Imagine steering a ship without regularly checking your course. You’d likely end up far from your intended destination, stranded on an island.
For sales leaders like VPs and directors of sales, pipeline reviews during Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) are essential course corrections. These meetings offer a clear view of each deal, allowing you to identify risks and opportunities, adjust strategies, and focus on promising prospects. With a close understanding of your pipeline’s health, you can make informed decisions, improve forecast accuracy, and drive your team to exceed targets.
Bill Dwoinen, Chief Revenue Officer at Mural shares his take:
“QBRs have always been a key motion across sales teams. They serve as a great opportunity to reflect and plan on the successes and learnings from a given quarter. I have seen them become even more important and act as a way to bring teams together in situations where teams are distributed.”
Our team has distilled the QBR process into three role-specific guides:
- Sales leaders: Guide leaders, managers and reps through pipeline reviews for strategic alignment and precise forecasting. The focus of this guide is on internal QBRs.
- Sales managers: Coach your team to diagnose pipeline issues and ensure accountability at every level. The focus of this guide is on external QBRs.
- Account managers: Transform customer conversations into actionable insights, driving retention and long-term growth. The focus of this guide is on external QBRs.
In this post, we’ll explore how sales leaders can transform QBRs to be collaborative, visual, and empowering, not grueling critique sessions.
Why do QBRs matter?
QBRs, held every three months, help you better align your sales team with the company’s strategic objectives and make data-driven decisions. In fact, 75% of organizations that run QBRs say they’re better at managing risk and identifying opportunities.
Carolyn Bates Hogan, AVP of Expansion and Strategic Accounts at Mural, breaks down the purpose of running internal QBR meetings:
“The main goal of a QBR is that the team leaves with a clear, actionable, goal-oriented plan to achieve their targets. Leveling up learning from the field can help leadership make more informed decisions as it relates to go-to-market strategy.
‘How’s the team performing to date? Did they do what they said they were going to do last quarter? What’s their go-forward plan? What blockers exist and where can I help? How can the business better support them?’
After a week of QBRs, everyone should have a plan of attack so they’re ready to run, and leaders know exactly where to prioritize their involvement.”
Internal QBRs focus your team on the deals that matter, with the goal of driving better alignment with your customers. This internal work makes sure your sales team is centered on improving client relationships and achieving customer goals to cultivate long-term loyalty.
Why is a pipeline review so critical?
At the heart of QBRs are pipeline reviews. When your revenue forecasts need constant revision or your strategic initiatives don’t work, it may be that your team needs to better understand the state of your sales pipeline.
Bill explains why pipeline reviews are so critical to sales leaders:
“Pipeline is a key indicator of the health of the business within a given quarter, and a predictor for future quarters. Pipeline coverage is a key metric sales leaders track. It is also a good indicator if your teams are meeting with the right people and contacts. If activity is happening but pipeline is not, it provides a coachable moment for leaders to help tweak outreach and activity strategy.”
A pipeline review should go beyond surface-level updates. As a leader, encourage your team to provide a realistic, data-backed assessment so you can make strategic adjustments. A proactive approach involves:
- Spotting potential risks before they become critical issues
- Ensuring your sales team is prioritizing the right deals
- Refining forecasting models informed by conversion rates and cycle times
- Allocating resources effectively based on need
Pipeline reviews drive accountability and guide your decision-making. Importantly, they ensure every stakeholder is aligned, from sales reps to your executive team.
5 stages for collaborative QBRs and pipeline reviews
Let’s explore a five-stage process for running collaborative QBRs, with a focus on why analyzing your pipeline sales is so important.
Bill says:
“A great QBR creates a moment in time that allows leaders and teams to do the things they should do anyway when it comes to reflection and planning. Two great ways to measure this: If someone shares something they learned about their business; if they learned something from one of their peers (which is one of the greatest takeaways that can happen.)”
Stage 1: Preparation
The goal is for every participant to come into the meeting with a clear understanding of the current landscape. Preparation in advance means you’ll all have a more productive QBR session.
Schedule syncs: To ensure alignment, ask sales managers to hold pre-QBR syncs with their teams. Set up a dedicated pre-QBR mural, duplicating the Quarterly Business Review template for each team or rep. Teams can import data and charts from spreadsheets, add sticky notes with key questions, and invite comments from other executives. An interactive workspace means your meeting begins with full context and clear discussion topics.
Assign pre-work: Ask sales managers or reps to record short videos walking through their QBR murals, summarizing revenue trends, forecast accuracy, and top pipeline risks. Reps should outline their top deals, noting deal stages, blockers, and next steps.
Sales, marketing, customer success, and product teams can add data on campaign impact, competitive trends, and upcoming launches that may influence pipeline movement. Other departments and peers can then review videos and murals, and add their reactions and questions in advance of the live meeting.
Find themes: Your live discussions should focus on refining deal narratives, identifying common challenges, and aligning on key discussion points. In advance, leadership and managers should spot patterns in pre-work across teams, and surface strategic questions. You’ll save time during the QBR and focus on forward-looking decisions.
Stage 2: Performance review
The performance review is often the first part of the live QBR meeting. The past quarter’s results, along with insights from the pre-work, will provide a foundation for an interactive discussion.
Analyze metrics: Companies that leverage customer analytics are 23 times more likely to acquire customers, and 19 times more likely to achieve profitability, according to McKinsey. Start with key metrics such as revenue growth, win/loss rates, and forecast accuracy. From there, compare current performance against set targets and historical trends for a comprehensive view. During the meeting, explore questions like:
- “How did our revenue metrics compare to our targets and historical trends?”
- “What factors contributed to our win rates this quarter?”
- “Where did we fall short in our forecast accuracy and why?”
Use visuals: Graphs and dashboards make data easier to understand, especially when they can be easily marked up live during the session in a mural. Visuals like revenue trend graphs or forecast line graphs highlight patterns and outliers that aren’t immediately obvious from raw data. Encourage your attendees to annotate the visuals via comments or stickies during the session. You might ask guiding questions like:
- “What patterns are we seeing that could indicate a trend?”
- “Based on these patterns, what are your observations and recommendations?”
Share insights: Engage the broader go-to-market leadership team, including members from marketing, customer success, and product departments. Invite them to review the data and facilitate discussions on accomplishments and areas needing improvement. In particular, your customer success partners can offer key data points and insights about a customer’s health, usage patterns, and overall satisfaction.
Diverse perspectives will clarify how different departmental activities influence the metrics. Consider including more voices by running a hybrid session, where some team members call in on video, while others attend live. Try asking:
- “What competitive strategies have we implemented effectively?”
- “Can you share how tracking customer metrics, like churn rate, has influenced our customer retention strategies?”
- “How did marketing campaigns positively influence our pipeline and sales results?”
- “What should we prioritize next to capitalize on these successes?”
Stage 3: Pipeline review
A pipeline review is a structured, interactive process, and a chance for your team to be closely aligned on ideal customers, messaging, and deal execution. As a sales leader, your role is to guide the team through collaborative pipeline management, not to run through the data yourself. Challenge assumptions, cheer the team on, and help the team to make informed, strategic decisions.
Keep in mind the importance of positive framing during the pipeline review to cultivate productive energy. Carolyn explains:
“As a leader and facilitator of a QBR, you want to foster an environment of dialogue and inspiration. It’s not just about data or critique; it’s about energizing the room. If your reps feel comfortable contributing and the team walks away motivated, you nailed it.
I’m a big believer in healthy tension: pushing the team to see things differently without discouraging them. I’m also empathetic to the fact that public speaking, especially in front of peers, can be stressful. I like to highlight what the rep is doing well to steer the team’s focus and emphasize what matters, but save real critique for one-on-one.”
Take a high-level view: Encourage reps and managers to walk through deal distribution across stages and key metrics like total pipeline value and quarter-over-quarter growth. Assess deal health, conversion rates, and sales velocity to spot bottlenecks, and incorporate competitive factors and customer insights. Your team can use Mural’s Swimlane diagram template to improve pipeline visibility and make it easier for leaders to see where quick action is needed.
Help your team think critically about trends by asking:
- “Do we have a healthy mix of opportunities to buffer against unforeseen market shifts?”
- “What strategies can we develop to accelerate deal movement and shorten the sales cycle?”
- “Are we observing any shifts in deal size, sales cycle length, or close rates?”
Dive in deal-by-deal: Now, shift the focus to specific deals that require attention. Your role is to challenge assumptions and ensure accountability. If a rep insists that a stalled deal is still likely to close, ask for concrete evidence. If a deal has been sitting at the same stage for multiple cycles, question whether it’s truly viable. As you move from deal to deal, use icons or color-coding in Mural. Note high-risk deals, late-stage deals that need attention, and early-stage opportunities that require nurturing.
Carolyn recommends framing questions to cultivate a natural and productive conversation, without overt criticism or defensiveness:
“‘Where do you feel like there’s risk in the deal? What do you think needs to happen to remove and/or mitigate that risk?’
‘If you had unlimited resources, how would you invest in the client to drive growth? Why?’
‘If there’s something that could speed up the deal and/or create more momentum, what would it be?’
Asking open-ended, thought-provoking questions makes QBRs more collaborative. And it allows me, as a sales leader, a natural opportunity to provide feedback.”
Additional questions you might ask include:
- “How is your pipeline growing this quarter? Are you seeing a healthy rate of new opportunities coming in?”
- “What strategies have you found effective in overcoming roadblocks for closing high-value deals?”
- “What steps are you taking to make sure deals are moving efficiently through each stage of the pipeline?”
- “Have you noticed any positive shifts in deal size, sales cycle length, or close rates in your current pipeline? What do you attribute these shifts to?”
Adjust the forecast: Use your learnings from the pipeline review to refine your sales forecast. Ask your team to highlight key takeaways, such as deal progression, roadblocks, and shifts in pipeline metrics, so you can reallocate resources to high-priority deals.
Clearly map out adjustments in the overall sales forecast to provide a more accurate revenue prediction. Stress potential impacts on targets and individual goals, and start to make plans based on the updated forecast.
Stage 4: Strategic discussion
Continue to foster an open dialogue as you shift from specific deals to discussing bigger-picture strategies. Encourage the team to refer to prework and previous discussions to pinpoint challenges and brainstorm collaborative solutions. Take this time to align on major initiatives and market trends, using Mural templates to drive your strategic planning.
Explore market trends: Discuss emerging market trends that might impact your industry. Pre-set open-ended questions in a mural to guide the session like a live brainstorming session. Or use a structured template like the SWOT analysis template to evaluate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Analyze the competition: Have your team analyze the competition before the QBR with the Competitive Analysis template. Take time as a group during the QBR to review and consider strategic adjustments.
Assess resources: Consider whether changes in team structure, budget allocation, or technology investments are needed to support your strategic goals. Engage your team in a discussion about current resource utilization and potential reallocation.
As you invite the team to contribute their ideas, use Mural’s voting feature to prioritize strategic initiatives in preparation for your action planning. If your team culture tends to be highly critical or you notice people shy away from contributing when leadership is present, try Private Mode. This will help make your discussion data-driven and inclusive.
Stage 5: Action planning and follow-up
Translating insights into a concrete roadmap for the next quarter is crucial. This final stage of the QBR process involves taking decisions made in the meeting and turning them into actionable items that ultimately strengthen customer relationships.
Define objectives: Outline the key actions for the next quarter with measurable outcomes. Specify what success looks like for each objective. Use Mural’s project planning templates to build visual roadmaps including timelines, task assignments, and key milestones. This internal planning aligns team efforts with customer needs and expectations.
Assign ownership: Each action should have an accountable owner and a clear deadline. After the QBR, use comments to help reps and managers stay up-to-date on any changes made to the mural. Increase accountability by connecting your murals with your preferred project management tool.
Plan for follow-up: Work with your sales managers to set dates for weekly updates, monthly reviews, or specific milestone check-ins. A visual roadmap will help you monitor progress and increase transparency. Clear ownership and timelines prioritize actions that drive better customer engagement.
Use Mural to transform your QBRs
Bill reminds us that QBRs are a key mechanism for alignment on sales teams:
“For 12+ years, Mural has played a key role in driving alignment, action, and collaboration across the lifecycle of an event like a QBR. The most important part of a QBR is what happens after, and Mural is at the center of that action and alignment.
If sales leaders and sellers do not see action and alignment post-QBR, people will lose enthusiasm for them. And more importantly, there will no action on corrective measures to get a business on the right track.”
Well-structured QBRs with effective pipeline reviews are powerful tools for any sales leader. With a more collaborative process, sales leaders can uncover new opportunities and keep everyone aligned with the big picture.
You can achieve more with an inclusive approach and visual collaboration with Mural. Transform your routine quarterly reviews into dynamic sessions that drive alignment and growth, starting with the quarterly business review template. (Share it with your team!)
Contact us for a demo, or to learn more about visual collaboration for sales teams.
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