A quarterly planning meeting should end with decisions your team can act on: what changes, what gets funded, and what stops or waits. I'd bring the numbers and unresolved work in advance, then use the meeting to choose the next quarter's commitment. A tour through everyone's updates isn't a decision.
The MSP model targets 20% EBITDA after a fair-market owner salary, with 10% as a danger line. EBITDA means earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Put the expected profit beside the growth plan before deciding how much more work or spending to approve.
Prepare the Decisions Before the Meeting
I'd reserve a half day when the team needs to reconcile the plan, investigate a material problem, and cost the next project together. That's a suggested format, not a benchmark. Send the agenda, records, and decisions needed beforehand so the room isn't spent waiting for someone to find an export.
Ask each responsible person for the result against plan, the reason they think it differed, and the evidence supporting that explanation. Keep facts separate from proposed causes. A missed revenue target might involve sales timing, lost accounts, billing, or a mix of services different from the plan.
Bring unfinished commitments from the last review. Show the owner, current status, and the decision required now. Don't automatically roll an overdue project into the next quarter without checking whether the original reason still holds.
Choose participants for the decisions on the agenda. Finance needs to explain earnings and cash; sales needs to explain opportunities and starts; delivery needs to explain capacity. The business owner needs to settle the tradeoffs that none of those functions can resolve alone.
Use Five Numbers With Clear Definitions
I'd use the following set for an MSP reviewing growth and delivery together. Keep the reporting period, plan, actual result, and source beside each number. Change the set when your business needs a different decision, while preserving definitions for the comparisons you keep.
| Measure | Owner and Source | Decision It Supports |
|---|---|---|
| Total Revenue Against Plan | Finance, from the period’s revenue report split by service line | Identify whether the gap comes from managed fees, products, hardware, or projects. |
| EBITDA Margin | Finance, from the reconciled P&L with fair-market owner pay | Check what remains after delivery, sales, and overhead. |
| New Managed MRR Won | Sales, from signed agreements with start dates | Compare new recurring business with the acquisition plan. |
| Managed Delivery Margin | Delivery and finance, using burdened labor and tools against managed revenue | Inspect whether the work and fee still fit. |
| Forecast Cash Position | Finance, using expected receipts and committed payment dates | Decide when the business can fund the proposed commitment. |
Treat a missing cost or unreliable time record as a gap to resolve. Don't convert it into an encouraging result. Ask the person responsible to state what is unknown and which decisions depend on settling it.
Keep annual ambitions and quarterly results distinct. The model's annual revenue growth goals are 14%, 25%, and 40%, labeled minimum, goal, and stretch. They aren't quarterly targets, and dividing one evenly across the calendar assumes a revenue pattern you still need to justify.
Choose the Problem That Changes the Plan
Say the team wants more new clients, while delivery reports that planned starts are waiting for project capacity. Don't approve a larger lead program until you understand that constraint. Inspect the work, promised dates, and capacity rather than assuming that marketing or hiring must be the answer.
Have the responsible people agree a plain problem statement. It might be that the proposed starts cannot be delivered on the dates in the revenue plan. Then record what you know, what remains uncertain, and which finding would make you choose a different response.
I'd cut explanations that describe someone's effort without explaining the result. Busy is a condition to inspect. It doesn't tell you whether the work is necessary, wrongly assigned, underestimated, or simply more than the team can carry.
Choose a problem the people in the meeting have authority to act on. If the decision depends on a client or supplier, name that dependency and the person who will resolve it. Keep the resulting task in the shared work system.
Cost the Project That Addresses It
Define the proposed change, the expected result, its owner, and the work it requires. Check which existing commitments must move to make room. A project added to a full calendar needs a scheduling decision alongside a budget decision.
For a marketing proposal, keep the total spending visible. The US model's stable setting spends about $218,077 on sales and marketing, while its growth setting spends about $363,462. The calculated increase is $145,385, with sales pay and programs already inside those totals.
Those settings hold the same starting revenue. They compare the spending plan before adding hoped-for future revenue; they don't prove that the larger budget generates the required wins. Your proposed change needs its own assumptions about opportunities, starts, delivery, and cash.
The model's rule is to fix delivery before adding clients. If your chosen problem is a delivery shortfall, explain what the project changes before approving demand that relies on that improvement. Keep the expected benefit separate from a saving you can actually remove from the budget.
Leave With Three Decisions
I'd close the discussion by writing three decisions into the plan. They concern the same proposed change, rather than three unrelated projects the team is expected to fit around everything else.
- The owner decides what result the business is committing to pursue and what evidence would cause that commitment to change.
- Finance and delivery confirm the money, capacity, and timing the decision needs, with a named owner for unresolved dependencies.
- The owner decides what will stop, wait, or reduce in scope to make that commitment possible.
Give the project owner a dated next deliverable and a place to record progress. Give each dependency its own responsible person. An owner assigned to the whole project can't personally supply every approval, data source, or client answer.
Lucas Acosta describes a quarterly project to investigate inconsistent discounts in existing PSA contracts. In that practitioner example, a finance leader owns the audit and other leaders handle client communication; prices aren't simply changed without discussion. I'd use that separation of work when a planning decision crosses financial and account responsibilities.
Keep the Decision Visible Afterward
Write the decisions back into the operating plan and the shared work records. Record why the team chose them, which assumptions remain open, and when the owner will inspect the next result. Keep other ideas on a separate list instead of treating everything discussed as approved work.
Murray Smith argues that someone inside the MSP needs to own follow-through between quarterly planning sessions. His practitioner view emphasizes day-to-day accountability rather than expecting the sessions themselves to carry implementation. Name that coordinating responsibility before everyone leaves.
At the next review, compare the result with the commitment and investigate what changed. A finished project doesn't establish that it caused an improvement in earnings or sales. Use the evidence to continue, revise, or stop the work, then fund the next decision from the position the business actually has.
mspoutpost.com/articles/run-a-quarterly-planning-meeting-that-funds-real-work
Written by Owen Gallagher
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