Conducting a quarterly business review (QBR) is something most of us agree is a “smart thing to do.” As we approach the end of Q2, the question looms: will you actually do it?

It’s hard to make space to pause and evaluate. Two common reasons we skip the QBR: 

I totally get why these reasons feel logical -- if you already know what you missed or that things are going great, a QBR can seem like big company busywork. But it’s kind of like how skipping a pesky dentist appointment here and there doesn’t feel like a big deal…right up until you end up needing a root canal.

Quarterly reviews matter. You can’t win if you don’t keep score. And, the end of Q2 is your big opportunity to reset your year. You have enough strategic data and forward visibility to know whether you’re on track. If you’re not, you still have enough time left in the year to fix it.

Today, I’m going to walk you through the QBR process I run with my clients: what to look at, what questions to ask, and what decisions you make coming out of it.

If your books are fully closed in early July, great. If your books won’t be closed until late July, then you take your best shot with preliminary data. The point here is direction, not perfection. Generate a six-month P&L (income statement) and a balance sheet as of June 30.

Start with revenue:

Then look at gross margins:

Next, look at operating costs:

Finally, look at net income:

When results don’t match our predictions, that’s called variance. Variance might look like drips or leaks. They might be small in a month or quarter, but over time, they can drown your business. 

So take a minute to look for the source of that variance. This is where people love to say, “Oh, I know why it’s ahead or behind. I didn’t do XYZ.” But was that the real reason, or is it a guess? The quarterly review is when you confirm whether you really know what’s happening and why.

Sometimes the reason you didn’t do XYZ is that conditions changed and it stopped being the highest priority. In that case, the review is when you stop beating yourself up and finally let it go. 

But sometimes the business shifted and you didn’t fully notice it. You got a “yes” here, a “yes” there, another “yes” there, the checks came in, and suddenly the composition of your business changed. This insight goes beyond numbers: it tells you who is buying now and whether you want to keep going in that direction.

Once you have a baseline of what happened, you look forward:

If it matches, your spending plan is probably fine. If it doesn’t, two things to do:

If staffing needs or costs changed, get ahead of that adjustment and make the decision while you still have options. You may not need to do something right away, but evaluating your options with a cool head will help if you do find yourself in more of a pinch later.

Sometimes the numbers look great, but you still hated every minute of the quarter. Other times, things went smoothly and you loved the quarter, so you want to know whether it was an accident or repeatable.

People are great at documenting failures, but you can also learn a lot by reviewing what went right. That way you can not only celebrate your wins (which makes everyone feel good), you can also figure out how to repeat them.

We tend to overestimate how much luck plays into our success. 

So, before you assume you can repeat your success, ask yourself: Why did this happen? Did it happen on purpose? Or if it happened accidentally and it was a happy accident, can you make it happen more often?  

A simple example from my own business is AI discoverability. A year ago, a client found me through AI and we had done nothing intentionally to be AI-visible. That was luck.

Once we knew our ideal customer was asking ChatGPT for help with finding consultants like us, we evaluated and reinforced our discoverability ground game. That part was skill. Now, if someone finds me through AI, it’s because we did the work and we expect it. The QBR is where you separate happy accidents and repeatable actions.

In a lot of cases, you can do this on your own:

But there may be times when you need outside help. 

For example, if you have accounting gaps, call the person who does your books and ask them: “Can you tell me what this says?” 

On the other hand, if you do your Q2 review and land on “I’m doing the things that should be getting me to my goals, but it isn’t happening, and I don’t know why,” that’s the moment to bring in a third party who does this with founders, with strategic guidance beyond “sell more” and “cut costs.” 

If the idea of doing a quarterly review on your own spooks you entirely, I can help with that, too. Book a free 20-minute strategy session, and we can get you pointed in the right direction.

The most important: today, my human baby finishes elementary school. What a journey from pandemic kindergartener to bilingual anime-obsessed future coffee shop owner. Congratulations to my favorite kid.

If you’re profitable, organize your Q2 estimated tax payments this week.

More thoughtful tech. Tin Can phone. One household flip phone on the kitchen counter. The Light Phone. Teens carrying phones made for seniors. As more people realize they want less daily tech, what opportunities will emerge for your business?

Bookkeeping. Accounting is the language of business, but its funky rules are almost universally unappealing. But is better bookkeeping the secret unlock to business success? If you want to access any outside capital, from microloans to grants to angel investors, keeping standardized financial reports can result in 77% higher likelihood of successful funding. Much as you can’t win if you don’t keep score, you can’t get capital if you don’t have reports.

The Men’s World Cup. From the confused chatter in the tiny toiletry section, we finally have some international visitors back in LA! We welcome you brave and well-capitalized souls for the World Cup, which starts tomorrow. The expanded 48-country field means the group stage will feature up to four daily group games for all your “I swear I’m working” needs from June 11-27. I recommend watching Telemundo for the spectacular call of “GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL” that will make you wonder if the announcer screamed until he fainted. While ticket prices would make Beyoncé and Taylor envious, cities are offering loads of free watch parties, including over 100 in the LA Parks system. Find the match (aka “fixture”) schedule here.

ICYMI, here are resources you should know about:

Uber had a 2026 budget for AI… and burned through it in 4 months. On top of that, Uber president and COO Andrew Macdonald says they’re struggling to connect their rising Claude Code costs to their ability to increase value for their users. Then there's the mystery company that somehow accidentally spent $500 million on AI in a single month. Yikes. AI platforms are showing productivity gains, but as token prices rise, human wages are looking a lot more attractive.