Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Building a Visibility Calendar
Transcript
- Lucas: Priya Sharma was a brand manager at Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati office, overseeing a mid-tier home-care brand. She had strong results — market share up two points year-over-year, a successful limited-edition launch — but she kept getting passed over for the senior brand manager role. Luna: Right, because results alone don't get you promoted. Someone else has to know about them. Lucas: Exactly. And in Priya's case, the feedback she got from her manager was telling: 'You do great work, but senior leaders don't see it.' She wasn't invisible — she just wasn't visible in the right places at the right times. Luna: So she built a visibility calendar. I've heard of people doing this informally, but she actually systematized it. Lucas: She did. And the key was that she didn't just schedule random coffee chats. She built a four-part framework: identify the decision-makers, schedule recurring touchpoints, track engagement metrics, and align everything with the promotion cycle at P&G, which runs on a fiscal year ending June 30. Luna: Let's start with the decision-makers. Who did she target? Lucas: She mapped out the senior director of her category, the VP of marketing for North America, and the HR business partner for her division. That's three people. Not twenty. She also included two peer-level sponsors from adjacent functions — one from sales, one from R&D — who could vouch for her cross-functional impact. Luna: So she went narrow and deep. Then what — she put a weekly meeting on each of their calendars? Lucas: Not exactly. She created one visibility action per week for twenty-four weeks — six months leading up to the promotion cycle. Some were direct: presenting at the monthly brand review, or sending a one-page insights brief after a key product test. Others were indirect: volunteering to present at a quarterly innovation forum where the VP would be in the room. Luna: Did she track all that in a spreadsheet? I imagine she needed to keep it organized. Lucas: She used a simple Notion board with four columns: week, action, audience, outcome. And she coded each action by type — presentation, written update, informal check-in. At the end of the six months, she had twenty-four data points showing her visibility, not just her results. Luna: That's smart because during performance review, she could say, 'Here are the twenty-four times I influenced senior leaders this year.' Lucas: Exactly. And that's a different conversation than 'Here are my market share numbers.' Both matter, but the visibility calendar gave her a narrative arc. She wasn't just delivering results — she was actively shaping how those results were understood. Luna: I want to push back a little, though. Doesn't this feel performative? Like you're gaming the system by scheduling visibility? Lucas: I think that's a fair concern, and Priya actually had the same worry when she started. But she reframed it: visibility isn't about self-promotion — it's about making sure your work has the impact it deserves. If you build a better mousetrap but no one knows it exists, the mice keep winning. Luna: Fair point. And the calendar actually reduces the anxiety of 'being noticed' because you're not hoping for a random moment — you've planned it. Lucas: Exactly. It's a system instead of a hope. And the system worked: Priya got the senior brand manager promotion in the July cycle. Her manager specifically cited her 'increased executive presence' in the promotion memo. Luna: But I'm curious — did she encounter any pushback? Like a senior leader saying, 'Why is this brand manager asking for a meeting every month?' Lucas: A little, but she handled it by making every touchpoint substantive. She never requested a meeting just to 'get facetime.' Every interaction had a specific purpose: sharing a consumer insight, asking for input on a campaign, proposing a test. The VP told her later that he appreciated how she respected his time. Luna: So the substance was already there. The calendar just made sure it got delivered. Lucas: Exactly. And one more thing: she also used the calendar to track follow-through. After each touchpoint, she'd note what action she committed to and whether she delivered. That became a kind of accountability log. Luna: I like that. It turns visibility into a closed loop — you show up, you deliver, you note it, and then you do it again. Lucas: And that closed loop is exactly what builds trust. Leaders start to see you as reliable and strategic, not just someone asking for airtime. Luna: I want to ask about the timing. She started six months before the promotion cycle. Is that the sweet spot? Lucas: In a company like P&G with a structured annual review, six months gives you enough runway to build momentum without burning out. Priya told me she actually started eight months out, but the first two months were just research — mapping the stakeholders and figuring out what kind of visibility would matter most to each person. Luna: So she didn't start with the calendar. She started with the map. Lucas: Right. She spent eight hours in the first month just looking at organizational charts, reading leadership bios, and asking her mentor which senior leaders actually influence promotion decisions. That upfront investment made the calendar way more effective. Luna: It reminds me of something you've said before: 'Visibility without strategy is just noise.' Lucas: I think I've said that, and I stand by it. Priya's calendar was strategic because it was targeted, timed, and substantive. It wasn't about being loud — it was about being present at the moments that mattered. Luna: And those moments — the brand review, the innovation forum, the quarterly business review — they already existed. She just made sure she was in the room when they happened. Lucas: Exactly. She didn't invent new meetings. She just showed up to the ones that were already happening, but with a clear purpose. That's a much lower-effort approach than trying to create new visibility opportunities from scratch. Luna: I think that's the biggest takeaway for me: you don't need to be the loudest person in the room. You just need to be the most intentional. Lucas: And that intentionality can be systematized. If you're listening and thinking, 'I should try this,' here's a concrete starting point: this week, list three leaders whose awareness of your work would help your career. Then think about one existing meeting or forum where they'll be present in the next thirty days. Plan one thing to say or present there. Luna: One action. That's it. And then you build from there. Lucas: And if this episode helped you think through your own visibility strategy, or gave you a practical idea you can use, we want you to know that listener support is what keeps this show independent and ad-free. You can support us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a simple way to help us keep doing episodes like this one. Luna: Yeah, and we genuinely appreciate it. Every bit of support goes toward research, editing, and keeping the podcast accessible to everyone. Lucas: Now, back to Priya's story — she also discovered something unexpected: the calendar helped her say no. Because she had a plan, she could decline requests that didn't align with her visibility goals. She turned down a low-impact committee assignment because it didn't put her in front of the right audience. Luna: That's a hidden benefit I hadn't considered. The calendar becomes a filter. Lucas: Exactly. It's not just a to-do list — it's a decision-making tool. And that confidence to say no to the wrong opportunities is often what separates people who get promoted from people who just stay busy. Luna: So what's one thing someone could do this week to start building their own visibility calendar? Lucas: Open a blank document. Write down five leaders in your organization — three above you, two at your level but in different functions. For each one, answer: 'What is one thing they care about that I could help with?' Then schedule a fifteen-minute meeting with one of them this month, with an agenda that connects your work to their priority. Luna: That's concrete. And it doesn't require a six-month plan. Just one meeting. Lucas: Right. And from that one meeting, you'll learn something about what that leader values, and you can build your next visibility action from there. It's iterative. Luna: I think the real power of Priya's approach is that it turns a vague career advice — 'get more visibility' — into a repeatable process. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what we try to do on this show: turn career strategy into something you can actually do on Monday morning. Luna: On that note, any final thoughts on the visibility calendar? Lucas: Just that it's not about being seen for the sake of being seen. It's about making sure the right people see the right work at the right time. And a calendar is just a tool to make that happen systematically. Luna: Well said. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. And thanks to all of you for listening.