When a monthly briefing is enough, and when it is not
Keep the monthly sitting when the cuts still match the business. Stop it when the file, or the question, has moved.
21 July 2026
A monthly sitting is a rhythm, not a fresh investigation. After a Sales Intelligence Report, the same channel page, territory page, and exception list come back with new month’s lines. That is the value: the commercial lead can see movement without rebuilding the structure.
Enough
The retainer is enough when you still sell through the same routes, the codes still mean what they meant in the flagship pack, and the question is “what moved?” It is enough when a shortage, a late season, or a single account’s pause should show up as a hole in a familiar page rather than as a rumour in the corridor.
Pharmacy and grocery chains in our work often stay on monthly sittings for a year because the store set is stable. The sitting is forty minutes on purpose. If it regularly runs over, the exception list is too long, or the extract is arriving dirty.
Not enough
Open a new route — online, a new HORECA contract, a second warehouse — and the old cuts will hide the new book inside “other.” Recycle product codes after a rebrand and last year will no longer sit beside this year. Change the commercial lead and the new person will need a flagship briefing, not a continuation of an agenda they did not help write.
A monthly pack is also the wrong place to park a forecast. If you already have an internal number, we can show it as a line you supplied. We will not draw a hope and date it like a close.
How we stop
Either side may end the retainer after the three-month minimum with a month’s written notice. We would rather stop than keep issuing a pack the room has stopped opening. If you later need a new reading of the year, that is a new Sales Intelligence Report, not a heavier month.