Every client gets the same report, every week, in the same format, for the life of the engagement. It is one page. It has been one page for long enough that we no longer argue about what to leave out. Here is what is on it, and why.
Why weekly, and why one page
Weekly because that is the rhythm at which an outreach programme can be adjusted. Faster than that and you are reacting to noise; slower and a bad week becomes a bad month before anyone notices. One page because a report that takes more than ten minutes to read does not get read, and because the discipline of fitting everything on a page forces us to decide what matters.
The report goes to the person who owns the number and to the closers taking the meetings. If a client wants it to go to more people, it does, but we are wary of reports that are written for an audience that will never act on them.
The six sections
1. Against target
The targets agreed at the start, the figure for this week, and the figure for the engagement to date. Qualified meetings booked and held, and the pipeline those meetings have produced where the client shares it. This section is first because it is the only one that matters if you read nothing else.
2. What went out
Accounts worked, people reached, by channel. Not as a boast, but so that the sections below have a denominator. "Twelve replies" means something different against two hundred messages than against two thousand.
3. What came back
Replies, grouped by what they said, with the ones worth reading quoted. Positive, not now, wrong person, objection, and the category we care about most: the ones that told us something about the market. This section is where the research gets updated and where the client learns what their buyers actually think.
4. What we are changing
One variable, usually. The segment we are leaning into, the message we are retiring, the channel we are adding. Written as a decision with a reason, so the client can disagree before it happens rather than after.
5. What we need from you
A reference call, a piece of content, a decision on a pricing question a buyer asked, a closer's notes from last week's meeting. Programmes stall most often on something the client has to do, and putting it on the page in writing is the politest way we have found to keep it moving.
6. List health
Accounts added, dropped and corrected this week, and why. A list is a point of view, and this section is where the point of view visibly sharpens.
The monthly and the quarterly
The weekly report is a working document. Once a month we add a short review: what the four weeks taught us, how the segments compare, and whether the targets still make sense. Once a quarter there is a proper conversation about the plan, usually in person or on a longer call, with the next quarter's targets agreed at the end of it. Nothing in the quarterly review should be a surprise to anyone who has read the weeklies, and if it is, we have written the weeklies badly.
The report is not an account of our work. It is the instrument by which the client runs the programme, and it is written for that purpose.
Why we publish this
Because the format is not the advantage. The work behind it is. A buyer of pipeline services should expect this level of visibility from any provider, and if they are not getting it, they should ask why. Our strategy practice sets the targets the report measures against; the rest of the engagement is accountable to them every Friday.
