Sales Review / QBR Template
Agenda and content for a quarterly business review
if you plan to introduce a periodical review of your sales performance, you find an outline in this article that you can use as agenda
if you are already doing sales reviews and want to improve the value you are getting out of it, consider the concept below to make it more engaging
As a company grows it becomes useful to periodically conduct business or sales reviews. Most companies do these quarterly, hence the term “quarterly business review (QBR)”. In smaller or faster paced businesses it can also make sense to do them more frequently, for example monthly or every other month. I hope this template is not only useful for young businesses, who implement the review process for the first time, but also for developed teams who find that their current reviews don’t add as much value compared to the amount of time and work that goes into preparing it.
Depending on the size and complexity of the business and sales organisation the resulting deck / document could be as few as 8 pages (one per point) or significantly more with segments added for business units (products, channels, regions etc.) and key initiatives. The key in this approach is that the flow and content guides a discussion that achieves the following outcomes:
Objectives of the Sales Review Meeting
Assess if your strategy is working
Note: where the sales team stands against plan should be known already (see below)
Share customer feedback and discuss its implications
Create alignment across organisation
Decide on necessary interventions or changes in plan
What is Different about this Approach? - Quantitative and Qualitative (Strategic) Performance
Many sales reviews are extremely heavy on data such as goal attainment, pipeline, and deals, at the expense of almost anything else. While there is a place for the key metrics and how they are tracking as a necessary input for the discussion, I suggest that the deep dive happens within the sales teams at a granular level and at a higher frequency, such as weekly pipeline or deal review and other operational meetings. Management and other functions should have access to the data via dashboards or reports so that they can keep up-to-date and prepare for the review in their own time.
Depending on the phase of the company, achieving a revenue target might not always be the most important objective. There could be more relevant goals like for example ‘is there product market fit?’, ‘does our messaging resonate with a specific target group?' or ‘does a certain sales channel or sales method scale beyond early adopters?’.
While it is important to instil a certain discipline of achieving committed targets, it is arguably even more critical to validate your go to market strategy and prove that you are working towards a repeatable and scalable sales model. The review should guide a differentiated discussion about what you know for sure what works and what doesn’t and how to consolidate additional knowledge.
Who should be included?
Sales management
Sales operations (ideally the organiser of the team)
Leads of other customer facing teams (if applicable)
Functional leaders (marketing, product, finance, HR)
Senior Management
Outline (Agenda)
1. Revisit strategy / original plan for the quarter
Purpose:
Make sure that everyone is aligned on the high level goals and what the team set out to achieve during the quarter. This is important to reflect about success, what worked, and what can be learned vs. results achieved by luck.
Content
Key sales initiatives (OKRs)
How we planned to achieve our quantitative outcomes
Key assumptions and hypotheses (to be tested
2. Market feedback
This section is about consolidating and sharing feedback from users and clients that is relevant to assess the effectiveness of the strategy and that could help educate other teams (especially marketing and product).
Content
Customer insight
Market development (incl. competitors)
What have we learned?
3. Performance against goals
This is the part where you review numbers and forecast the expected attainment by end of the quarter in order to identify gaps and additional opportunities. In many companies, this is the only part. Keep it as detailed as necessary to assess the effectiveness of your teams and initiatives, but ideally not more.
Content
KPI review summary
target attainment outcomes
pipeline
activities and productivity
Progress of key initiatives (accomplishments and challenges)
Adjusted End-of-Period (e.g. quarter) forecast
4. Detailed analysis of key business drivers and initiatives
Review the specific strategies and tactics that were planned to deliver the sales goal for the quarter. If the team is on or ahead of target and the approach is working, this can be relatively light. If there are gaps, identify the root causes and discuss actions to mitigate.
Content
Segment review and discussion
channels, customer segments, markets, territories …
products or business groups performance
sales teams
Strategic initiatives
Interventions needed / recommended
5. Operations
‘Scaling’ does not only mean growing the business at a fast rate, but also make it more efficient and effective. Every major review should discuss ways to increase sales productivity and processes.
Content
Customers processes and optimisations
Systems and data management
Efficiency improvements
6. Team and resources
Especially in growing sales organisations, hiring, onboarding, training and enablement of the team are critical for topline growth performance. Does your sales team have the right size, structure and qualification for success? How is the motivation of the team? (in many cases the sales incentive plan will come up)
Content
Headcount plan, hiring, retention and their impact on sales capacity
Team structure and responsibilities
Team engagement (check in survey or other feedback) and performance
Team and individual development actions (training, coaching etc.)
7. Cross functional cooperation
The sales team is usually the closest to the customers and the overall market and should have a good sense of the company’s competitiveness. Ensure there is great two-way communication with all critical functions, not just in reviews but in every day business. Any issues should be brought up during the review.
Content
Key message to other functions (e.g. marketing, product, finance, HR etc.)
Key questions for every function:
what works well in the cooperation?
what can be improved?
single, most important issue
Key asks from other teams
8. Summary
Key insight and learnings about strategy and plan
Changes and interventions (if necessary decisions / sign-off needed)
Specific actions