Six Steps To Winning

This is the Unbreakable Business newsletter - created just for COOs and Operations Teams who want to build a company that won’t fall apart.

This is Part II of my Quarterly Planning series - if you missed the first one, check it out - you’ll grab the “why” behind my process as well as some nuggets on effective goal setting.

Today, we’re diving into the details:

• 🤝 The exact questions and exercises I use to drive alignment in every planning session.

• 🔑 My “key issues” consolidation process to ensure that we’re prioritizing the right work at the right time.

• 🗜️ The specific constraints that I apply to team leaders that makes sure we don’t bite off more than we can chew.

Enjoy!!

🤔 How Do I Make This Meeting Not Suck?

Well, I’m glad you asked 😂 

First off, use my template - it’s right here.

But a template without the right experience is just another sad Google Doc.

This email will show you exactly how to nail your Quarterly Planning.

If you’re the video type, I made a quick one on my YouTube channel that covers the six key parts of a rock solid Quarterly Planning meeting:

Make sure you subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss any more of these - I’ve got a new video out every Wednesday!

NOW THEN…

There are two keys to running a killer Quarterly Planning meeting:

1. Knowing the format, running the format, and nailing it quarter over quarter.

2. Becoming an solid meeting facilitator (which is a legit skill, separate from being good at running a business).

And by the end of this issue, you’ll have a great start on both.

📒 The Quarterly Planning Format

Preparation

• Set aside four hours for the call. No distractions, no interruptions.

• Create an agenda in Google Docs (or similar) and share it with everyone who is on the call. Make sure they have edit access.

• Add a link to the agenda in the notes of the calendar invite for when someone can’t find it 😂 

• Grab a low-fi playlist from Spotify like this one (more on this later).

Section 1: The Opener

✅ GOAL: Build context across the team and understand everyone’s expectations of the time together.

I put four specific questions inside the agenda:

1. What’s the best news in the business from this quarter?

2. What IS working well in the business today?

3. What is NOT working well in the business today?

4. What are your expectations for this time together?

Put on some tunes from that playlist and give everyone about five minutes to jot down their answers in the doc.

Once that’s done, have each person share their response. Go through everyone for Question 1, then Question 2, and so on.

The main purpose of this is to build alignment and strengthen the “connective tissue” between the participants. The more overlap in their answers, the better alignment your team likely has - and it’s good to explain this on the call if you notice it!

Section 2: The Annual Plan Review

✅ GOAL: Review current annual initiatives, communicate from CEO / exec team, and open Q&A

This section is basically when you make sure that everyone is “up to speed” on the macro business situation.

Especially when you’re doing planning sessions with cross-functional leaders, it’s common for them to have their own versions of “how things are going.”

This is where we level the playing field.

Here’s what I bring to this section to review:

1. A quick “Executive Summary” of the quarter that we’re closing, as well as some thoughts on the mindset that we should have going into the next one (growth, course correction, turnaround, investment, etc).

2. Revenue goals for the company YTD, along with the actuals.

3. A list of major company initiatives for the year, color coded R/Y/G based on how we’re trending for completion.

I’ll run through those items here in this section and then carve out some time for the participants to ask me questions - about anything.

Don’t skip this section - I’ve gotten feedback over and over from participants that it’s incredible helpful for them to know how we as the C-Suite are thinking about the quarter, the business, and what our overall strategy should be.

It’s so tempting to assume that everyone knows what you know. They don’t know anything until you tell them. Build the context that the team needs!

Section 3: The Prior Performance Review

✅ GOAL: Evaluate the current quarter’s goals and KPIs so the team knows how they performed.

This is usually pretty straightforward, and there shouldn’t be any big surprises - if there are, take that as a data point that your weekly rhythms might need some improvement.

The actual contents of this section will change based on which team you’re working with, but here are some high level ideas:

1. Revenue Teams

   1. MQLs / SQLs / other key sales funnel stages

   2. Quota Attainment / Sales bookings by month

   3. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) / CAC Payback Period

   4. Revenue By Channel

2. CS Teams

   1. Net Promoter Score

   2. Net Revenue Retention / Renewals

   3. Support Responsiveness (time to first response, time to resolution, support case happiness, etc)

3. Product Teams

   1. Time to first value / North Star Metric attainment

   2. DAU/WAU/MAU numbers (depending on product)

   3. Adoption of key features launched in current & prior quarter

4. Engineering Teams

   1. Features shipped in current quarter

   2. Defect metrics (new defects, defects resolved, broken down by priority)

   3. Test coverage

   4. Lines of code (just kidding holy shit)

5. People Teams

   1. Average applicants per open role

   2. Average time to fill an open role

   3. Offer acceptance %

   4. eNPS / Employee Engagement scores

6. Finance Teams

   1. Accounts Receivable (DSO, % of revenue at risk, etc)

   2. ARR / Headcount (or Labor Efficiency Ratios if you wanna be cool)

   3. Working Days To Month Close (this is a good one)

Whatever the top 3-4 team KPIs are, review them along with the current quarter’s projects (a.k.a. Big Rocks) and everyone will know where the team stands.

Section 4: The Key Issues Builder

✅ GOAL: Build a categorized list of the Key Issues in the team/business - from your TEAM’S point of view.

It’s not just about where we go…it’s about how we get there.

What I mean by this is simple: even if you personally KNOW all of the key issues in a given team or business, it’s much better for the team dynamics if they list them all out independently, see the alignment, and know that they had a hand in “building the quarter”.

(also, you should be open to the idea that your team might know more about what’s happening than you do, especially at size…)

You run this just like the opening exercise - put some tunes on, open the doc, and have everyone drop their key issues next to their initials.

Sounds easy, right?

Not so fast…as the facilitator, you’ve got another job.

While the lists are getting dropped in the doc, your job is to look for patterns.

Specifically, you should quickly put together a “grouped list” - a single list of the key issues, prioritized according to frequency and impact, below the list that your team is creating.

Once I have that list, I do two things:

1. Address things that don’t make the list: Frequently, team members will drop a TON of things on their lists that aren’t necessarily “Quarterly Rocks” - meaning work products that they can produce. Don’t ignore these things - address them one by one to make sure the team member knows why they’re not making the list.

2. Farm for dissent: Ask the team, “Looking at my list, is there anyone who feels that they’re not being heard?” This gives people one additional chance to speak up if they think there needs to be something added to the grouped list.

What you’ve got at the end of this exercise is a single list of Key Issues to discuss - with the goal of creating your Quarterly Rocks!

Section 5: The Quarterly Rocks

✅ GOAL: Boil down your Key Issues list into the specific outcomes / projects that your team will nail in the upcoming quarter.

If you’ve done a good job grouping your Key Issues list with the team, this part should be pretty easy. I’ve found that the most important work usually presents itself in a pretty obvious way.

The trick here isn’t finding important work to do - it’s adhering to the constraint that I’m about to drop.

In any quarter, restrict your Quarterly Rocks to (2) improvements and only (1) new initiative.

This is a total of 3, for you math nerds out there. And doing 3 brand new things ain’t it either.

The reason is simple - doing new things is usually harder than improving things that already exist, and splitting your focus is a crappy recipe for winning.

The hard truth is that you’re gonna have to say no to some stuff…but what separates the elite operators from the mediocre ones is their ability to prioritize…so pick the one that’s most likely to drive the outcomes you need in order to stay on plan, park the rest, and get after it like a maniac.

When this section is done properly, you’ll have three Quarterly Rocks, each with a specific owner and at least one way to “measure success”.

That’s the key output from this entire session - but instead of just “handing out work”, the team will have helped build the plan - which gives them an unfair advantage that will drive them to achieve greatness - week after week, quarter after quarter, and year after year.

Section 6: The Closer

✅ GOAL: Bring everyone together, share lessons learned, and get candid feedback from the team on how to upgrade the meeting.

Don’t sleep on this part - it’s important!

Run it the same way that you ran the opening exercise - put the jams on, let everyone write their answers down in the doc, and then have them share the replies question-by-question.

Ideally, everyone learned something and you met their expectations - big relief, I’m sure!

But the third question is really where you want to focus - specifically, on how you can upgrade the meeting. Your team will hopefully give you some prompts and ideas on how they can show up better prepared for the call, or ways that you can level up your facilitation in order to make the most of the time together.

🎓 Some Final Thoughts

Don’t forget, the first time you run this, it won’t be perfect. And since you may only get one shot at it per quarter, it might take a year for you to be proficient at it.

But I’ll tell you…it’s worth it.

Being able to rally a team for a quarter-long goal is a superpower, and it’s the rhythm that I’ve used to build and scale all of my companies.

In my current role, I facilitate 5 of these meetings per quarter (with various teams) - and it’s always an awesome chance to come together, talk shop, and plan out our strategy for the upcoming 12 weeks.

Default To Action

1️⃣ Download The Template

It’s all yours - just drive over to this link.

✅ Use the template to drive the meeting - don’t freelance. IMO, building predictability into this process is a key success metric and helps your team do their best work.

2️⃣ Watch The Video

If you learn better by video, I go through this section by section on my YouTube channel. It’s the same video that’s at the top of this email, but I’m dropping it again here for posterity.

✅ Check out the video and subscribe to my channel (shameless plug)

3️⃣ Drop Me A Note

I’m curious about two things:

1. Is Quarterly Planning a high priority for you in your business?

2. Do you have interest in going deeper on this?

I’m thinking about creating a short and inexpensive course on this to teach my process with some greater depth - just let me know if that sounds interesting so I can gauge it before I start building 😉 

✅ Literally hit reply to this email and answer the questions 😂 

Next week, we’ll be changing gears a bit and focusing in on learning - which in itself, is IMO the most valuable skill a person can develop. If you can learn any skill FAST…you win 🏆️ 

Always in your corner,

✌️ MV

📣 Overheard On The Interwebs

2023 Reflection Guide

Loved this post from Dickie Bush - it’s a simple infographic that drops all of his reflection questions when he goes from one year to the next. Give him a follow and enjoy the post!