Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Owning a Sponsorship Memo
Transcript
- Lucas: So here's the puzzle. You've been doing great work for two years — hitting every deadline, leading a couple of projects, getting solid feedback. But when the director role opens up, you don't even make the shortlist. Someone else — someone who's less qualified, frankly — gets the nod. Why? Luna: Because nobody with power knows who you are. Lucas: Exactly. You have a performance problem — in the original sense. No one is performing your work for the people who decide. That's what sponsorship is. And today we're looking at a very specific tactic: writing a sponsorship memo for a senior leader. Not asking for sponsorship. Writing the document they'd need to sponsor you. Luna: Okay, I love this. Walk me through the case. Lucas: So there's a woman — let's call her Priya. She was a senior financial analyst at a Fortune 500 insurance company. Big firm, lots of layers. She wanted a director role in the corporate development group. But her boss was a peer to the hiring manager, not a sponsor. She needed someone two levels up to go to bat for her. Luna: And she wrote them a memo. Lucas: She wrote a one-page memo for the VP of Finance. Not a cover letter. Not a self-nomination. A document that the VP could literally forward to the head of corporate development with a short note — 'Take a look at this candidate.' The memo did all the work. Luna: So what was on that page? Lucas: Three sections. First, a problem statement that the VP actually cared about — 'Corporate development is missing a standardized financial modeling framework for M&A, which slows down deal evaluation.' Second, a proposed solution — Priya had already built a model for one acquisition that cut analysis time by 40 percent. Third, a resource ask — she wanted to lead a cross-functional team to scale that model across the division. Luna: So the 'ask' wasn't 'promote me.' It was 'let me solve this problem.' Lucas: Exactly. The promotion was implied. The memo made it easy for the VP to say yes because it was framed as a business opportunity, not a career request. And she included one line at the bottom that I think is the secret sauce. Luna: What was it? Lucas: She wrote: 'I've discussed this with my manager, and she supports this proposal.' That one sentence removed the political risk. The VP knew Priya wasn't going around her boss. She was bringing a solution that had already been vetted. Luna: That's smart. So the VP reads this memo, sees a low-risk high-return project, and Priya is already attached to it. The next step is basically a formality. Lucas: Right. And here's the thing — the VP didn't even need to write a new message. He just forwarded the memo to the head of corporate development with 'Thoughts on this?' That's sponsorship. One sentence from someone with organizational gravity. Luna: And Priya got the director role? Lucas: She did. Interviewed about two weeks later, started the role a month after that. The VP didn't have to twist arms. The memo gave him enough to say 'I believe in this person' without having to manufacture evidence. Luna: I want to pause on something. This works because the memo solves a real problem for the sponsor, not just for the candidate. Most people would write a memo about themselves — 'Here's my track record, here's why I deserve the job.' That gets ignored. Lucas: Self-promotion without context is noise. The memo has to be about the organization's pain point. Your track record is just proof that you can fix it. Priya's memo mentioned her past work, but only as evidence that she'd already tested the solution. Luna: And if we're thinking about our own listeners — someone listening right now might be thinking, 'I don't have a problem as clear as a financial modeling gap.' But you can create one. Lucas: That's actually a really good point. You don't need a gaping hole in the org chart. You need a friction point that a senior leader would pay attention to. Maybe it's a slow reporting process. Maybe it's a client retention issue. The memo frames your proposal as a fix for that friction. Luna: And you need to pick the right sponsor. Not just any VP. Someone who has a stake in the area you want to move into, and someone who trusts your judgment already. Lucas: Priya chose the VP of Finance because she'd worked on two projects with him indirectly. He knew her reputation for thorough analysis. She wasn't a stranger. That's key — you can't cold-email a senior leader a sponsorship memo. You need some prior touchpoints. Luna: So build a relationship first, even if it's just a few e-mails or a project update. Then pitch the memo. Lucas: Exactly. And here's another detail: the memo was one page. Not two, not three. One. She respected his time. That alone signals that you understand how executives operate. Luna: And what about the timing? Did she send it right before the director role opened? Lucas: She sent it six weeks before the role was posted. That's deliberate. She wanted the VP to already think of her as the solution before the job description was written. By the time the hiring manager saw the role, Priya was already the answer. Luna: That's playing chess. You're not reacting to an opening — you're creating the context in which you're the obvious choice. Lucas: Right. And this is something we talk about a lot on this show — you can't wait for permission. You have to create the conditions for promotion. The sponsorship memo is a tactical way to do that. Luna: Let's be real for a second: not everyone has a VP they can approach. What if you're in a flat organization, or your boss is the most senior person? Lucas: Then the memo goes to your boss, framed as a briefing document they can use with their peers. You're giving them ammunition to advocate for you. That's still sponsorship — just at one remove. Luna: I like that. So the template works up or sideways. And if you're really stuck, you could even write a memo for your skip-level — that person two levels up — and ask your boss to forward it. Lucas: That's actually what Priya did at first. She drafted it, showed it to her manager, got a thumbs-up, then sent it to the VP. Her manager was looped in from the start. No surprises. Luna: Clean. Okay, I think we've gotten a lot of value out of this case. Lucas, before we wrap, I want to touch on something — this whole episode is about being strategic. And a big part of that is being able to recognize when a tactic works and replicate it. Lucas: Absolutely. And honestly, that's why we keep doing this show — because these tactics are replicable. And if you've gotten something out of it, we'd love to keep it going. We keep the show ad-free and listener-supported. A couple of dollars a month at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo genuinely makes a difference. That's how we stay independent. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing that adds up. If this episode helped you think differently about your career, consider it. No pressure. Lucas: Right. So back to Priya. One last thing I want to highlight: the memo had an explicit ROI projection. She said her model would save the team about two hundred hours per deal, and the division did about ten deals a year. That's two thousand hours of analyst time. The VP could see the impact in numbers. Luna: Quantified impact. That's the difference between a vague proposal and a compelling one. Lucas: Exactly. So if you're going to write a sponsorship memo, include a number. It doesn't have to be perfect — an estimate with a clear assumption is better than no estimate. Luna: And the number should tie to something the sponsor cares about — cost savings, revenue, time. For a VP of Finance, time savings equals cost savings. Lucas: Right. Priya's memo basically said 'give me this role, and I'll save you half a million dollars in analyst hours per year.' That's a no-brainer. Luna: So the formula is: identify a business problem, propose a solution you're already qualified to execute, quantify the impact, get your boss's buy-in, and send it to a senior leader who can act on it. Lucas: And then let the memo do the talking. The sponsor doesn't have to invent reasons to support you — they're right there on the page. Luna: I think that's the key insight. Sponsorship isn't about asking someone to stick their neck out. It's about giving them a reason to. Lucas: Exactly. And if you write a good enough memo, the promotion takes care of itself. That's what Priya found. She didn't campaign. She just made it easy for the right person to say yes. Luna: Alright, I'm convinced. Next time I see a problem at work, I'm writing a one-pager and finding a sponsor. Lucas: Do it. And tell us how it goes. That's all for this episode of The Promotion Memo. Lucas and Luna, signing off.