facts, not assumptions.
Because the cycle of failed sales leadership isn't inevitable. It's the predictable result of hiring for hope rather than diagnosing for clarity.
Considering a sales leadership change? We help boards and CEOs understand what's actually broken before making hiring decisions. Let's discuss how diagnostic assessment could inform your leadership strategy.
Kaizen-One is a specialist commercial transformation consultancy working with global SaaS leadership teams out of the UK and Australia. We combine forensic diagnostics with systematic transformation, helping organisations achieve measurable performance improvements through evidence-based approaches.
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