QBRs That Don't Suck: Your Business Review Rescue Plan

If you watch part one of this series, then you know that QBIs are broken. They're boring, they're a waste of time and quite frankly, they're not delivering the results that you need. But here is the thing. If QBIs are done right, they can be one of the most powerful tools that you have to be able to grow client revenue, to expand accounts and to build unshakable client relationships. So in part two, we're diving into the solutions. I'm joined by James Ward from clientshare and he's going to show you exactly how to transform your business reviews from dreaded admin tasks into high impact strategic growth engines. We'll cover the three pillar business review framework that's working for top performing account management teams right now, as well as practical steps you can implement to maximize value and not save you a ton of time. Now if you haven't already checked out part one, I will pop a link in the description, but don't worry, you can absolutely jump right into this episode and get massive value. So let's fix those QRS once and for all. Why would you think people should be taking another look at their business review strategy, having a look at what they can do to kind of leverage these QBRs more effectively. Like, is there enough value? Is it worth their time?

So we often see our customers more visually on teams. Let's have a quick call. You're on my teams channel. You're on my Slack channel. There is a closer proximity of operational relationships between buyers and suppliers than there was before. Firstly, there is less formality than there was before. Seeing people in person less now. What that also means is those moments that matter, that that cherished moment where you get to step out, it means that meeting has become actually elevated. It's become more important than ever. And the organizations that get that and are going, do you know what we're going to nail? These meetings are the ones that are coming away with two things. One, they're coming away with proper margin protection at renewal because they're more valued. And two, they're coming away with expansion. White label, sorry, white space. Selling an organization. So, so that's the change. The world's changed in terms of how we meet people. These meetings are more than ever and therefore you need to perform.

And that book of evidence is how you retain your customers. That's how you increase prices because you can demonstrate that you've added value all along. So actually now's the time that you're probably going to have to raise some prices to continue to Add that value. It's sort of like the, the storybook that underpins the whole relationship. So even though they are a pain in the neck to produce and you know, there's definitely opportunities to improve them, you can't just neglect them. You know, contract or not, I'd probably.

Say one of the most important things you can do as an organization is, is get your head around measuring, right? Get your head around measuring. Nearly any company can measure their SLA. They can measure their KPIs, their cash collection, everything to do with an account. I bet they can measure their sales pipeline. But you should be able to measure the efficiency, the effectiveness of your QBRs. You need to know which accounts need to have a business review. And then under all those accounts, you should know, has it happened? Who attended? Were the actions followed up on, did the customer rate our performance in that QBR and did we get any feedback? Because if you measure that in a simple, easy way across hundreds of accounts, you will get warning signs galore about where you need to focus your time to avoid attrition. And you will get some wonderful euphoric signs about where you need to focus your time to grow your business. If you can't measure it, then you're going to struggle insofar as how you nail what's going on across the entire entire customer base.

For me, I would say every business review should be highly curated, super targeted. Every page should answer the question what, so what, what now? Or what next? If that page doesn't give those three things from the customer's perspective, pull it out or go back and rethink about it again. And the what next should be impactful. I've been in reviews where somebody, many, many reviews where my account managers have recommended all these actions and that'll save you 300. £300. I make £300 for a client that spends 5 million. Like, you know, the pain versus gain kind of needs to be 10x. Is it worth getting out of bed for? You know, like put a recommendation that's meaningful and if it's not worth anybody investing time or not going to make a material impact, don't mention it. Don't put it in there, put it in the appendix. I'm going to give you all the data in the back. You know, it's all steady state. But the things I want to focus on are these. Where we can optimize, drive performance, get better results.

When it comes to data, organizations must start looking to use data visualization tools. Yeah, so for example, whether it's tableau Power bi. They should have a one page two maximum report for a QBR for every single customer that is just presented to the account manager. And there's tools funny enough like clientshare that enables you to take all these, these builder bricks in. But that's one key thing. The next thing I say you must get right is your content. 80% of content that marketing share doesn't ever reach a client in B2B. Okay. The reason is a lot of the time key account managers don't know where to find it. They're too busy, they're not sure it's the right information and sometimes they're quite concerned that if they're pressed on it by the customer, they won't be able to talk adeptly about it. So the best tools enable an account manager to automatically or marketing to automatically input that data into a QBR, not a slide 52 at the very end. So we talk about our AI platform, our latest acquisition, because no one's going to talk about it. But if one of these building blocks, so almost an account manager has almost got these, these blocks and the, and the customer can then go, let's go have a look at this one. Let's take a look at this lens. And then the next thing that needs to be on there is the ability for a customer to give you feedback. They need to be able to just put feedback in after the meeting, submit it and it's tracked, logged and registered. And that should be done in seconds, not for the account manager to upload. The next thing is the customer needs to be able to score. The customer must be able to, after a qbr, just give you some basic net promoter score and then some CSAT scores or CES scores that are standardized across every single account. And then we're heading here towards, you know, there needs to have the right branding, the management, the tools will enable you to do that. Then what this leads us to at the end of it is all the account manager really should be doing is creating the two or three slides or whatever format you wish to call them that drive a better business conversation. That is normally we the best ones we see one page, one page for one hour. It's one time talking about key opportunities where, where we want to spend our time, any challenges, you know, that type of thing, you know, and yeah it differs from company to company. But those building blocks we cannot as an industry continue just to expect. As you said earlier, Warwick account managers with 20 accounts, some have even more. Putting all this together, you've got to give them the blocks and then they go and do what they do best, which is the two or three bits at the top, that is where their expertise level is. So yes, I've, I've really passionate about measuring all of this but I'm equally as passionate about making sure that you give account managers time back and quality reviews get built. And if you allow me to add a third one, yeah please talk it in threes about what really then matters is, is, is the experience of the customer. The research we've seen is that on average key people don't turn up. So if you get the building blocks rights you have a better, better reason for people to turn up because they can access the information, have a better business conversation, then you'll see a transformation in how people behave in QBRs, who turns up from both sides and the results you get. So getting the right people there isn't just about asking them to be there. You've got to give them the right experience. And the right experience is often getting the right tools to deliver the meeting, getting the content out beforehand, all the stuff that we know. But people are doing it at the last minute because I've got the tools to put it together in the first place. So they're the sort of three areas, get it measured properly, get the building blocks in place. As I said, that's things like data viz, power, bi, csat, customer scores, feedback and just a very short summary. And then lastly making sure the customer experience of how it's delivered is, is superb.

Sounds like heaven. I mean the idea of just really trimming it back to the basics. Get a nice dashboard, a scorecard for the essentials and a couple of pages of some key recommendations, maybe a top three and really focus on the conversation about how the past should inform the future, not just lingering in ancient history. And I think this is where a lot of account managers go wrong is they ask questions during the review that they could have found out the answer to beforehand. So and that can really burst your balloon. Which is why I'm a big fan of sending the review in advance with some pre reading, some pre work, send it a day, three days before A it will give make you accountable to get it done in time. But B client comes prepared, they've read it all. I used to think well that's going to steal my thunder while I present then. But like I'm not looking to present the information. I want to have a discussion. I want to talk about what we can do with the information I've shared, not just oh did you know this year you spent 10% more than last year. I'd rather they knew that before they turned up at the meeting, not just revealed at the time because it gives them time to do some work as well. What, what would you say to somebody, okay, they're listening to this and they're like, okay, you know what, you're right. I need to get my shit sorted when it comes to QBRs. What would you say is like some initial practical first steps, top three things you think they should do. If they're like starting taking another fresh look at their current QBR structure, first.

Thing I do is look at all my accounts and understand where do I actually need to do QBRs and where do I not need to do QBRs? That's. That's step number one. Step number two is standardize. Now whether you use tool like clientshare or whether you standardize in whatever format you want, just standardize the way that you create, the way that you deliver, the way you present, the way you measure everything and the way you act and feedback and actions from the review. So just standardize everything you possibly can. And then the third one is measure so that those three steps, there's many different ways you go, but those three steps will give you control. When you have.

I love that.

You can then have influence. And when you have influence, you can then use that to go and drive. And drive, basically drive growth in your business.

Yeah, I love that. So auditing the account. See, you know, not only who needs a Q, I mean, I think everyone needs a Q of some sort. But not all Q's are created equal. Not the smallest client does not need a 60 side deck. You know, it could be a one pager and you just might email it four times a year. So just like, or twice a year, whatever, but have a look at who gets them and what in what context. You know, what, what, what needs are there for the different segments that you have the idea of standardization. Brilliant. I mean, because what I find is a lot of account managers hate the reviews. So they just like create their own. They're like, oh, well, I'm going to do this and this and this. And the client says, well, I hate it like this. I want it like this. And then every single one is customized. And I kept, I used to say to my team, your job is not to reinvent the things that are wrong with the review. You need to use the tools that you're given. And then we will together as a team, build a business case for changes to that. But I don't want you creating 10 different slides because you hate the way these ones look or the client doesn't like them. That's not how we go. Everyone gets the same review. If we don't like it, we put the business case forward so that everybody gets another version of the review or enhancements to the review versus 10 account managers all deciding they're going to do their own thing because that's chaos and then measuring, you know, implementing some of those things we talked about already. All right, love it. So let's talk, wrap this up with a rapid fire round, quick five questions. Right? What's one thing you wish people would stop doing at QBRs?

I wish the buyers would just be really honest and say, do you know what? You manage our facilities, you're a great supplier, do a brilliant job and we'll look after you. So love it. The word partnership.

I hadn't thought about it in that terms but you're right. I mean it is kind of overused and yeah, sometimes it's you just a supplier. What's the most overrated qbr? Best practice.

Let's bring in Be Cheese Michael Mary and think that that's going to wow someone.

Oh yeah, I love that. Dragging people along to meetings that they're not really at.

Roll out the red carpet. We've got the, the big, big chiefs in town this month. Let's, let's see if we can shove them into any QBRs we've got in the city this month.

Yeah.

And then you turn up with a QBR and there's the, you know, the local site manager there to meet with the C suite.

Yeah.

Can't force that on people. That takes proper time. We've got a CXX coming over in six months time. You know, different, different relationships, different meetings. Don't, don't try and shove and shoehorn C level person or very big company into a QBR and they don't need to be great.

I love that. Wheeling out the big guns for no reason at all. What's the value? Why are they there? What are they going to say? What are they going to do? And then what are you going to do after? It's not just a meet and greet. It's a waste of time.

Yeah, love it.

Most underrated skill for delivering a killer QBR.

One pager brevity, one pager. Most, most businesses if you said you got 10 minutes to prepare this one, most account key account managers said, right, you got 10 minutes. We forgot we had a QBR in 10 minutes. Go prepare one pager. That's got, you know, challenges, opportunities, discussion points, future. Then nail it. Good. Key account managers would.

So I'm going to add silence to that, I think. Yeah, we. Silence forces the client to feel it. You know, they'll do more talking if you just shut up. You don't have to fill the size. You don't have to jump in every time something. You got a thought in your head. Have you got a favorite unexpected question to ask during a qbr? Beyond, you know, like the obviously, like what keeps you up at night?

Yeah. So we're, we're sometimes very nervous about asking this question. You know, how likely are you to review our contract?

Okay. Speaking earlier about.

Speaking earlier about measuring. We should be measuring this on a regular basis.

Yeah. A lot of people don't want to ask those blunt questions, but I'm a big fan of it. You know, sometimes clients ask for things and I'm like, listen, they can do. Sorry, this is why. Or hey, I really want to make sure we renew at the end of the year. I know contracts up in December. What do I need to, you know, come and get the steps in motion now? What do you know? What do I need to do to make sure that that's a no brainer when the time comes? Why not ask the question? My favorite thing to ask is I want to make sure that you look great to your boss at the end of the year. What's. What is the biggest thing that you need to achieve to make sure you get your bonus, to make sure that you keep your boss happy? I'll do whatever I can to help you get there because I want to know what's going on beyond just even if it has nothing to do with me, I still want to know. Maybe I've got friends in the industry. Maybe I've done this in another capacity. Might be able to just offer them some free advice or if I come across something in the future. I've done that with many clients where I've just sent them a report. I'm like, oh, you mentioned you were doing that. Here's something I found on the Internet. Little things, but I think that's my favorite. In a business review, what's one word you'd use to describe a world class qbr?

Clarity.

Clarity. I'm going to say actionable.

Right.

What's the one biggest takeaway you want our audience to leave with today when it comes to QBRs?

So the first one is go and have a look there. The second one is think about those building blocks. Think about those building blocks. What needs to be in there, what doesn't need to be in there and what sits on top of it is that one pager that gives you stuff as actionable as you said earlier, that, you know, there's brevity just, just all the building blocks it gives you that you focus on that one pager that sits on top. Yeah, go and go and take a look at our site and you'll see a wealth of information and education there about what good looks like.

Actually, no, you just reminded me I have an article and a video on YouTube about I think it's called your QBR is boring and just not so much about what goes in it but just how to make it more interesting. Exciting and kind of get that people are showing up. So check that out, guys. All right, Cam Fam, thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the Cam Club podcast. Don't forget to check out the show notes. Don't forget to check out clientshare website. Don't forget to download the research. I'll pop a link to all of that in the show notes. Don't forget to check out my video. So your QBRs are no longer boring. And yeah, I'm going to see you in another episode real soon. And thanks so much, James, for joining me.