- Retrospective: Review prior quarter
- Review performance to quota (aka attainment) for company and for each individual
- Review rep capacity & productivity, new hire ramp, and attrition
- Actively decide which reps to retain, put on plan, or exit (in a closed forum of course)
- Review pipeline generation and bookings contribution by source vs target; this will help identify sources generating good & bad pipeline
- Review KPIs by segment versus targets (ex: win rates; ACV; sales cycle; NDR/GDR; linearity; CAC; critical upstream activities such as PoCs; etc.)
- Review stage-to-stage conversion rates [optional as this may be too ‘in the weeds’ for a QBR]
- Celebrate (major) closed won deals; highlight best practices that worked at every stage of the sales cycle
- Discuss status of (major) slipped deals
- Review (major) closed lost deals; discuss root causes and formulate/share action plan(s) to address; discuss competitors
- Prospective: Plan for current quarter
- Share quotas for company and for each individual
- Share pipeline generation targets by source
- Review current forecast (pipeline coverage; weighted pipeline + create & close estimate)
- Share target KPIs by segment (ex: win rates; ACV; sales cycle; NDR/GDR; etc.)
- Discuss status of (major) open deals
- Have reps share their ‘plan to make plan’ (where applicable); review account plans to acquire/grow key target prospect/customer accounts
- Discuss key initiatives in sales, sales enablement, Marketing (ABM), and Product
- Highlight changes to compensation plan, esp. SPIFs
- General best practices
- Treat QBRs as coaching & planning, not discipline; nonetheless, err toward radical candor rather than ruinous empathy. Aim from transparency, not sugar-coating. The best QBRs are often uncomfortable.
- QBRs should be focused on each team improving strategies and tactics that they directly control; when longer-term cross-functional challenges surface (ex: Sales highlighting product gaps), ‘parking lot’ them for problem-solving in other forums
- Gather & verify data in advance; do not spend precious QBR time on this. To improve quality and reduce effort, have the RevOps team provide necessary dashboards & reports.
- Ensure reps have updated all deals in CRM prior to the start of the QBR; your team can/will make changes but you’ll do so from a good starting point
- Conduct multi-level QBRs. FLSM’s with reps first, then 2nd line managers with FLSMs, and so on.
- Provide reps with a simple, standard template so they can focus on data & insights rather than design; discourage reps from straying from the template
- Sales QBRs are not SKOs
- Stick to the agenda; set a time limit for each presentation and stick to it
- Faithfully run QBRs the 1st and or 2nd week of every quarter
- Manage session-by-session attendance. As appropriate include key persons across Sales; Sales Engineering; Sales Development; Sales Enablement; C-Level leadership; Customer Success; RevOps; Marketing; Product; Finance; Partners