Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Building a Career Playbook
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we talk a lot on this show about the big promotion moment — the presentation that wowed the VP, the project that saved the quarter. But what about the months of quiet work before that moment? The preparation that nobody sees. Luna: Right, the behind the scenes work. Today's case is exactly that. Lucas: Maria Chen, marketing manager at a mid-sized fintech firm — think around two thousand employees. She wanted to move to senior director. She had the results: her campaigns were driving measurable lead generation, she'd built a solid team, she had good relationships with her direct reports. But she felt invisible to the executives who would make the promotion call. Luna: And that's a really common trap. You do good work, but nobody above your boss knows your name. Lucas: Exactly. So Maria did something I hadn't heard before. She built a career playbook. Not a resume, not a brag doc, not a career portfolio — a playbook. A living document that mapped out exactly how she was going to get from where she was to senior director in eighteen months. Luna: A playbook. I love that term. It implies strategy, not just a list of accomplishments. Lucas: Right. And she shared it with me. I got permission to talk about it, obviously with names and some details changed. The playbook had five sections. First: her career vision — not just 'I want to be senior director,' but what kind of senior director. She wrote that she wanted to lead a team that owned the full marketing funnel, from awareness to retention, and that she wanted a seat at the table for product strategy discussions. Luna: So specific. That's the difference between 'I want a promotion' and 'I want this role at this company doing these things.' Lucas: Second section: her value proposition. She listed the three things she believed she was best at — cross-functional collaboration, data-driven campaign optimization, and mentoring junior marketers. But then she also listed the gaps she needed to fill to be credible as a senior director: she had no experience with P&L ownership, no relationships with the C-suite, and she'd never presented to the board. Luna: She called her own gaps. That takes a lot of self-awareness, and frankly, courage. Lucas: Third section: sponsorship strategy. Maria identified three executives whose influence she needed. The CMO, obviously, but also the VP of product and the head of finance — because the senior director role would require her to partner with both. For each person, she wrote down their priorities, their communication style, and a plan for how she would create value for them before she ever asked for anything. Luna: So it's not just networking. It's strategic relationship-building with a clear purpose. Lucas: Fourth section: executive presence. She defined what that meant in her company's culture. At her firm, executive presence meant being concise in meetings, asking strategic questions, and being seen as someone who could represent the company externally. So she set specific actions: speak up in at least one all-hands Q&A per quarter, volunteer for a panel at the industry conference, and schedule monthly coffee chats with the CMO. Luna: That's so concrete. It's not 'be more visible,' it's 'here are the three things I will do.' Lucas: Fifth section: the roadmap. She mapped each quarter of the eighteen months. Q1: focus on closing the gaps — she took a course on P&L management and asked the head of finance to mentor her on the numbers. Q2: start building visibility — she presented her campaign results at a company-wide meeting. Q3: secure a sponsor — she worked on a cross-functional project that got her in front of the VP of product. Q4: have the promotion conversation. Luna: And did she get the promotion? Lucas: She did. At the end of month seventeen, she was promoted to senior director. Her boss told her later that what made the difference was the playbook. Not just because it showed initiative, but because it made her promotable. It forced her to do the work of becoming the person who could do the job. Luna: That's the key insight for me. The playbook wasn't just a document she showed to others. It was a tool she used on herself. Lucas: Right. And I think that's what separates a playbook from a typical brag doc or career portfolio. A playbook is forward-looking. It's a strategy document, not a history. Luna: If we've helped you think through your own career playbook or a similar strategy, you might be wondering how we keep this show going without ads. We deliberately don't run ads on these episodes. If you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, that listener support is what keeps us independent and focused on real cases like Maria's. No sponsors, no pressure to make things sound more dramatic than they are. Luna: Exactly. So, back to the playbook. One thing I want to dig into is how Maria used the playbook in conversations. Did she just hand it to her boss? Lucas: No, and that's important. She didn't present it as a finished document. She used it as a discussion tool. In her first one-on-one with her boss after she drafted it, she said, 'I've been thinking about my next step, and I put together some thoughts. I'd love your feedback.' Then she walked through the sections and asked for input. Luna: So it became a collaborative tool. It invited her boss into her development. Lucas: Exactly. And her boss ended up advocating for her in ways she hadn't expected. The boss forwarded the playbook to the CMO with a note saying, 'This is the kind of strategic thinking we need at the senior director level.' Luna: That's the dream. Your boss becomes your champion because you've made it easy for them to see you clearly. Lucas: And that's the core of the playbook idea. It's not about self-promotion in a tacky way. It's about giving the people who need to make a decision about you all the information they need, in a format that shows you're thinking at the next level. Luna: One more thing — how often did she update it? Lucas: She treated it as a living document. Every month, she'd review her progress against the roadmap. If something changed — a new project, a new stakeholder — she'd adjust. By the time she had her formal promotion conversation, the playbook had gone through six or seven iterations. Luna: So it evolved with her. That makes it a real playbook, not a static plan. Lucas: Exactly. And I think that's the takeaway for anyone listening. You don't need to call it a playbook. You can call it a career strategy document, a development roadmap, whatever. But the act of writing it down forces you to be specific. And specificity is what gets you noticed. Luna: And it's a conversation starter. It's something you can show your mentor, your boss, even a sponsor. Lucas: Right. Maria told me that after she shared it with her boss, her boss started using a similar framework with her own direct reports. So it had a ripple effect beyond just her promotion. Luna: I love that. A tool that scales. Lucas: So if you're feeling stuck or invisible at work, consider building your own playbook. Start with the vision, then the gaps, then the relationships, then the actions. It might take a weekend to draft, but it could save you months of spinning your wheels. Luna: And remember, the goal isn't the document. The goal is the clarity it gives you — and the conversations it starts. Lucas: Exactly. That's the playbook in a nutshell.