What is a sales QBR?
Sales QBR: A Sales Quarterly Business Review (QBR) is a meeting where management and sales teams discuss the team’s success over the last three months. Most of the time, senior executives, sales managers, sales operations leaders, and others from the sales group attend a QBR. A QBR’s purpose is to look at information about how well a business is doing, find ways to make it better, develop plans for growth and success, and develop new project ideas.
During a QBR, discussion topics may include:
- Key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Customer feedback
- Market trends
- Opportunities for innovation or improvement in existing processes
- Any associated risks or challenges
A QBR lets you lay out your plans and goals for making the most money and meeting the organization’s goals. QBRs help you determine how well the team did over the quarter by looking at both quantitative and qualitative factors. Quantitative factors include closed deals or average deal size, while qualitative factors include customer satisfaction scores or feedback on sales processes. People who go to a QBR should be ready to ask questions about data points that interest or worry them. Teams can find ways to improve and change their strategy by looking at trends in the historical data shared at each meeting.
Synonyms
- Sales QBRs
- Quarterly business review
How and why do sales teams hold QBRs?
Sales QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) are essential to the sales process. They help sales teams focus on long-term goals and change their strategies and methods. Here are some specific ways that QBRs add value and make sure that the sales team does a good job:
Find Challenges and Opportunities
Companies use sales QBRs to keep up with changing market conditions, customer wants, and competitive pressures. Sales teams can ensure they are reaching their full potential by looking at how they are doing now and setting attainable goals. Also, monitoring performance daily lets you find ways to make things more efficient and profitable.
Boost teamwork and communication in sales QBRs are also a great way to train sales staff because they give feedback that sales managers can use to help employees improve their skills and make the whole team more productive. Regular reviews can also help team members talk to each other, leading to more collaboration and creativity when fixing problems as a group. QBRs also give sales teams a way to praise people who do a great job. With this recognition method, businesses can boost employee morale and succeed in other areas, like getting new customers and keeping old ones.
Stop silos between departments.
Another thing QBRs do is let sales teams work together with other areas, like marketing, product development, and customer service. Companies can develop new ways to solve customer problems and still make money if they work together every three months. This working together also breaks down organizational silos and pushes team members to try out new concepts and plans.
Look over Accounts at Risk
To keep the company’s sales stream full of profitable leads, it’s essential to find accounts that might not be profitable and go over them during the QBR. Customers at risk have shown less interest in doing business with the company or are likely to stop doing business with the company. If sales workers know about these accounts beforehand, they can deal with them before the problem worsens or the customer leaves.
Review of Sales Metrics
The review of sales data is an essential part of effective sales QBRs. These metrics give you an idea of how well your sales reps are doing, what methods need to be changed or thrown out, and where you might be able to make things better.
It’s also important to look at the data from sales QBRs to see how changes made across the company have affected things. These can include releasing a new product or rebranding, setting new prices, or changing how something is done. Businesses can ensure they meet customer wants and expectations by using the information they get from this analysis to improve their strategies.
When reviewing measures in a sales QBR, managers should pay attention to quantitative and qualitative measurements to get a complete picture of the team is performance. Some examples of quantitative metrics are the amount of money made, the number of deals finished, the rate of conversion, the average size of a deal, and so on. Qualitative metrics, on the other hand, might include customer feedback or satisfaction scores, the time it takes to close deals, how well you communicate with clients during negotiations, and so on. These things must be considered when figuring out if the team is meeting its goals and objectives or if any problems need to be fixed.
When reviewing sales measurements during a QBR, looking at quantitative and qualitative data points is essential. It is also essential to look at trends over time instead of just at single data points. This gives managers a better idea of whether their plans are working and helps them make better choices.
During a sales QBR, the following KPIs should be looked at:
Number of New Opportunities: This KPI counts how many new opportunities (including sales leads) were found and closed during a specific period.
Pipeline Growth: This KPI calculates how much the company’s sales pipeline has grown. This shows if the company is getting more quality leads over time.
Revenue per Sale: This KPI will help you determine which sales efforts bring in the most money regarding chance size or revenue per sale.
Average Order Value (AOV) is a metric that keeps track of the average order value for each product or service sold. This helps with pricing choices in the coming quarters and finding ways to cross-sell and upsell to current customers.
Sales Cycle Length: The time it takes for a lead to go from the first contact to the final purchase shows you what changes must be made. For example, you might want to improve your follow-up steps or change your message to reflect what works best at different process stages.
Customer Retention Rate: To determine how successful a business is from one quarter to the next, it must know how many people stay with it. Customer retention measures should also include how many times a customer buys within a specific time frame to compare current customers’ loyalty to new ones.
Close Rate: The close rate lets you keep track of the percentage of successful finished deals, which shows how well your sales process is working to bring in money.
Sales Review: Best Practices Every Three Months
Sales managers should follow a few best practices to get the most out of a quarterly business review. First, it’s essential to be clear about what you expect from the review process ahead of time. This includes choosing who will be a part of the QBR and planning how the results will be shared and discussed. Also, businesses should ensure they have all the necessary information before the QBR so that everyone has the same idea of the critical numbers and trends to be discussed.
Setting specific goals ahead of time is another crucial step. This way, teams will know how they are evaluated and have clear goals to work toward during each review period. Leaders should use data-driven insights to guide conversations and ensure they are objective when judging sales reps’ success at each review meeting. Lastly, it’s essential to summarize the most important points made at each meeting so that the sales team can look back at older QBRs when needed.
Other good ideas to get the sales team more involved in the review process are the ones below:
Get the team involved
For QBR sessions to work, they must be engaging and valuable. Assigning jobs at each meeting, like moderator, note-taker, presenter, etc., is a good idea so that everyone feels like they are a part of the process and takes responsibility for the tasks they were given. Instead of having individual presentations, group discussions can also increase participation. This is because it allows everyone to ask questions and comment on other people’s ideas.
Make it fun to use.
One crucial way to get people more involved in QBRs is to use engaging tools like polls and quizzes during meetings. Teams may develop ideas that wouldn’t have been talked about otherwise, which can help keep sales reps focused on the discussion.
Make sure you know what to expect from the quarter.
Giving your sales team clear goals and objectives for the next quarter is another way to get them interested in QBRs. This lets them concentrate on things they are sure will help them succeed. Making expectations clear also gives everyone on the team a feeling of ownership and makes them more accountable.
Aim for Solutions
When issues are discussed during QBRs, management should focus on answers instead of just problems. For example, instead of just telling the sales team and other stakeholders what went wrong or what needs to be fixed, ask them to come up with ideas on how to make things better so that everyone can work together toward a common goal and not feel defeated or frustrated with how they’re doing now.
Trends in Sales QBR
Many changes have happened in the business world, as seen in sales QBRs. Let’s look at some of the latest trends:
Approach Based on Data
Data and analytics are driving sales QBRs more and more. There are now many tools and technologies that sales teams can use to effectively collect, analyze, and show relevant data. With these data-driven QBRs, sales teams can make more intelligent choices, spot patterns and trends, and rate their success using real numbers.
Focus on Putting the Customer First
In recent years, the customer-centered method has become very popular. It’s now essential for sales QBRs to understand the customer journey, look at customer comments, and ensure that sales strategies align with what customers want. This trend ensures that sales teams put customer happiness and loyalty first by giving customers what they want.
Collaboration and Alignment Across Functions
No longer are sales QBRs only for the sales team. Key trends right now are collaboration and cross-functional alignment. For example, partners from marketing, customer service, and product development are all involved in QBRs. This collaborative method helps everyone see the business as a whole, makes departments work together, and makes it possible to meet sales goals as a team.
Tracking performance in real-time
It’s becoming increasingly important to keep track of sales success in real-time. Companies use technology to monitor sales activities, track progress, and give instant feedback instead of waiting for reviews every three months. When sales teams track success in real-time, they can find problems quickly, fix them, and quickly change their strategies.
Using pictures and telling stories
Presentations with slides are becoming less common as more visual and interactive forms take their place. Sales QBRs now use dashboards, data visualization tools, and storytelling to show information excitingly and appealingly. Visual presentations make it easier for stakeholders to understand complicated data, share important ideas clearly, and make the QBRs more powerful.
Putting money into sales enablement
Sales QBRs are including sales enablement efforts more and more. This is part of giving sales teams the resources, training, and tools they need to improve their success and effectiveness. QBRs give sales professionals a chance to talk about strategies that help them make more sales, deal with problems, and share the best ways to do things, which eventually helps them reach their goals.
Predictive analytics and calling the future
In sales QBRs, predictive analytics and forecasting methods are becoming more popular. Companies can make accurate predictions about future sales performance, find possible risks, and develop proactive ways to reduce them using historical data and advanced analytics. This trend lets sales teams make choices based on facts and make the most of their efforts.
Continuous Improvement and Quick Changes
Sales QBRs are moving toward an attitude of always getting better. Organizations don’t see evaluations as one-time events; instead, they focus on ongoing review, feedback, and change. Sales teams regularly look at their work to see what they could do better and use flexible strategies to deal with new problems and chances that come up.
As technology improves, companies focus on the customer and make data-based decisions. These trends show how sales QBRs are changing because of these factors. By following these trends, businesses can improve their sales, encourage teamwork between departments, and achieve long-term growth in a business world that is constantly changing.
