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QBRs Don’t Have to Suck
Episode 11
, published
November 15, 2024
With Alex Raymond
·
Founder and Host
,
AMplify
<p>“Most QBRs suck,” says Alex Raymond, calling out the truth that too many Quarterly Business Reviews are boring, one-sided, and lack real impact. But what if <a href="https://amplifyam.com/resources/what-is-a-qbr">QBRs</a> could be more? In this episode, Alex gets into why so many of these high-stakes meetings fall flat. Are outdated beliefs holding you back from having the kind of QBRs your clients want? Alex uncovers four common missteps: seeing QBRs as presentations, handling them solo, taking a defensive stance, and focusing too much on past results.</p><p></p><p>Imagine instead a QBR where the focus is on the client’s goals, where data is shared in advance, and where the agenda is co-created with the client. Through practical shifts like these, account managers can turn QBRs into dynamic conversations that build trust and foster genuine partnership. Alex’s advice on limiting presentation time, encouraging real dialogue, and setting clear next steps brings fresh insight on how to make these meetings truly valuable. How often do you reconsider the structure and purpose of your QBRs? For those eager to level up, this episode provides a preview of Amplify’s upcoming QBR Mastery program in January 2025, designed to help account managers make every meeting count.</p><p></p><p><strong>Quotes</strong></p><ul role="list"><li>“If your QBRs are nothing but a 60-minute monologue, you’re missing a massive opportunity. And not only are you wasting your client’s time, you’re also losing a chance to position yourself as a true strategic advisor to them.” (03:38 | Alex Raymond)</li><li>“If you’re thinking about the QBR as just a presentation about you, you’re thinking about it all wrong. And frankly, it’s not even a presentation; it’s meant to be a conversation. I’d like to invite you to reframe this and think about how we can use the QBR to align with our customer and create a dialogue.” (06:52 | Alex Raymond) </li><li>“Let’s make our QBRs forward-looking. This is an opportunity to strategize together, to look down the road ahead, and to use this time to ask open-ended questions about your customer—their future goals, needs, and challenges. It’s a chance to figure out what it will look like as we work together to achieve these goals. That mental shift creates a real partnership, where both sides are committed and focused on concrete goals that lead to long-term success.” (14:27 | Alex Raymond) </li><li>“If we want to make our QBRs truly valuable, we’ve got to ditch this idea that it’s a presentation—that our job is just to ‘show up and throw up.’ That’s not the idea at all. We also need to remember, we’re not here to do all the work ourselves. We have to enroll our customers and get them to do their share of work as well.” (25:04 | Alex Raymond)</li></ul><p></p><p><strong>Links</strong></p><p><strong>Connect with Alex Raymond:</strong></p><p>LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/<br/></a></p><p>Website: <a href="https://amplifyam.com/">https://amplifyam.com/</a></p><p></p><p></p><p><a href="http://hivecast.fm">Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm</a></p><p></p></div><p class="section-label">Go deeper:</p><a href="https://amplifyam.com/resources/what-is-a-qbr">Quarterly Business Reviews — Complete Guide</a><script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"PodcastEpisode","@id":"https://amplifyam.com/account-management-secrets/qbrs-dont-have-to-suck-alex-raymond#episode","name":"QBRs Don’t Have to Suck","url":"https://amplifyam.com/account-management-secrets/qbrs-dont-have-to-suck-alex-raymond","datePublished":"2024-11-15","episodeNumber":11,"partOfSeries":{"@id":"https://amplifyam.com/podcast"},"author":{"@id":"https://amplifyam.com/about"},"description":"Solo: the four dysfunctional beliefs behind bad QBRs and five tactics, including cadence set by segment rather than every 90 days","about":[{"@type":"Thing","name":"Quarterly Business Reviews"},{"@type":"Thing","name":"Executive engagement in Account Management"}]},{"@type":"PodcastSeries","@id":"https://amplifyam.com/podcast","name":"Account Management Secrets","url":"https://amplifyam.com/podcast"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https://amplifyam.com/about","name":"Alex Raymond","jobTitle":"Founder","worksFor":{"@type":"Organization","name":"AMplify"},"url":"https://amplifyam.com/about","sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/"]}]}</script><h3 class="section-label">Related episodes</h3><div class="w-dyn-list"><div role="list" class="w-dyn-items"><div role="listitem" class="w-dyn-item"><a href="https://amplifyam.com/account-management-secrets/using-executive-results-reviews-to-drive-growth-robert-sproule" class="related-ep-link w-inline-block"><p class="rel-ep-piece rel-ep-num">Episode 44</p><p class="rel-ep-piece rel-ep-sep">: </p><p class="rel-ep-piece rel-ep-title">Using Executive Results Reviews to Drive Growth</p><p class="rel-ep-guest">With Robert Sproule</p></a></div><div role="listitem" class="w-dyn-item"><a href="https://amplifyam.com/account-management-secrets/qbrs-on-a-cocktail-napkin-the-art-of-executive-simplicity-carl-lenocker" class="related-ep-link w-inline-block"><p class="rel-ep-piece rel-ep-num">Episode 62</p><p class="rel-ep-piece rel-ep-sep">: </p><p class="rel-ep-piece rel-ep-title">QBRs on a Cocktail Napkin: The Art of Executive Simplicity</p><p class="rel-ep-guest">With Carl Lenocker</p></a></div></div></div></div></div><div class="grid-info-wrapper"><div class="blog-newsletter-form-wrapper"><div class="blog-newsletter-form-sticky"><div class="newsletter-card blog"><div class="newsletter-form w-form"><form id="email-form" name="wf-form-[OK]-Newsletter-form" data-name="[OK] Newsletter form" method="get" data-webflow-hubspot-api-form-url="https://hubspotonwebflow.com/api/forms/7041a59e-61fb-43e8-b7c9-338b1e84bc20" class="webinar-form" data-wf-page-id="69e655ded5482c966aba40b0" data-wf-element-id="ebe4f705-ceb8-1602-eeab-855aa3333c9e" data-turnstile-sitekey="0x4AAAAAAAQTptj2So4dx43e"><h3 id="newsletter-form" class="text-align-center-2">Subscribe to the Newsletter</h3><div class="w-layout-blockcontainer container-news w-container"><input class="text-field-8 w-input" data-wfhsfieldname="FormTextInput-2" maxlength="256" name="First-name" data-name="First name" placeholder="First Name" type="text" id="First-name" required=""/><input class="text-field-8 w-input" data-wfhsfieldname="FormTextInput-2" maxlength="256" name="Last-Name" data-name="Last Name" placeholder="Last Name" type="text" id="Last-Name" required=""/><input class="text-field-8 w-input" data-wfhsfieldname="FormTextInput-2" maxlength="256" name="email" data-name="Email" placeholder="Email" type="email" id="email" required=""/></div><input type="submit" data-wait="Please wait..." class="main-button w-button" value="Subscribe"/><a data-w-id="ebe4f705-ceb8-1602-eeab-855aa3333ca6" href="#" class="link-block-2 w-inline-block"></a><input type="hidden" name="hutk" value=""/><input type="hidden" name="ipAddress" value=""/><input type="hidden" name="pageUri" value=""/><input type="hidden" name="pageId" value=""/><input type="hidden" name="pageName" value=""/></form><div class="form-message-success w-form-done"><a data-w-id="ebe4f705-ceb8-1602-eeab-855aa3333caf" href="#" class="link-block-2 w-inline-block"><div class="close-text">+</div></a><div>Thank you!<br/><br/>Next Tuesday, you will receive the next Account Management Secrets newsletter.</div></div><div class="w-form-fail"><div>Oops! 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