By early 2023, the network had grown to just over forty managed locations — and been cut back to five. Mystery shopping confirmed what the numbers already showed: partner performance was inconsistent, churn ran above 40%, the operating model wasn't working. We rebuilt to the mid-teens. Then we did it again.
The second overhaul was the one that mattered. We cut the largest remaining account — a four-location chain that still wasn't performing — in a single month. A step the spreadsheet couldn't tell from a collapse. It wasn't weakness. It was the cleanup that removed the last drag. At the same time we flattened the sales model — one small, focused team serving the entire account base directly, leveraging automation and AI instead of headcount. Churn didn't just fall; it all but disappeared. Everything since has been pure, high-quality acceleration.
Operating Health · Before the Overhaul → Now
Core Churn (annualized)
>35%
<5%
Elite
Installed-Base NDR (Ramp-Aware)
—
>120% (136.5% mature)
Expansionary
Billings vs Sep '23 Trough
1.0×
>8×
Reversed
The killer insight: more than four times the locations, and churn collapsed from elevated to elite — all on the same footprint that had been sliding sideways for years.