Most companies approach annual planning as a math exercise. They pick a target, divide it into quotas, and start assigning numbers.
That may be enough to produce a plan on paper, but it rarely builds the alignment or visibility needed to drive consistent growth. This is where the difference between a Chief Sales Officer (CSO) and a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) becomes clear.
- A CSO focuses on the sales function. They translate the company goal into team quotas, manage attainment, and track progress toward the number.
- A CRO looks across every revenue function and builds the plan that connects them. Sales, marketing, customer success, and channel performance all feed into the same model.
The distinction shows up most clearly during annual planning. This is where a CRO’s system-level thinking turns a target into a coordinated plan the company can actually execute.
The Difference Between a Sales Leader and a Revenue Leader
A CSO focuses on sales performance. They take the revenue target from leadership, assign quotas, and manage the team toward that number. Their world revolves around attainment: did we hit it or not?
A CRO, on the other hand, starts earlier and looks wider.
The question isn’t just how much do we need to sell? It’s how does the entire revenue system work together to produce that number?
That means understanding how new sales, retention, expansion, and pipeline generation connect. It means seeing how marketing, sales, channels, and customer success each carry part of the total number, and how changes in one affect the others.
When done right, revenue planning stops being just a spreadsheet exercise. It becomes a model of how the business actually works.
How a CRO Builds the Plan
Annual planning starts with a clear revenue target. But before any quotas get assigned, a CRO breaks that target down.
1. Define the goal. Work with the executive team to confirm next year’s revenue objective and how much should come from recurring versus non-recurring sources.
2. Understand your starting point. What’s your projected year-end MRR? What’s your expected churn? What’s realistic from your existing base?
3. Translate the gap. The difference between what you have and where you need to be becomes your new subscription revenue requirement. This is where the Rule of 78 comes in: it’s a simple way to translate an annual revenue target into the monthly recurring revenue (MRR) you’ll need to add each month to reach it.
4. Distribute responsibility. That requirement is divided across sales channels, marketing contributions, upsell targets, and expansion goals.
5. Validate feasibility. Each function reviews its share and ensures the assumptions hold up under scrutiny before anything goes to budget.
This is where the CRO’s perspective matters most. It’s not about pushing a top-down number into departments. It’s about building a coherent, cross-functional plan the company can actually execute.
Building Alignment Before Budget
Once the first version of the plan is built, it’s reviewed with the full revenue leadership team: sales, marketing, channels, and customer success.
Each leader tests the numbers, challenges assumptions, and refines the model until it makes operational sense. Only then does it go to the executive team.
By the time it reaches the ELT, the CRO isn’t presenting guesses. They’re presenting the organization’s best understanding of what it will take to hit the revenue target. The budget discussion starts from that point of clarity, not wishful thinking.
That’s how you avoid the trap of starting with an arbitrary number and working backward to justify it. You start with the system that will make it real.
The CRO’s Role Once the Plan Is Set
Once the plan is approved, the CRO’s job shifts from designing the model to steering it through uncertainty.
Startups do not operate in stable markets. They operate in systems that change constantly and where information is always incomplete. The assumptions that shaped the plan in January will start to shift by March.
The CRO’s primary role during the year is to monitor, learn, and adjust.
They watch leading indicators such as pipeline coverage, marketing output, win rates, retention, and expansion. These signals are not about reporting; they are about understanding how the market is actually moving.
As new information emerges, the CRO adjusts the revenue system. That might mean reallocating resources, refining quotas, shifting marketing spend, or rebalancing customer success coverage to stay aligned with company targets.
Because clarity evolves throughout the year, the CRO must also communicate how those changes affect overall performance. That requires coordination with the rest of the leadership team so that when revenue expectations shift, the entire organization can adjust together.
A CSO drives a sales function. A CRO keeps the entire revenue organization aligned with reality.
Why This Matters Now
The distinction between a CSO and a CRO is not about title or hierarchy. It is about how the company approaches growth.
A CSO manages performance within a function. A CRO ensures every function contributes coherently to the same goal.
That difference is becoming more important as startups enter 2026 with tighter budgets, longer sales cycles, and more scrutiny on efficiency. The companies that win will not be the ones with the most aggressive sales goals. They will be the ones where sales, marketing, and customer success move in lockstep toward a single revenue outcome.
Planning is only the first step. Alignment is what keeps growth sustainable.
And that is the work of a true CRO.
