CRO Spotlight: Corey Kleinbauer on Straight Talk and Scaling Smarter

At HLX, our fractional CROs embed themselves directly into your revenue engine and work alongside your team to drive real transformation. We sat down with Corey Kleinbauer, who doubled client close rates in 60 days and built business units from scratch to $95M ARR to learn about his hands-on approach to revenue transformation and the hard questions every founder should be asking.

Diagnosing revenue health in 30 days

When Corey steps into a new engagement, his first move is simple: listen.

He immerses himself in frontline sales calls, comparing what's happening in the field with the founder's vision and looking for misalignment. "I'll listen to every sales call I can get my hands on," Corey explains. "How are they qualifying? How do they position value in practice versus on paper? Then I take that back to the CEO's version of the ICP and see where the disconnects are."

The gap between how companies see themselves and how the market sees them is often where growth gets stuck. "The biggest challenge I see is that highly capable, functioning teams look inward when it comes to revenue growth," he says. "They obsess over product, staff, and finances. But transformation comes from facing how the market actually experiences you."

An unconventional path to revenue leadership

Corey didn't take the traditional route to CRO. With a degree in clinical psychology, he began his career in the mental health field before shifting to sales. His first job? Selling air filtration systems door-to-door.

"My background in psychology taught me to listen and synthesize information," he says. "That's really what sales is—understanding people, not just pitching products."

From there, he joined a tech startup in the early 2000s, wearing every hat from sales to success before riding it to a successful exit. Later, at a $3B analytics company, he launched a mid-market business unit and grew it from roughly $5M to $95M ARR in six years—driven by partnerships, pricing strategy, and a culture of performance.

Today at HLX, Corey applies those lessons to companies in the $1-30M range, helping founders bridge the gap between vision and execution.

Doubling close rates in 60 days

Corey's results speak for themselves. One client's close rate sat at 14% when he arrived. Within 60 days, after refining their qualification, sharpening their discovery, and implementing better sales rigor, that number jumped to 28%.

"It's not just about installing tools, it's about creating better sales processes and oversight that work for your business," Corey says.

But the transformation goes beyond process. He challenges every client with a blunt question: "What's the last piece of business you refused?"

Revenue myths every founder needs to rethink

Corey often challenges clients to rethink the assumptions driving their revenue strategy.

The myth that "all money is good money."

"I always ask: what's the last deal you turned down?" he says. "If the answer is never, that's a problem. Chasing the wrong customers can drain resources and set you up for failure."

The belief that enterprise is always the ultimate prize.

"There's no shame in making a great living in the mid-market," Corey explains. "Investors often push toward enterprise, but it's easier to go from mid-market up than to move down. Mid-market can be the smartest growth path for most."

The confusion between TAM and ICP.

Corey is blunt: "Leave TAM for the investor pitches. TAM tells a story for fundraising; ICP tells you who's actually going to buy from you."

Why fractional? Why now?

For Corey, moving into fractional CRO work was about impact without politics.

"No politics. I can talk straight to a founder and tell them what they need to hear," he says. "And the most rewarding part is helping a founder realize the vision that kept them up at night. Watching that vision come to life through execution is enormously gratifying."

That mix of candor, curiosity, and coaching is exactly what makes Corey (and the broader HLX CRO bench) an extension of the teams they serve.