Fractional sales leadership · Ad management · AI training
Senior sales leadership and ads that pay back, without a full-time hire
Stratus Growth is the practice of Seehab Ahmed. I've led a 25-person, £4.5M sales organisation across the UK and US. Now I give founder-led businesses the sales leader they haven't hired yet and Google and Meta ads that have to pay back. I also train teams to use AI on real work.
Based in Manchester · Replies within one working day · Month-to-month terms
- 109%
- UK quota in Q3, four months after I took over a team that had missed every H1 target
- 109% against a target of 100%
- Award-winning UK performance marketing agency, 2025
- £4.5M
- Annual recurring revenue across the 25-person UK and US sales organisation I led
- Head of Agency Sales, 2024 to 2026
- 12 → 6
- Weeks for a new salesperson to reach first target, halved in the same organisation
- From 12 to 6 weeks
- Same organisation
- 250+
- Ad accounts I've reviewed and diagnosed myself. The teams I led reviewed thousands.
- Agency sales, UK and US
Every figure on this site is something I did, with its context beside it. There are no client logos yet, because I only publish results clients have agreed to share.
Which of these sounds like your business?
Every deal needs you. The pipeline lives in your head, nothing can be forecast, and growth stops whenever delivery gets busy. A senior sales hire would help, but the REC puts the cost of a poor hire at around three times salary.
What fixes it
Fractional sales leadership
A senior sales leader a day or two a week: process, pipeline, CRM and coaching for UK founder-led businesses, without a full-time senior hire.
- Fractional sales director
- Go-to-market strategy
- Sales process and playbook
- CRM setup and pipeline management
The invoice arrives, the spend went up, the sales didn't, and the account manager changed again. You want one person who picks up the phone and can explain what happened in plain English.
What fixes it
Ad management
Google and Meta ads run by the person who diagnosed your account, against a break-even that includes the fee, with a plain-English report every month.
- Google Ads management
- Google Shopping and ecommerce ads
- Ads for Shopify and ecommerce brands
- Lead generation ads for service businesses
You pay for ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot. Two people use it well, everyone else ignores it, and nobody can say where it saves an hour.
What fixes it
AI training
Practical AI training for UK SME teams on Claude, ChatGPT and Copilot: two or three sessions on your own work, with workflows built for you if you want them.
See how the AI training worksWhat I do
Four ways I can help
Two core services I run myself, plus AI training and advisory calls. Each one starts with a conversation, not a contract.
- 01
Fractional sales leadership
A senior sales leader in your business a day or two a week. I find what's broken in your sales system, or build it from scratch, and make the people already selling more successful. Everything I build lives in your accounts and stays yours.
- 02
Ad management
Google, Shopping, Meta and Microsoft ads for UK small businesses, run by the person who diagnosed the account. I only take on accounts where the budget can pay back, and you get a plain-English report every month.
- 03
AI training
Two or three sessions that get your team using Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot on its own work, pitched at the level it's at now. I bring the approach from the enterprise AI adoption programmes I lead, and I can build the workflows for you.
- 04
Advisory
The way in when you aren't ready for ongoing work: a free scoping call, a £150 hour on one question, a commercial audit of your sales process or a £97 teardown of your ad account or your AI visibility. You keep what each one gives you, whatever you decide next. No VAT is charged.
Who I work with
Founders and owners of UK businesses that have outgrown doing everything themselves. Most sell to other businesses or run an online store, and have a reason to act now: a senior hire who left, a board asking why pipeline is flat, an ad bill that no longer makes sense, or a team that bought AI tools and kept working the old way.
I know three markets from the inside: marketing agencies, recruitment and ecommerce brands.
I'm the wrong person if you want outsized results in the first month, or if the cheapest quote always wins. Sales systems improve step by step. If I'm not the right fit, I'll tell you on the first call.
How working together starts
A free scoping call
We work out what's going on and whether I'm the right person to fix it. If I'm not, I'll tell you what would help instead.
A written scope
What I'll do, what it costs and what should change as a result. Month to month, with 30 days' notice.
The work, done by me
In the business with you. Regular contact, plain reporting, some time in person, and nobody between us.
Have one question first? The £150 issue call is an hour on it, with a straight answer at the end. No VAT is charged.
What I've built before
As Head of Agency Sales at an award-winning UK performance marketing agency, I led a 25-person sales organisation across the UK and US. The UK team had missed every target in the first half of 2025. Four months later it hit 109% of quota. In the same organisation, new hires reached target in 6 weeks instead of 12, and the forecast I reported to the board stayed within 10% of the monthly target.
Before that I built the sales function at Docan, an engineering software business, from nothing. I founded Tandem Recruit and grew it to 20 active clients and Preferred Supplier status at two UK Top 20 accountancy firms. Since May 2026 I've been building Nodus, a live marketplace, with no engineering background, using AI-assisted development.
The sales process is as important as the lead generation. You can generate all the leads in the world, but if you don't nurture them or get them to buy, what was the point?
Seehab AhmedStratus Growth
Check your own numbers first
Each tool gives you an answer on screen in a couple of minutes. The full report comes by email if you want it.
- Free toolTrue break-even ROAS calculatorThe return your ads need to cover both the spend and the management fee. At a 40% margin, £1,000 of spend and a £400 fee, break-even is 3.5, not the 2.5 most owners work out.Work out your break-even ROAS
- Free toolHire cost calculatorThe first-year cost of a full-time sales director: salary, employer National Insurance, pension, recruitment, your own time and the months before they hit target.Cost a full-time sales hire
- Free toolAd spend health checkTwo minutes, no account access. It rates tracking, setup, spend control, ownership and reporting as healthy, leaking or at risk.Check your ads
- Free toolAI search readiness checkTests whether ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity can open, read and quote your site, including a live request as each assistant.Check your site
Questions people ask
What does a fractional sales director do?
How much does it cost to work with you?
Do you work with businesses outside Manchester?
Will I work with you or with a junior account manager?
Do I own what you build?
Two ways to start
Free
You're weighing up ongoing help
A 60-minute call to work out what's going on and whether I'm the right person to fix it. If I'm not, I'll say so on the call and tell you what would help instead.
£150 · One hour · No VAT is charged
You have one question that needs a straight answer
Bring the question. You leave the hour with my answer and the reasoning behind it, with no retainer and no obligation afterwards.
Not sure which? Answer three questions and I'll point you to the right one.