Where the next unit of growth actually comes from
This framework ranks candidate growth levers — new customers, larger deals, higher retention, new markets — by evidence, not by which is most exciting to pursue.
Organizations often default to new-customer acquisition as the growth lever, regardless of whether the data actually supports it being the highest-leverage option. This framework starts by testing that assumption against the other available levers before committing resources.
Each lever is scored against two questions: how much untapped opportunity actually exists here, and how much organizational effort is required to capture it. A lever with large untapped opportunity and low required effort should get resourced ahead of one requiring a much larger organizational lift for a similar return.
The framework deliberately resists a single universal answer — for one organization, retention is the clear highest-leverage lever; for another, it's genuinely new-market entry. The value is in the disciplined comparison, not a predetermined conclusion.
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