The Perfect Weekly Update

When I first got into sales, I joined a brand new, Chicago-based team for an SF based company. We operated on our own island, had our own culture, and weren’t super privy to what was going on at headquarters.

And, if my boss wasn’t communicating our progress to other folks in the company, no one would know what our team was doing or what kind of impact our team was having on the business. 

But, my boss understood the importance of intentional communication and one of the vehicles he used to communicate effectively was a weekly update email.

Now, you may be rolling your eyes or groaning in annoyance about the idea of sending out an update, but here me out real quick.

I’ve been in situations where I didn’t send out a weekly update and it came back to bite me in my derriere:

• Programs were built and processes were rolled out without consideration of my team
• Narratives were socialized that didn’t accurately reflect how my team was doing
• The need to build trust with stakeholders felt like fighting fires

Trust me – or don’t – having a weekly update can help big time in making sure your team’s performance, impact, needs and credibility are accurately portrayed! 

Now, let’s dig into where to begin if you want to create a weekly update…

The Structure

When structuring your weekly update, consider the following:

• Wins & Recognition
• Performance
• Insights
• Asks 

Wins & Recognition

I’m a sucker for starting things off with wins and recognition!

It’s a great way to showcase what your team is doing well. It also helps people perceive you and your team from the lens of success. 

When thinking about what kinds of wins to showcase, here are a few items to consider:

• Notable logos – whether it’s a deal closed or a meeting set, if your team is progressing conversations with a notable logo, shout that out!
• Notable deal sizes – if one of your reps has brought in a bigger than average deal or had a larger than life week of production, let people know about it!
• Customer feedback – if your reps are getting great feedback about the customer experience, that’s a great way to highlight your team’s weekly wins!

And for recognition, this is a great opportunity to get members of your team spotlighted when recognition is due! Consider:

• New personal record – if someone on your team is beating out what they’ve done in the past, that deserves some kudos!
• Overachieving on leading indicators of success – if your team has an opportunities created goal for the week and someone exceeds that in a week, get them a shoutout!
• Tactics that are winning – if someone on your team is coming up with new ways to be successful and it’s working really well, socialize their ingenuity and proactiveness!

Performance

This can be really straightforward – be transparent about how your team is doing against quota. The format can be as simple as:

• Quota: $X
• Actual: $Y
• Attainment: Y%

Note: it can be really scary to share how you’re performing in an email when you’re not performing well. That’s real. And, IMO it’s better to be the person who reports things first so it doesn’t seem like you’re trying to hide something. 

Insights

The problem with reporting on quota, actuals and attainment alone is that it doesn’t tell a story. It only shows a snapshot in time…this is where insights come in.

Insights break down the walls that keep people from understanding what’s happening in your business. They illuminate a story of where your team is coming from, where they’re at today, and what people should expect moving forward. 

This requires you to really understand how to extrapolate insights from your data…but that’s for another newsletter 😎.

What I can tell you about insights today is to focus on themes and trends for your team. For example, let’s say, your team has been struggling to convert prospects at a specific point in the sales cycle and you’ve come up with a plan to increase conversions at that stage. This is a great insight to share in your weekly update using the following format:

“We’re seeing a lower than average conversion rate at Stage X because of {{blocker}}. Moving forward, the team will {{action to increase conversion rate}} at Stage X. This will help our team increase the conversion rate at Stage X, resulting in {{impact, i.e. increase in late stage opportunity conversion}}.”

🏀 Assist: It might take some practice to derive meaningful insights from your team’s performance if you’ve never exercised this muscle before. If you’re struggling with coming up with insights or are unsure where to start, I’d highly recommend finding a coworker who is really great at understanding data and extracting insights from them. Maybe this is a peer, a sales operations partner, or someone higher up. 

Asks

The last part of a great weekly update is letting people know what you and your team need and deserve by making an ask. 

When thinking about your ‘asks’, here are some great reflection questions:

• Which parts of the business impact your team’s ability to deliver a high quality work product? What ways can they help your team deliver faster?
• What processes, if any, are inhibiting your team’s ability to progress against goals? 
• What approaches, if any, do you need help doubling down on to take advantage of opportunities?

In reflecting on how others can help support your team better, you’ll put yourself and your team in a position to:

• Get people invested in your team more
• Find solutions to problems faster
• Get additional support and/or resources instead of trying to do everything alone

Wrapping up

What I shared today is just one way you can structure your weekly updates. Maybe there are aspects you’d want to include that you don’t see reflected in my suggestions – go for what makes sense for you, your team, and the way your business works!

And if you’re open to it, let me know what you would add, amend or remove from what I’ve suggested!