Five places to look
Five common places to look for growth, each worth its own challenge: pricing (is Meridian actually charging what the switching-cost defensibility from Lesson 6 would support, or leaving money on the table out of habit?); sales productivity (are reps spending time on the right accounts, or spread thin across too many low-probability deals?); customer expansion (Lesson 8's NRR lever, directly, getting existing stores to adopt more of the platform); new markets (adjacent retail segments Meridian hasn't sold into yet); and product (features that unlock a higher price tier or reduce the churn identified in Lesson 26).
The challenge for each lever
The challenge for each: what evidence would tell us this lever is already near its ceiling, versus genuinely underexploited? A pricing lever that hasn't moved in three years, in a business with strong switching costs, is more likely underexploited than a sales productivity lever the previous owner already invested heavily in optimizing.
| Lever | Underexploited signal | Near-ceiling signal |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Hasn't moved in years despite strong switching costs | Recently repriced, churn already sensitive |
| Sales productivity | Reps spread across too many low-probability deals | Territory and quota model already optimized |
| Customer expansion | Low platform adoption among existing accounts | Most accounts already on the top tier |
| New markets | Adjacent segments never tested | Prior expansion attempts underperformed |
| Product | Known feature gaps tied to churn reasons | Roadmap already targets the same gaps |
Put a number on each lever and the plan stops being a wish list:
| Lever | Illustrative 5-year EBITDA impact |
|---|---|
| Customer expansion (NRR lift) | +£4.5m |
| Pricing | +£3.0m |
| New markets | +£2.0m |
| Sales productivity | +£1.5m |
| Product (reduced churn) | +£1.0m |
| Revenue-side subtotal | +£12.0m |
Lesson 29 adds the cost-side levers to this same running total, together landing inside the £35-40m target Lesson 5's thesis committed to.
Checkpoint
- Five growth levers: pricing, sales productivity, customer expansion, new markets, product.
- Each lever: needs a specific challenge, not just a checklist mention, "is this actually underexploited, or already near its ceiling?"
If anything here still feels unclear, ask before moving to Lesson 29.