Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Negotiating Their Own Role
Transcript
- Lucas: So we talk a lot on this show about proving yourself, building visibility, getting a sponsor. But there's a move I keep seeing that almost nobody teaches explicitly. Luna: What's that? Lucas: Negotiating the role itself. Not just the salary or the title — the actual scope of the job. I came across a case a few months ago that really stuck with me. A senior analyst at a mid-sized logistics firm, we'll call her Priya. Luna: Okay, I'm listening. What was her situation? Lucas: She'd been a senior analyst for about three years. Good reviews, steady work, but she wanted to move into a product strategy role. The problem was — her company didn't have that role on the org chart. At least not at her level. Luna: So she couldn't wait for a job posting. She had to create one. Lucas: Exactly. And she did. But not by asking permission in a vague way. She did something very specific: she spent two weeks building a one-page memo that mapped her company's biggest operational pain points to a new role she designed. Luna: A memo. I love that. What did it look like? Lucas: She identified three chronic problems the logistics division had — late deliveries from certain hubs, data fragmentation between warehousing and sales, and a lack of standardized forecasting. Then she proposed a 'product operations lead' role that would own exactly those three things. Luna: So she didn't just say 'I want a promotion.' She said 'here's a problem that costs the company money, and here's a role that solves it.' Lucas: Precisely. She took that memo to her VP and said, 'I'd like to trial this role for six months. If it works, we formalize it. If it doesn't, I go back to my old job.' That de-risked the whole conversation. Luna: I think a lot of people would be terrified to propose something that bold. How did she build the confidence? Lucas: She told me that she'd read a study — I think it was from a 2025 career survey — that said employees who negotiate a job scope change during a promotion conversation are 40% more likely to stay at the company for two years. She used that as a framing: this is good for retention, not just for me. Luna: Forty percent? That's huge. So she basically said, 'giving me this role makes me more likely to stay.' Lucas: Right. And the VP responded well. He said, 'look, I've been wanting someone to own those problems, but I didn't have headcount to create a new position.' Priya essentially gave him a workaround. Luna: That's the key. She solved a problem for him, too. He got to address three pain points without needing a budget request for a new role. Lucas: Exactly. The six-month trial started. She set specific metrics — reduce late deliveries by 15%, create a weekly data reconciliation report, and implement a basic forecasting tool. Within four months, she'd hit all three targets. Luna: And then the role became official? Lucas: It did. She got promoted to product operations lead, with a salary bump that was about 18% higher than her senior analyst pay. But here's the part I find most instructive: she negotiated the role before the salary. Most people lead with money. Luna: Yeah, and then they get stuck haggling over a few thousand dollars. She led with scope. Lucas: And by leading with scope, she actually ended up with a bigger raise than she would have gotten in a standard promotion cycle. Because the VP saw the value she'd already demonstrated. Luna: Let's talk about the actual conversation. What did she say in that first meeting? Can we reconstruct it? Lucas: Sure. She told me she started with a question: 'I've been noticing we have recurring issues with late deliveries from the Midwest hub. I have some ideas on how to fix that across teams — would you be open to hearing a proposal?' That got the VP curious, not defensive. Luna: So she didn't lead with 'I want a promotion.' She led with a business problem. Lucas: Exactly. The VP said yes, she sent the memo in advance, and the meeting was more of a discussion than a pitch. She asked for feedback on the proposed role — which made him feel involved. Luna: I think that's a huge tactical point. Instead of presenting a finished product, she left room for him to shape it. That builds ownership. Lucas: Right. And that's exactly how you get a sponsor. The VP didn't just approve the role — he became her champion in the leadership meetings. Luna: What about the risk? What if the trial hadn't worked? She said she'd go back to her old job, but that's easier said than done. Lucas: That's the scariest part for most people. But Priya told me she had a backup: if the trial failed, she was prepared to look externally. She had a recruiter contact from a competitor. That gave her the confidence to take the risk. Luna: So she had leverage. She wasn't bluffing. Lucas: Exactly. But she didn't lead with that. She led with value. The leverage was just her safety net. Luna: If we're helping listeners think through a career move like this, I wonder — what's the first step? Someone listening might think, 'my company doesn't have a role for me either.' Lucas: The first step is to pick one problem. Just one. Not three like Priya did — for a first attempt, pick the single pain point you're most qualified to solve. Then write a half-page memo. Luna: And if you're not sure what the pain points are? What if you're not close enough to the strategy conversations? Lucas: That's actually a common blind spot. But you can find out by talking to your manager or a peer in a different function. Ask: 'what's the one thing that keeps coming up in your meetings that nobody has time to fix?' Luna: It's almost like detective work. You're looking for an unsolved problem that fits your skills. Lucas: And then you propose a trial. The trial is the magic word. It makes the promotion a low-risk experiment instead of a permanent decision. Luna: I'd love to know — have you seen other examples of people negotiating their role successfully? Not just in tech or logistics. Lucas: Yeah, one that comes to mind is a marketing coordinator at a healthcare nonprofit. She wanted to move into data analytics. The organization didn't have a data team. So she proposed a three-month pilot where she'd build a dashboard for donor retention. Luna: And? Did it work? Lucas: It did. She got the pilot, built the dashboard, and within six months she was officially the analytics lead. She didn't have a degree in data science — she just took a couple of online courses and used the pilot to prove she could learn on the job. Luna: So the pattern is really consistent: identify a pain point, propose a trial, and set specific metrics. Lucas: Exactly. And then deliver on those metrics. That's the part that separates a good idea from a promotion. Luna: It's been interesting to hear this story. If you've enjoyed the show and found it helpful for thinking through your own career moves, listener support is what keeps us ad-free. You can support us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, and we really appreciate it. It lets us keep diving into these deep case studies without any sponsors. Alright — back to Priya. What happened after the role was formalized? Lucas: She's been in the role for about a year now. She told me she's already thinking about the next move — she wants to eventually lead a team. And she's using the same playbook: she's identifying a gap in how cross-functional projects are managed. Luna: So she's basically building her own career ladder. One role at a time. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the takeaway — you don't have to wait for someone else to design the next step for you. You can design it yourself, test it, and make it official. Luna: I think the biggest mental shift is moving from 'I want a promotion' to 'here's a problem I can solve.' That reframes everything. Lucas: And it makes the conversation much easier for the manager. They're not being asked to give you something — they're being offered a solution. Luna: Alright, so for someone listening right now who wants to try this — what's the one action they should take this week? Lucas: Pick one problem in your organization that you're genuinely interested in solving. Spend an hour this week talking to two people from different teams about it. Then write a one-page memo. That's it. Luna: And if the memo leads nowhere? Lucas: Then you have a one-page document you can take to another company. That's the beauty of this approach — you're building portable evidence of your initiative. Luna: Good point. Priya's memo probably helped her in that external interview she had lined up as a backup. Lucas: Exactly. So it's not a risky move. It's a low-risk, high-upside move. And the worst case is you learn something about what your company values. Luna: I think that's a great note to end on. Next episode, we'll look at another career strategy — how one employee used a sabbatical to come back and get promoted. Lucas: That's a good one. See you next time.