Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How to Get Your Ideas Funded by Influencing Up
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, I want to talk about one of the most frustrating career moments: you have a genuinely good idea. It’s sitting right in front of you. But you don’t control a budget, and your boss is too busy to care. Luna: Right. That’s the classic middle-manager trap. You see the opportunity, but you can’t execute without permission — or money. Lucas: Exactly. And the typical advice is 'build a business case' or 'pitch it to the VP.' But that’s not how it actually works in most companies. So today I want to walk through a real example — a marketing manager at a regional bank who got $150,000 to pilot a customer-retention program, even though her boss had already said no. Luna: Ooh, I want to hear this. How did she get around the 'no'? Lucas: First, she didn’t treat the 'no' as final. She treated it as a signal that her framing was wrong. So she stepped back and asked: who else in the organization would benefit from this idea? And whose pain does it solve? Luna: That’s a smart reframe. Instead of selling her boss, she started building a coalition. Who did she talk to? Lucas: She went to the head of customer service first — because that team was getting slammed with complaints about the exact issue her idea addressed. Then she looped in a data analyst in finance who had been sitting on churn data that nobody was using. Luna: So she found stakeholders who had a direct incentive to see this succeed. That’s classic coalition building. Lucas: Right. And then — here’s the key — she didn’t ask for a full budget. She asked for permission to run a small test. A pilot. She put together a one-page summary that showed: here’s the problem, here’s the proposed solution, here’s the cost of the pilot, and here’s how we’ll measure success. Luna: A one-pager. Not a 20-slide deck. Smart. Lucas: Exactly. And she used the churn data from finance to estimate that even a 2% reduction in customer attrition would save the bank about $400,000 a year. So the $150,000 pilot cost was less than half the projected annual savings. Luna: That’s a compelling number. And it’s specific. Not 'improve customer satisfaction' — which is vague — but 'reduce churn by 2%, worth $400,000.' Lucas: Right. And she didn’t present this to her boss first. She went to the customer service VP — who she’d already built rapport with — and said, 'I have an idea that could help your team. Would you be open to a quick conversation?' Luna: She went to the person with the pain, not the person with the budget. Lucas: Exactly. The customer service VP loved it. He said, 'If you can get this pilot funded, I’ll dedicate two of my team members to help execute.' Now she had a sponsor. Luna: And once you have a VP as a sponsor, your boss’s 'no' becomes a lot softer. Because now it’s not just you asking — it’s you and a VP. Lucas: 100%. And she didn’t go back to her boss and say, 'You were wrong.' She said, 'I’ve been talking to a few people, and there’s interest in a pilot. The customer service VP is willing to contribute resources. Could we revisit the budget conversation?' Luna: That’s a completely different conversation. She gave her boss an easy way to say yes without losing face. Lucas: Right. And the boss did say yes — but only after she also got the finance analyst to sign off on the ROI estimate. So by the time she went to the actual budget committee, she had a coalition: customer service, finance, and her own boss. Luna: That’s a textbook example of what I call 'pre-selling.' You don’t pitch at the meeting — you pitch before the meeting, one conversation at a time. Lucas: Exactly. And the pilot worked. It reduced churn by 2.3% in six months. She eventually got promoted to run the retention program full time. Luna: Love that. So what’s the takeaway for someone listening who has an idea but no budget or authority? Lucas: First, don’t lead with the solution. Lead with the problem — specifically, whose problem it is and how much it’s costing them. Second, find one person who has skin in the game and get them on your side before you ask for anything. Third, make the ask small — a pilot, not a full rollout. Luna: And fourth, quantify the pain. If you can’t put a dollar figure on the problem, it’s going to be a lot harder to get funded. Lucas: Exactly. And that’s where a lot of people get stuck. They don’t have the data. But chances are, the data exists somewhere in the organization — you just have to find it. That finance analyst she talked to had been sitting on the churn data for months. Luna: Right. So part of the skill is knowing where to look. And that’s something you can learn over time. Lucas: Absolutely. And look, this is the kind of practical career advice we try to bring on this show every week. If you’ve found these episodes useful — whether it’s helping you think through a career move, or giving you a specific tactic to try — we’d love it if you supported the show. A couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going. Buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, but if you’ve gotten something out of them, it makes a real difference. Luna: Yeah, it really does. We keep the show ad-free, and listener support is a big part of that. So thank you to anyone who’s already chipped in. Lucas: Alright — back to the playbook. So after you’ve built your coalition and quantified the pain, the next step is to frame your ask as a low-risk experiment. Luna: Right. And that means defining a clear success metric upfront. For her, it was churn reduction. For you, it might be something else — but it has to be measurable and tied to a business outcome. Lucas: Exactly. And I’ll add one more thing: don’t forget to give credit. When the pilot succeeded, she made sure to thank the customer service VP and the finance analyst in her update to senior leadership. Luna: That’s smart. Because now those people are invested in your success. They’ll be your advocates for the next idea. Lucas: Right. And that’s how you build a reputation as someone who gets things done. Not by going it alone, but by bringing others along. Luna: So for anyone listening: the next time you have an idea that feels stuck, don’t just pitch it harder. Step back, find the stakeholders who share your pain, and pre-sell them one by one. Lucas: And keep it small. A pilot is always easier to sell than a full program. Once you prove it works, the funding for the bigger thing will come. Luna: I think that’s a great note to end on. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. See you next time.