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Introduction
At first glance, one could argue that McMahon should have called The Qualified Sales Leader’s opening chapter The QBR. However, “Introduction” is quite right: The quarterly business review is indeed the perfect introduction to the sales and leadership challenges that McMahon explores for the reader throughout the book’s subsequent chapters.
It was in this first chapter where I asked myself, “Where’s ops? Where’s enablement? What’s the data?” Setting up the meeting environment, we read that, in addition to the author’s presence as a consultant, the CEO, the CRO, sales leaders, and reps are present in the room, but no mention of ops or enablement players. Fair enough, it’s not the focus of the book. I suspect, that in McMahon’s real world, there’s ops and enablement folks present. However, in my experience, I’ve seen plenty of QBRs go down just like that, with no ops and enablement participants. It’s a mistake. So, here we are.
Ops/enablement lesson number one. Be present in the QBR–emphasis on “be present.” Don’t just attend. Listen deeply and actively. Participate. You are a critically important participant in this event. More than likely, you and your team participated in preparing for the QBR. Use this event as a feedback loop to your work. Which artifacts, i.e., data, charts, analysis, were impactful and which ones were wasted effort? What questions couldn’t be readily answered? Were they the result of something missing from the artifacts or tools? Or, were the they simply from a lack of preparation? For those unanswered questions, were they meaningful, actionable, and insightful to the deal in question? Actively identify the gaps in sales process understanding and application. Ask your own clarifying questions that test whether or not everyone understands the meaning of the trade language, the lingo, in the same way. Look at the relationship dynamics between leaders, managers, and reps.
If you’re watching a series of “stump the chump” episodes, something is broken in the QBR process. McMahon describes a proper QBR as a learning and coaching session. It should be an event where reps can learn from the experience in the room, from their peers and their leaders. It should also deliver on an accurate view on the deal priorities in the quarter ahead so that action can be taken to both course correct and drive to a successful outcome. The same applies to ops and enablement leaders. This is an event to learn from your peers and your most important stakeholders. It’s an opportunity to identify gaps in learning, tools, and processes.
Consider the following action items:
- Institute a required pre-read for all presenting reps to allow for preparation. Like any meeting, the best ones are the ones in which everyone comes prepared. The pre-read need not be exhaustive. In fact, I’d argue for the contrary. Instead presenters can focus on the facts scaffolded by your flavor of MEDDICC with the necessary deals that “walk” to their number. As we’ll explore later, most of this should be able to come out of your CRM.
- After the meeting, deliver a readout to your revenue leaders. This is your analysis and insights into what worked, what didn’t, and what prioritized ops and enablement opportunities you’re taking away for action this quarter. These shouldn’t derail your strategic ops and enablement roadmaps (you do have your strategically-aligned roadmap, right?), but rather initiatives and tasks that you can accomplish ahead of and to impact the next QBR.
Of course, this is just an introduction. There’s a ton of details and lessons within The Qualified Sales Leader to reencode for ops and enablement leaders that culminate into your own QBR performance. In the upcoming 56 chapters, just like McMahon transforms the sales characters of his book, we’ll unpack his lessons to align you to your sales leadership and equip you as an ops and enablement leader to fully participate in the QBR–and beyond.