There are thousands of marketing channels out there, and millions of tactics you can try. Which is why most people are confused by marketing — it’s hard to know where to start and what to focus your efforts on.
Let’s turn impossible choices into possible ones — with the help of Jay Abraham, who neatly organized business growth levers into ONLY 3 categories.
More on that later, after a quick word from the platform that makes my main channel (email) easier and more profitable for me.
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Jay Abraham isn’t your typical guru — he’s the guy billion-dollar companies (and scrappy startups alike) call when their growth hits a wall. He has famously generated billions (yes, with a “B”) in sales growth for his clients. He charges six figures for full-day private deep dives!
In his foundational book, Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got, Abraham summarizes his life’s work into three simple revenue growth levers:
1. Increase your number of customers. 2. Increase the average transaction value. 3. Increase the frequency of repurchase.
This is it; these are the ONLY three ways to grow a business.
Yet people obsess over entirely different things. Why?
Because the shiny things always grab attention: follower counts, email opens, traffic spikes. These metrics matter, but only if they’re strategically tied to Abraham’s core revenue levers. Visibility is essential, but visibility without strategy is just noise.
Visibility, but make it strategic
I got a lot of pushback when I launched Audience Accelerator. Everyone kept telling me one of these three things:
“Likes don’t pay the bills”
“I know someone who has 200 followers on Instagram and makes 6 figures a month”.
“You don’t need a big audience; you need to know your tiny audience well enough to sell something they really need”.
I loved it! I always love it when people push back.
Here’s the thing: they were right — all those three things are/can be correct.
And their pushback gave me an excellent opportunity to explain that Audience Accelerator wasn’t about inane numbers and turning service providers into influencers.
It’s all about strategic visibility. Because whichever of Jay Abraham’s levers you need to pull, you need visibility — whether that means 1,000 people in your audience or 1,000,000.
However, the real issue with these three levers is not that people don’t trust them. I think we all know, at some level, that this is how you generate revenue.
It’s that they don’t know which to choose and when.
How to choose which revenue lever to pull (first)
Not every lever is created equal for every business. Choosing the right one to pull first depends on your current circumstances and objectives, as well as the economic context.
Here’s a good place to start:
Step 1: Diagnose your current state
Ask yourself three brutally honest questions:
- Customer acquisition: Are you struggling with low customer volume despite a strong offer and good conversion rates when prospects do show up?
- Average transaction value: Are your customer numbers healthy but your overall revenue still disappointing? Are you working harder without profits significantly increasing?
- Repeat purchase frequency: Do you have an established customer base that rarely buys again, leaving potential lifetime value untapped?
Step 2: Rank each lever’s impact
Once you’ve identified your key challenge, consider impact versus effort:
- Acquisition typically demands more upfront investment in visibility and infrastructure, but it’s powerful when you have room for growth or a new audience segment is ready to be tapped.
- Transaction value is the quickest way to boost profitability with minimal additional cost — perfect if your margins feel thin.
- Repeat frequency usually demands robust nurturing systems and relationship management. Ideal if your customer satisfaction is high, but repeat sales lag.
Step 3: Start with the quickest win (but think long-term)
If all else feels equal, choose the lever that offers a quick yet meaningful return. Early wins build momentum, but always keep an eye on long-term growth.
Don’t just chase quick cash — build structures that sustain ongoing profit.
How to implement each revenue lever in your business
Here’s exactly how to put Jay Abraham’s wisdom into practice, lever by lever:
Lever 1: Increase your number of customers
Visibility and customer acquisition go hand-in-hand. Here’s the strategy:
- Optimize your visibility channels: Use targeted content (social media content, newsletters, strategic partnerships, social proof content) designed explicitly to attract your ideal customers. Your visibility products — like workshops or masterclasses that showcase your authority — fit neatly here.
- Streamline conversion paths: Ensure that your visibility leads prospects seamlessly toward a clear first-step purchase (low-risk, high-value offers that move people from spectators to buyers quickly). Self-liquidating offers can be a good start — then you can consider value ladders and ecosystems.
Lever 2: Increase your average transaction value
This is the lever where visibility should be shifted to your products:
- Introduce strategic upsells & cross-sells: Create complementary offers or bundles that align naturally with your customers’ initial purchase.
- Premium positioning: Use your visibility efforts (thought leadership articles, speaking engagements, masterclasses) to establish higher perceived value, justifying higher pricing tiers or premium products.
Lever 3: Increase the frequency of repurchase
Visibility plays a critical role here, too — keeping you top-of-mind, reinforcing your values, and reminding your customers why you’re worth coming back to again and again.
- Email nurturing: create segmented, strategic email sequences that educate, engage, and remind customers of your value consistently.
- Loyalty & incentives: visibility paired with strategic offers — exclusive content, loyalty rewards, early access — keeps buyers actively returning. Think about this: what can you offer to your VIP customers? Either a product or exclusive content will keep you top-of mind.
TL;DR: every product you sell, every visibility tactic you use, should tie back explicitly to one of Abraham’s levers.
Look at your to-do list for today
Can you tie each item on your list to one of Abraham’s levers? If not, you should probably rethink a lot of what’s keeping you busy.
This strategic intentionality is exactly what I dive deep into in The Growth Intensive — my no-BS program designed to help you pinpoint the exact revenue lever you need, and build strategic systems around it. Oh, and make sure that you don’t waste time and resources on lever-less tactics.
This 1:1 program is the bridge from scattered activity to intentional revenue growth.
