Five questions that separate a case the room will accept from a story it will take apart. For managers with a rep to defend in calibration. One minute. No names, no ratings.
Receipts · Ownership · Scope · How · Next
The hardest part of a talent review is not the form. It is explaining a human being in sixty seconds to managers who don't know them, and having the explanation survive their questions.
Every calibration room runs the same way: you propose, they probe, the evaluation moves if you can't hold it. The managers across the table are not hostile. They just haven't seen your rep's year, so all they can test is your case. A case is receipts, ownership, scope, behavior and next scope. Everything else is adjectives.
RECEIPTS: Three things, each with a number. Amazon's own self-review now asks for three to five accomplishments with measurable outcomes. If you can't name three with a number on them, the room hears "had a good year," and "had a good year" loses to anyone who brought a spreadsheet.
OWNERSHIP: What wouldn't have happened without them? The first question in any room is how much of the outcome belongs to this person versus the team, the partner, or the market. If you can answer that in one sentence for the biggest win, the rest of the case is easier.
SCOPE: Their level, not the level below. "Strong L5 execution" is the polite way a room says no to an L6 case. What made the problem their-level sized: the ambiguity, the number of teams, the absence of a playbook, the decisions nobody else was going to make?
HOW: One example per principle. Leadership principles are behavioral standards, not compliments. The room will ask for the example. If you'll cite four principles, bring four examples, and drop the ones you can't back.
NEXT: The harder thing. Potential is not "I think she's a future VP." It is the problem you would hand them next year that you wouldn't have handed them last year, and what they've already done that makes you sure. Scope, complexity, or impact, growing.
The case that fails in calibration is usually a good rep with a manager who brought impressions.
Recency. How much of your judgment comes from the last sixty days?
Visibility. Would you reach the same conclusion if this person weren't in your meetings every week?
Halo. Remove their biggest win. What does the rest of the year look like?
Horns. Remove their worst month. Same question.
Style. Are you evaluating impact, or whether they communicate the way you do?
Context. Did a reorg, a manager change, a leave, or a territory change alter what could reasonably be delivered? Say so first, before someone else does.
This tool grades your case, never your rep. It will not tell you a rating, predict one, or suggest one, and it never asks for a name. What it will do is ask the questions the room is going to ask, before the room does.
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.