How to Run a Sales QBR for Your Team (90-Minute Agenda and Pre-Work Template)

Let’s be real. I hate QBRs.

I’ve probably wasted close to a year of my life prepping for them and sitting in them, just to watch leaders play performative politics.

There’s nothing worse than your boss’s boss, or their boss, flying in to judge your business when they aren’t part of it day to day.

I’ve had leaders grill me on my metrics and my plan when I was the top performer. When I called it out, they realized they’d spent 30 minutes berating their top performer.

I’ve had leaders talk about committing in blood, like sales is some sort of life-or-death sport. Want to create an environment of trust where people can do their best work? Start there.

I’ve watched leaders nitpick every misspelling and minor flaw in a plan just to feel relevant.

None of that helps anyone. Nothing wastes more time, or costs more, than dragging an entire team and its leadership through a pointless meeting.

But I’ve also been part of a few great QBRs. Ones where the team actually learns, aligns, and walks out with a plan they can execute and the real support they need to win.

This post shows you how to run that kind.

One note before we start: this is the internal sales team QBR, the one a sales leader runs with their own sellers. Not the customer QBR you run with a client.

What a Sales QBR Is (and Isn’t)

A QBR is a structured review of the business and a forward plan for the next 90 days.

In sales, it blends three things:

1. Performance review. What happened, what drove it, and what we learned.
2. In-quarter clarity. What we’re calling now, what’s at risk, and what needs leadership attention.
3. Forward plan. How we build the next quarter, what we’ll focus on, and where leadership will invest time.

Here’s what it isn’t.

A QBR is not a pipeline interrogation.

It’s not “defend your deals.”

It’s not “let’s color code everything live for an hour.”

And it’s definitely not a leadership ego show.

When a QBR becomes a quiz, the output is predictable:

• More pressure, less truth
• More talking, less strategy
• More puffery, fewer decisions

What a QBR Should Include: The Four Outputs

Start with the end. A QBR succeeds if you leave with four outputs:

Output	What it covers
1. A revised in-quarter call	What we’re committing to now, what’s upside, what changed.
2. A short list of deal-level actions	Owners, dates, and what “done” means.
3. A 90-day plan	Pipeline creation targets, focus segments, top plays, and where leadership will spend time.
4. A learning loop	What worked, what failed, what we’ll repeat, where we need help, and what we’ll stop doing.

If you walk out without those four, you held a meeting. You didn’t hold a QBR.

The Deal Management Upgrade: Pre-Color-Coded Deals

Deal Management makes QBRs clean because it creates a shared language.

Instead of vague opinions, you’re looking at:

• Status
• Evidence
• Risk
• Plan
• Actions

Here’s the standard. QBRs focus on the deals that matter most: top-quartile deals, top logos, needle movers. Not the whole pipeline.

Each deal comes to the table:

• Pre-color coded
• With risks named
• Gaps made explicit
• Help requested clearly
• Action plan ready to agree on

This isn’t about making reps do more work. It’s about making your time together actually produce leverage.

If that sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same standard as a MEDDPICC deal review, applied to the handful of deals that can move the quarter. For the color-coding definitions, use the free MEDDPICC Scorecard.

The Pre-Work: Sent 48 Hours Before to Everyone Joining

A QBR becomes valuable when it’s structured, prepared and decisive.

Pre-work is required, and it goes out at least 48 hours before, to everyone joining. When I’ve run high-performing teams, I asked for it even earlier. Not the night before. A week or two in advance.

I wanted clean thinking, clear deal analysis and honest reflection before we ever got in a room.

Here’s the pre-work each seller completes. Copy it into a doc.

Sales QBR pre-work: [Seller name], [Quarter]

Section	What to include	Your answer
Major Learnings	What did we learn?
	What will we stop doing?
	What will we start doing?
	What help is needed?
Forecast and Deals	YTD recap (revenue, deals, attainment, gap)
	Last quarter call vs. actual
	This quarter call
	Top deals, color coded, with details
Pipeline Coverage Plan	Target accounts
	Deals in flight
	Critical actions
	Gap to annual plan, and your big-picture plan to get there (founded in solid pipeline math)

For each top deal, follow the same sequence you’ll present in the room:

Deal	Executive summary (what it is, why it matters, where it sits, timeline)	Color-coded view (elements, evidence, gaps, risks)	The asks (where I need help, what I’m doing)

The 90-Minute QBR Agenda (Per Seller)

Each person gets 90 minutes. Here’s how it runs:

Time	Block	What happens
10 min	Major Learnings	What we learned, what we’ll stop, what we’ll start, what help is needed.
60 min	Forecast and Deals	The top deals, one at a time, in the same review sequence.
15 min	Pipeline Coverage Plan	Deals in qualified pipeline, target accounts and the pipeline generation plan.
5 min	Commitments and Next Steps	Owners, dates and follow-up actions, written down.

The 60-minute deal block

This is the heart of the QBR. Each deal follows the same review sequence:

• Executive summary: what the deal is, why it matters, where it sits, and the timeline.
• Deal management view: color-coded elements, evidence, gaps and risks.
• The asks: here’s where I need help, and here’s what I’m doing.
• The room engages: targeted questions. Pressure-test green. Turn assumptions into facts. Add leverage.
• Commit: agree on actions, owners and dates.

Same sequence, every deal. That’s what keeps it from becoming a live interrogation.

The 15-minute pipeline coverage plan

This is all about how the seller will make up any gaps, over-perform and hit their annual number. Deals in qualified pipeline, target accounts, and the pipeline generation plan to get there.

The 5-minute close

Write down owners, dates and follow-up actions. If it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen.

The Rules That Keep QBRs Clean

Every operating rhythm has one job. Keep them separate:

• Forecast calls are where you report reality.
• Deal reviews are where you swarm one deal deeply.
• QBRs are where you learn, align and commit to a 90-day plan, and you only go deep on the deals that can actually move the quarter.

Keep those purposes clean, and the QBR can become one of the most valuable meetings you run.

Blur them, and QBRs become expensive chaos.

Six Pro Tips to Make QBRs Actually Valuable

1. Poll the team before you build the agenda

Run a quick pre-QBR pulse:

• What do you want to learn?
• What’s the hardest part of your job right now?
• What’s one deal pattern you keep seeing?
• What’s one thing you want leadership to fix?

Then design the QBR to answer those things.

2. Keep a rolling Asks Log

Keep one running list across the whole meeting:

• Asks from reps
• Process friction
• Product gaps that need surfacing
• Deal desk or legal bottlenecks
• Additional training that becomes apparent

Share it with the team when you’re done, and report back in team meetings on the actions you took. This makes the time valuable and shows the team you’re on their side.

3. Teach one thing every QBR

Most orgs use QBRs to review. High-performing orgs use QBRs to review and improve.

Pick one skill to sharpen:

• Executive conversations
• Competitive positioning
• Business case building
• Commercial process and procurement traps
• Discovery depth and second-level questioning
• Running mutual action plans

Bonus points if you rotate who teaches. It builds cross-functional relationships, gives team members visibility, and lets you spotlight each person’s strengths. I’ve seen these run an hour. I’ve seen half-day deep dives. It depends on what the team needs.

Your job isn’t to do everything. It’s to create the space for a good meeting to happen.

4. Bring in a guest when it will move the needle

Guest speakers aren’t “cool.” They’re leverage when they’re aligned to what the team is struggling with:

• Marketing to explain how to request and use account-based air cover
• A finance partner to teach deal structure and negotiation tactics
• An SE leader to teach POV design and technical win strategy
• A top seller to teach how they run a specific play

5. Build a recognition loop

Catch people doing things right. Recognize outcomes, but also recognize the behaviors you want repeated. That’s what makes your operating standards real.

6. Plan fun on purpose

Team building isn’t fluff. It’s part of the operating rhythm.

If the team is grinding, plan recovery. If the team is disconnected, plan connection. If the team is tense, plan something that resets the emotional tone.

Sometimes the Best QBR Is One You Don’t Run

Most of the value in a QBR isn’t in the QBR itself. It’s in the prep.

And a funny thing happens once the prep is done: the meeting itself can sometimes become optional.

There were times I reviewed everyone’s QBR prep, saw the business clearly, understood the risks, saw the plan, and realized the team didn’t need days of talking about deals and strategy.

They needed recovery.

So I surprise-canceled the QBR when they arrived. Instead, I turned it into a few days of team building, time off and fun. What the team needed more in that moment was rest, connection and a reset.

That’s the point.

The format is flexible. The outputs are not.

If the team can produce clarity, risk assessment, plans and commitments through prep, you earn the right to change things up. Leadership is about knowing your team and showing up as the leader they need.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a sales QBR include?

A look back (performance and learnings), in-quarter clarity (the current call and what’s at risk), and a forward 90-day plan. It should produce four outputs: a revised in-quarter call, deal-level actions with owners and dates, a 90-day plan, and a learning loop.

How long should a sales QBR be?

Budget 90 minutes per seller: 10 minutes on major learnings, 60 on forecast and deals, 15 on the pipeline coverage plan, and 5 on commitments. The format is flexible. The outputs are not.

What’s the difference between a sales QBR and a customer QBR?

This post covers the internal sales team QBR, where a leader reviews the business and plans the next 90 days with their own sellers. A customer QBR is a review you run with a client. Different audience, different job.

The Bottom Line

A QBR isn’t a stage for leaders. It’s a working session for the team.

Send the pre-work early. Color code the deals that can move the quarter. Keep one sequence for every deal. Log the asks and report back. Teach one thing. And leave with a revised call, deal actions, a 90-day plan and a learning loop.

Deal reviews, 1:1s, forecast calls and QBRs each get their own playbook in Section 3 of the book. For the weekly rhythm that feeds your QBR, see how to run a forecast call and how to run a MEDDPICC deal review.