Quarterly business reviews (QBRs) don’t necessarily have the best reputation. The idea of sitting through a 30-plus-slide presentation, watching someone painstakingly explain numbers you could have read yourself, raises the same existential question for all of us: “Why am I here?”
In theory, you’re there to review what went right, what went wrong and what could have gone better. In practice, it can feel like an hour of watching someone read slides aloud.
Add another company to the equation, and things get a little more complicated. Suddenly, there are two sets of priorities, two perspectives on performance and twice as many people wondering if this could have been an email.
But QBRs don’t have to live up to their reputation. Done well, a partner quarterly business review is an opportunity to address challenges, make meaningful decisions and build stronger enterprise partnerships.
We spoke with Laura Harding, Manager, Customer Success at PartnerStack, about how to make external co-sell QBRs worth attending and why the most valuable meetings aren’t always the ones with the most slides.
What makes an external partner QBR different?
Most QBRs are internal, with your team reviewing its own results. In a partner QBR, performance data needs to tell a story that matters to both businesses.
“It’s no longer about just your organization’s goals and KPIs; you need to be able to also translate the data to speak to the partner organizations’ relevant targets to create a shared language to discuss the performance of the partnership,” Harding explains.
Consider a software company working with a consulting partner. The software company might be measuring new customer acquisition, while the consulting firm is more interested in the implementation services and long-term client relationships those customers generate.
Both benefit from the partnership. They just might have very different ideas about what constitutes a successful quarter.
As Harding puts it: “This is kind of the heart of partnership, where we need to think about the we instead of the me.”
Related: Enterprise KPIs: Metrics that drive success in partnerships.
Which enterprise partners actually need a QBR?
Not every partner relationship needs a formal quarterly review, particularly when everyone’s calendars are already stretched thin. That’s where partner tiering can help.
“Generally, QBRs are done with your highest-performing and/or highest-potential partners. QBRs take time and resourcing, so it’s done for partners where the commercial performance makes the investment worthwhile, or the potential for commercial success is very evident,” says Harding.
Established partners might review their shared pipeline or identify expansion opportunities. Newer partners could warrant the same attention if there’s strong commercial potential.
For less active relationships, a quick check-in can do the job without adding a full QBR to everyone’s calendar. What matters is whether the partnership has meaningful decisions to make or opportunities worth investing in.
Prepare with your partner, not just for them
There’s little value in spending weeks preparing a presentation only to discover that your partner came into the meeting hoping to discuss something entirely different.
Start by asking what each organization wants to accomplish.
Get on the same page about performance
Even terms like referral and customer can mean different things to different organizations. Agree on the definitions and how credit will be attributed before comparing results.
“It’s important to clearly define the metrics that are relevant for both parties, and if there are any top-of-mind patterns or concerns that should be included in the discussion,” says Harding.
A short pre-read gets everyone up to speed before the meeting. It should cover:
- Previously agreed-upon goals and commitments
- A shared partner scorecard with relevant metrics and notable changes
- Priority co-sell opportunities and stalled deals
- Concerns or patterns identified by either organization
- Decisions that need to be made during the meeting
Ask your partner to contribute. It’s better to discover conflicting priorities beforehand than halfway through the meeting.
Invite the people who can make things happen
“Ideally, the day-to-day contacts and executive sponsors on both sides should be present and engaged. QBRs are a great way to not only align on how best to move forward together, but also to solidify the relationship between your organizations at multiple levels of seniority,” says Harding.
Executives can set priorities and authorize resources, while day-to-day contacts know what it takes to put those decisions into practice.
“Strategy without the tactical implementation is just big thoughts. It’s just big words,” she says.
Less presenting, more discussing
The meeting itself is an opportunity to ask questions, challenge assumptions and decide what happens next. The slides should support that conversation, not become the conversation.
Harding described the traditional approach of walking attendees through a 30-slide presentation as, generally, “a snooze fest.”
Instead, she suggests sharing the data beforehand. “I would provide the data and some points on where I think we should go ahead of time and then leave the QBR time to prioritize the discussion and the alignment on that,” Harding says.
A sample 75-minute co-sell QBR agenda
With the data already shared, the meeting can focus on decisions and next steps.Â
Here’s one illustrative agenda showing how you could structure those 75 minutes. Adjust the timing to reflect the partnership’s priorities:
- Shared goals and priorities (10 minutes): Confirm commercial priorities and alignment.
- Performance and previous commitments (15 minutes): Identify gaps, trends and unfinished work.
- Co-sell pipeline and priority deals (20 minutes): Prioritize opportunities, next steps and owners.
- Blockers and solutions (15 minutes): Agree on support, escalation owners and deadlines.
- Next-quarter goals and commitments (15 minutes): Set shared KPIs, owners and deadlines.
Routine deal updates can happen over email or during monthly pipeline calls. Give the decisions that need both organizations at the table, particularly those requiring executive support, the time they deserve.
Find the story behind the numbers
A conversion rate can tell you that something changed. It won’t necessarily tell you why.
Harding focuses on funnel metrics, conversion rates and Closed Lost reasons. “If the metrics reviewed provide clear insights into each stage of the funnel, then areas of opportunity as well as success become more obvious,” she says.
Harding used the example of a conversion rate falling from 27 per cent to 18 per cent between quarters. That’s worth investigating, but the decline doesn’t tell either organization what to do about it. The real question, as she puts it, is: “Why are the referrals that are happening in co-sell with your partner, why are they not converting?”
If prospects aren’t progressing to product demonstrations, the partner’s sales team might need additional product training or better materials. If deals stall later in the process, pricing, contracting delays or missing product capabilities could be responsible.Â
For a stalled co-sell deal, both teams might need to decide who’s handling the next customer conversation, whether a product specialist needs to get involved and when everyone should follow up.
The numbers provide the starting point. What matters is the action they prompt.
You might also like: What great partner enablement looks like in co-sell.
When things aren’t working, get curious
Not every quarter goes according to plan. Deals stall, targets get missed and the results don’t always reflect the optimism of the previous QBR.
With two organizations involved, figuring out what went wrong can quickly turn into figuring out who’s to blame.
So how do you address underperformance without turning the meeting into a blame exercise? Harding’s answer is one word: “curiosity.”
“The best partnerships arise from two organizations whose success is directly related, so approaching challenges with curiosity eliminates blame and keeps the conversation productive,” she says. “Both organizations want to win together, so adversity should also be tackled together.”
Maybe the partner’s sales team is struggling with objections, or your own process is slowing deals down. Shifting priorities or limited resources might contribute.
The point is to figure out what’s actually going wrong so both organizations can do something about it.
See also: Maximizing co-selling success for enterprise partnerships.
Turn the conversation into a mutual action plan
A productive QBR can generate plenty of ideas, ambitious goals and a renewed sense of optimism. Unfortunately, none of those things constitute an action plan.
“The QBR should lead to clear, agreed-upon KPIs for the upcoming quarter, as well as action items to address any identified areas of opportunity from the previous quarter. These should be as simple and clear as possible with decision ownership for each as well as defined timelines for completion,” Harding explains.
Before everyone leaves, put those decisions in writing as part of an updated joint business plan. A mutual action plan doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs to tell people who’s doing what, what’s needed from the other organization and when.
Here’s an illustrative example. Actual commitments and timelines should be agreed upon by both organizations.
- Review stalled co-sell deals
- Owner: Joint sales leads
- Due: Week two
- Depends on: Shared pipeline data
- Success measure: Next steps and owners agreed
- Prioritize shared target accounts
- Owner: Both partnership managers
- Due: Week three
- Depends on: Account mapping
- Success measure: Joint account list approved
- Deliver product training
- Owner: Partner enablement lead
- Due: Week four
- Depends on: Partner sales availability
- Success measure: Relevant sales reps trained
- Review KPIs and commitments
- Owner: Both partner leads
- Due: Mid-quarter
- Depends on: Updated partner scorecard
- Success measure: Updated scorecard shared
Keep commitments specific. “Improve partner enablement” doesn’t tell anyone much. A product training session with an owner, deadline and measurable outcome does.
And if a commitment needs executive approval or support from another team, document it before the deadline becomes a problem.
You might also like: Account mapping: Your roadmap to new customer acquisition.
Don’t wait until the next quarter to follow up
It’s easy to leave a productive meeting feeling optimistic. Maintaining that momentum takes a little more effort.
What separates commitments that get done from those that quietly disappear? For Harding, it’s transparent timelines and check-in points.Â
“If you need to get from point A to B, there should be precise steps aligned upon as well as scheduled connections along the way to stay on track, even if asynchronously,” she says.
That doesn’t mean filling everyone’s calendars with more meetings. A mid-quarter check-in can catch stalled commitments before they become an unpleasant surprise at the next QBR.
Ultimately, a successful external QBR shouldn’t leave anyone wondering why they were there. It should leave both organizations knowing exactly what they’re doing next.
Want both teams walking into your next QBR with the same numbers? PartnerStack’s co-sell features track partner deals and performance in one place, with real-time dashboards for you and your partners. Book a demo to see how it works.
