Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Building an Influence Index
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this product manager — let's call her Priya — at a mid-size SaaS company, about four billion in revenue. She'd been a senior IC for three years, getting solid reviews, but every time a director role opened up, someone else got it. Luna: That's the classic 'high performer, low visibility' trap. She was doing the work but no one knew she wanted more. Lucas: Exactly. So she built what she called an 'influence index.' It's basically a spreadsheet where she mapped every person who had a say in promotions — skip-level managers, VPs from other departments, even the chief product officer. Luna: Wait — she put the CPO in a spreadsheet? Lucas: She did. And she gave each person two scores: a visibility score — how much exposure she had to them, like meetings, emails, shared projects — and an advocacy score — how likely they were to speak up for her when she wasn't in the room. Luna: So it's quantifying relationships. I love that. Most people just have a vague sense of who knows them. Lucas: Right. The numbers forced her to be honest. She had one VP she'd presented to twice — visibility was a 3 out of 5 — but she'd never followed up, so advocacy was a 1. Meanwhile, her direct boss gave her a 5 on visibility but only a 3 on advocacy. He liked her work but wasn't pushing her upward. Luna: That's a hard truth. Your manager can love you but not be your sponsor. So what did she do with those scores? Lucas: She created 'injection points.' For each person scoring below a 4 in advocacy, she scheduled one small value-add per month — sharing an industry article with a personal note, volunteering to review a proposal, sending a one-paragraph update on a project they cared about. Nothing big, but consistent. Luna: And she tracked it all in the same spreadsheet? That's obsessive — in a good way. Lucas: She kept a log. Date, action, outcome. After six months, she rescored everyone. Her CPO advocacy went from a 1 to a 4 — because he'd started looping her into strategy calls after she sent him a competitive analysis he hadn't asked for. Luna: See, that's the key. She didn't ask for anything first. She just added value in a way that was visible. Lucas: Right. Then when a director role opened in product ops, the CPO said to the hiring manager, 'Have you talked to Priya? She's been thinking about this space.' She hadn't even applied yet. Luna: That's sponsorship in the wild. So the index worked because it wasn't about networking — it was about making yourself useful to the people who decide. Lucas: Exactly. She got the promotion fourteen months after she started the spreadsheet. And she told me the index itself never left her laptop — it was a personal tool, not something she shared. Luna: Which makes it even more replicable. Anyone can do this tonight. Open a spreadsheet, list ten names, score them, and plan one injection per person for next month. Lucas: And that's the episode, honestly. A simple framework that forces you to think about influence the same way you'd think about a product roadmap. Luna: Before we wrap, a quick honest thing — this podcast exists because a small group of listeners chip in on buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No ads, no sponsors, just people who find this useful. If you've ever used a tip from the show in a real meeting or review, that's who keeps it going. Lucas: Yeah, we don't do the ad-read thing. A few hundred listeners covering the hosting and editing — it's pretty lean. And we're grateful. Luna: Alright, back to influence. One thing I'd add: Priya also set a quarterly reminder to review her index. She didn't just build it and forget it. Lucas: Smart. Because relationships shift. Maybe your VP leaves, a new CTO comes in, your project gets restructured. The index only works if it's alive. Luna: So for anyone listening, the action item tonight: pick one person in your org who has influence over your future but doesn't know your ambitions. Score them honestly. Then plan one injection this week. Lucas: And if you want to thank Priya — though she'd probably say don't — you know where to find us. Next episode we're looking at how an employee used a 'decision log' to get a seat at the table. See you then.