Focus resources on high-impact business mechanisms where small improvements generate disproportionate results across the entire customer journey.
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A growth lever is any mechanism within your business where focused improvement produces outsized impact on growth metrics. Think of a physical lever—small input force generates large output force—and the business analogy holds: modest changes to the right lever create dramatic results. Common B2B levers include pricing strategy, referral programmes, sales conversion rates, customer onboarding quality, account expansion tactics, and niche positioning. The key insight is that not all activities impact growth equally; levers represent inflection points where effort compounds. Identifying levers requires understanding your business model's mathematics: for consultancies, client retention and referral rates often serve as primary levers because they determine whether you must constantly replace churned revenue; for SaaS, activation rate and net revenue retention act as levers because they determine whether customers stick and expand. Effective lever identification combines quantitative analysis (where do small improvements multiply through the system?) with strategic insight (what unique capabilities could we exploit?).
Growth levers matter because they guide resource allocation in environments where everything seems important but not everything drives results. Most organisations spread effort across dozens of initiatives—attending conferences, updating websites, launching email campaigns, tweaking product features—without strategic prioritisation. Lever thinking forces clarity: which single improvement would most accelerate growth? This focus prevents the common failure mode of doing many things adequately rather than a few things excellently. For B2B contexts especially, where resources are perpetually constrained, identifying and exploiting the right lever can generate 2-3x returns compared to unfocused activity. The financial impact is substantial: improving a true lever (say, reducing customer churn from 15% to 10%) affects every subsequent year's revenue, compounding gains, whilst improving a non-lever (say, adding a minor product feature) generates minimal lasting impact. Lever thinking also accelerates experimentation: rather than testing random tactics, you design experiments specifically targeting your identified levers, ensuring even failed tests generate insights about core growth mechanisms. Research shows high-growth companies consistently demonstrate lever discipline—they identify their primary growth constraint, invest heavily to address it, then move to the next constraint, whilst slower-growing competitors pursue scattered initiatives. Organisations that systematically identify, prioritise, and pull growth levers report 30-50% efficiency improvements in growth spending.
In simple terms, a growth lever is any action or strategy that can dramatically boost a company’s growth when applied. Think of a lever in the physical sense – a small move can lift a heavy object; likewise, the right business lever can produce outsized growth from relatively little effort . A growth lever could be something like improving a sales funnel or streamlining customer onboarding – a focused change that leads to significantly more revenue or users. In everyday language, it’s the high-impact move you can make to quickly accelerate your company’s success.
Key concepts and frameworks explained clearly. Quick reference when you need to understand a term, refresh your knowledge, or share with your team.
Applying the concept of growth levers in your marketing or growth workflow involves a few key steps: identify potential levers, prioritise the most promising ones, and take action to execute changes. It’s both an analytical and creative process, combining data insights with strategic thinking. Here’s how to put growth levers to work:
Start by mapping the buyer journey and reviewing data for bottlenecks or missed opportunities. Combine quantitative clues—conversion drops, churn spikes—with qualitative feedback from customers and front-line staff. List three to five candidate levers that, if improved, could unlock significant growth.
Score each candidate for impact, confidence, and effort. Choose one or two with the greatest expected return for the resources available. This focus prevents dilution and ensures the team’s energy targets the most promising levers first.
Build a clear plan: what will change, who owns it, and which metric will prove success. Run small experiments around the chosen lever, measure results, and iterate quickly. Document learnings so the knowledge compounds even if an experiment fails.
When a lever delivers, bake the change into routine processes and dashboards. Move to the next priority lever and restart the loop. Over time, successive lever pulls create a step-change in the firm’s growth trajectory.
Mike Michalowicz
A decision tool for prioritising growth work. Diagnose where to act, then pick a small change that unlocks progress now.
Eliyahu M. Goldratt
A novel that teaches constraint thinking. Apply it to backlogs, reviews and handoffs to speed delivery.
Richard Koch
Use Pareto thinking to pick channels, ideas and customers. Cut the long tail and double down on what works.
Explain the driver tree from traffic to revenue. Find the few inputs that move results most, set weekly actions and owners, and review progress on a simple cadence.
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Most B2B marketers are either Random Ricks (trying everything) or Specialist Steves (obsessed with one channel). Generalists run tactics without strategy. Specialists hit channel ceilings. But there's a better way.
Tries everything at once. Posts on LinkedIn, runs ads, tweaks the website, chases referrals. Nothing compounds because nothing's consistent. Growth feels chaotic.
Obsessed with one tactic. 'We just need better ads' or 'SEO will fix everything.' Ignores the rest of the system. One strong engine can't carry a broken machine.
Finds the bottleneck. Fixes that first. Then moves to the next weakest link. Builds a system that's predictable, measurable and doesn't need 80-hour weeks.
Learn how she diagnoses bottlenecks, orchestrates the four engines, and drives predictable growth. Choose if you want to read or watch:
Get practical frameworks delivered daily. Seven short emails explain how Sarah diagnoses bottlenecks, orchestrates the four engines, and builds systems that compound.
Free 45-minute video module from the full course. Watch how to diagnose your growth bottleneck and see exactly what the course platform looks like.
Key concepts and frameworks explained clearly. Quick reference when you need to understand a term, refresh your knowledge, or share with your team.
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Playbook
Identify and leverage limitations as forcing functions that drive creative problem-solving and strategic focus.
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Identify the fundamental factors that directly cause business expansion, concentrating resources on activities that generate measurable results.
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Build self-reinforcing systems across demand generation, funnel conversion, sales pipeline, and customer value that create continuous momentum.
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Deploy fast, low-cost experiments to discover scalable acquisition and retention tactics, learning through iteration rather than big bets.
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Focus resources on high-impact business mechanisms where small improvements generate disproportionate results across the entire customer journey.
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Apply disciplined experimentation across the entire customer lifecycle, optimising every stage through rapid testing and data-driven iteration.
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Cultivate belief that skills and results improve through deliberate effort, treating setbacks as learning opportunities rather than fixed limitations.
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Diagnose and break through stagnation by identifying which business mechanisms have reached capacity and require new approaches.
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Focus your entire organisation on the single metric that best predicts success at your current growth stage, avoiding distraction and misalignment.
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Set ambitious goals and measurable outcomes that cascade through your organisation, creating alignment and accountability for strategic priorities.
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Document your repeatable processes in clear, step-by-step instructions that ensure consistency, enable delegation, and capture institutional knowledge.
