Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Redesigning Their Job
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a story from a midsize B2B SaaS company — about four hundred employees — that I keep coming back to. A marketing manager named Priya noticed the company was bleeding customers: twenty-two percent quarterly churn in the subscription business. Luna: That's brutal. At that rate, you lose half your customer base in about three quarters. Lucas: Exactly. And her job was demand generation — filling the top of the funnel. But she realized the real problem wasn't acquisition; it was retention. So instead of just doing her job better, she decided to redesign it. Luna: Love that. And this is exactly the kind of concrete, proactive move we talk about on this show. And speaking of which — we keep The Promotion Memo completely ad-free because we think career advice should be free of clutter. If you appreciate that approach, you can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small way to keep the signal clear. So back to Priya — she spent six weeks researching: she interviewed customers who'd churned, shadowed the customer success team, and built a churn analysis deck. Luna: She basically did a consulting project on her own time. Lucas: Right. And then she drafted a new job description for herself — she called it 'Head of Customer Retention' — and she wrote a three-page business case projecting that if she could reduce churn by just five percentage points, that was eight hundred thousand dollars in retained annual recurring revenue. Luna: That's a powerful number. Did her VP buy it? Lucas: He did — but not right away. He had two concerns. First, the role didn't exist, so he'd need to justify a new headcount. Second, he worried Priya might be overreaching outside her skill set. Luna: How did she handle that? Lucas: She offered a three-month pilot. Same salary, but she'd spend seventy percent of her time on retention activities. She agreed to measurable milestones — a five percent reduction in early-stage churn and a net promoter score improvement of ten points. If she met them, they'd formalise the new role with a promotion and a raise. Luna: That's a smart risk. She controlled the downside and defined success upfront. Lucas: Exactly. She hit the milestones in ten weeks. The VP created the role, gave her the title, and a fifteen percent salary bump. She didn't wait for a job opening — she built one. Luna: So what's the playbook for listeners who want to try something similar? Lucas: Three steps. First, identify a misalignment between your current duties and the company's biggest pain point. That's the gap Priya spotted between her demand-gen role and the churn crisis. Luna: Step two? Lucas: Do the research to build a credible business case. Priya's six-week deep dive gave her data, quotes, and a dollar figure. You need to prove that the new role has a return on investment. Use numbers — even if they're estimates — because leaders love math. Luna: And step three? Lucas: Negotiate a pilot, not a full commitment. That lowers the perceived risk for both sides. Offer to keep your current responsibilities part-time while you prove the concept. If you deliver, you've got a promotion. If you don't, you've still got a job. Luna: There's an obvious risk here, though. If your manager is closed-minded or territorial, this could backfire. Lucas: Absolutely. You have to read the room. Priya knew her VP was data-driven and open to experimentation. If you're in a culture that punishes initiative, this might not fly. You'd need to build a coalition first — get a sponsor or influential peer to back you. Luna: So part of the strategy is choosing the right battlefield. Lucas: Right. And also being realistic about the time investment. Priya spent six weeks of evenings and weekends on the research. That's a non-trivial cost. But for her, the payoff was a promotion and a role she actually wanted. Luna: What about people who are in highly structured roles — like a bank teller or a call centre agent? Can they redesign their job? Lucas: It's harder, but not impossible. You can sometimes identify process improvements or customer pain points that go beyond your scripted duties. I remember a call centre agent at a telecom company who created a customer feedback loop that reduced repeat calls by twelve percent. She didn't get a promotion right away, but she earned visibility and eventually moved into a quality assurance role. Luna: So the principle scales. The key is finding that gap between what you're asked to do and what the business actually needs. Lucas: Exactly. And one more thing: after Priya got promoted, she helped two other colleagues do the same thing. She built a small template for job redesign within her team. That made her an even more valuable asset. Luna: That's a great closing thought. So if you're feeling stuck in a role that doesn't match the company's biggest needs, maybe it's time to redesign it. Lucas: That's it for this episode. We'll see you next time.