Kill My Brief finds it before the meeting does. Five questions about the doc, the deck or the QBR you are about to present. One minute. Nothing uploaded.
Point · Receipts · Alternative · Hole · Ask
It is attacking the assumptions underneath it. Every brief that dies in a meeting dies the same way: somebody asks the question the author was hoping nobody would.
POINT: One sentence, and why now. If you cannot say what you want the room to decide in one sentence, the brief does not have a point yet, it has a topic. And "why now" is the second half of the sentence, because a room that agrees with you and does nothing has not agreed with you.
RECEIPTS: Evidence for the three claims it depends on. Not every claim. The three that, if false, take the recommendation down with them. Data, customer evidence, financials, documented behavior. And at least one piece that did not come from your own team, because the room discounts everything that did.
ALTERNATIVE: The other option, including nothing. This is where most executive documents get killed. Why this instead of doing nothing? Why build instead of buy? Why us instead of them? If the brief does not answer the alternative someone in the room already prefers, that person will answer it for you.
HOLE: Your own weakest assumption, and who will find it. The most important question in the tool. If you know where the soft spot is, you can lead with it, and a room respects a brief that names its own risk. If you don't, somebody whose incentives differ from yours will find it, and they will not be gentle.
ASK: What you need today, and who owns what next. A shocking number of decks survive thirty slides and end with no decision. Is this an FYI, a discussion, a recommendation or a decision? What resource, commitment or approval do you need before you leave the room? Who owns the next action, by when?
The questions change with the chair. After the verdict, pick who is across the table and the tool asks what they would ask.
Finance. What does it cost, what does it return, what is the downside case, and which single assumption drives most of the economics.
The executive. Why are you telling me this, what is the decision, why now, and what are you asking me to do.
The technical leader. What has to be true for this to work, what is the hardest dependency, and what are you hand-waving.
The sales leader. Has a customer actually said they want this, who pays, who decides, and what is stopping the deal today.
The skeptic. Whoever in the room is accountable for something you are not. They know something you don't. Find out what before the meeting.
The brief lives in your head, not in a file. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and the tool never sees a word of the document. It only asks whether you could answer for it.
I led Partner Sales Teams at AWS for six years, sold at F5, Red Hat, STEC and Virident, and before that spent 20 years as a Marine. I've been the seller defending the deal, the manager poking holes in it, the partner trying to help, and the guy explaining the forecast one level up.
These days I work with sales leaders in the middle: responsible for the number, responsible for the people, and getting pressure from both directions. This isn't a big consulting firm. It's just me.
Rarely just one of them. Usually a couple at the same time, quietly making each other worse.
The pipeline looks better than it really is. Plenty of opportunities in the CRM, but once you ask about budget, timing and who actually wants the thing, the number gets smaller fast.
The partner likes you, but nothing is happening. Plenty of meetings, maybe a joint deck. Nobody can point to the accounts where the two companies are actually trying to win something together.
The team is busy, but there isn't much rhythm. The forecast call happens. The one-on-ones happen. Nobody is sure what the team should do differently this week to make next quarter better.
The number from above doesn't match what you see below. Leadership has a growth number. Your team has a pipeline. You're the one who has to explain why they disagree without sounding like you've already given up.
A team can be behind plan for a lot of reasons. One seller needs help getting in front of customers. Another is doing fine and wants you to stay out of the way. Someone else thinks the year is already gone. Sometimes the rep is fine and the territory, the comp plan or the pipeline they inherited isn't. The useful part is figuring out which one you're dealing with before you fix the wrong one. That's what the tools on this site do for one deal and one pipeline. It's also most of what I do.
Talk it through. 20 minutes, free. Bring a deal, a pipeline, a territory you've been handed, or a rep you can't figure out. I'll ask a few questions and tell you what I'd look at first. Sometimes the answer is "I wouldn't change much." That's useful too.
Work through one problem. 90 minutes, paid. One issue, properly: a deal, a territory, a partner, a capture plan, a seller. You get a short write-up afterward so there's something to work from.
Run the review with me. Monthly or for a few weeks. I sit in your pipeline reviews, ask the five questions, and stay involved while the team works the answers.
Free, 20 minutes, no pitch. If I don't think I can help, I'll tell you. I also build fedhoo, a federal market research tool.