Moving Up?

Promotions, raises, moving into a dream role; employees have never had so much agency when making moves at work. This post will cover my experiences and offer suggestions for employers, too (not just employees).

Naturally, this is my opinion based on what’s worked for me and the people I’ve spoken with who have moved up. It’s not about networking with the right people, a special education, or natural talent.

As you’ll see reading this, everything I describe below is related to hard work and focus (things anybody can do at work). It’s straightforward but not necessarily easy, and I’ve included many mistakes I made along the way.

But it does work. I’ve been promoted multiple times in different roles and different industries. I may not have always gotten what I wanted, but this is advice I’d give my past self, friends, and future children.

Let’s get into it.

Context on Promotions

I mean ‘promotion’ as moving to a new (different) position with more responsibility, better pay, and (usually) a new title.

• In my first corporate job out of school, I went from a Business Development Associate to a Business Development Manager.

• At the next, I went from business development manager to Director of Growth to Director of Operations.

• At beehiiv (where I am now), I went from a support rep, to a product-support specialist, to a product full time.

I will focus on the first job here to keep the post from getting too long and highlight the others in separate posts. This is from my time at LNG Studios (if you want to look up the company).

First promotion in ~12 months

Doing one thing very well and growing from there.

When I started as a Business Development Associate (a glorified assistant), I took the best minutes at every meeting (something they weren’t doing before). Everything was organized, and I documented what promises were made, who said each thing, and everyone’s to-dos. etc.

I was great at this one thing, and it didn’t seem like a big deal when I was doing it, to be honest, but it was super useful to the team. So much so that the team saw the value and started bringing me to sales meetings with all of our biggest clients.

For you, that ‘one thing’ will probably be something else. I wouldn’t recommend taking great minutes like I did because we have AI now, but there are other options. Maybe you’re great at giving customers presentations, managing one part of the business that adds value, or writing great marketing copy; who knows? But, I could only get more opportunities because I was great at that one thing (not ‘just okay’ at ten things), so nailing one thing is important.

If you haven’t already, find that one thing and own it. You can expand and grow within the business from a smaller area where you are genuinely excellent. Again, it can be a very small thing (like writing great minutes), as long as it’s useful.

Work with the team:

We were selling 3D Animations, VR solutions, and high-end visuals to the biggest real-estate developers in the country. My job was to write everything down, but we got into a smooth flow with these meetings.

• The Partner would do the talking, ask the client questions, and describe the use cases.

• The Director (my boss) would demonstrate the tech, review case studies (name-drop big clients), and review pricing and details in the closing room.

• I’d write everything down exactly as it was said.

When the meeting was over, I’d do three things.

• I would summarize everything and review the client’s questions & comments with the team.

• Strategize on how to word-answer them persuasively.

• I’d write the reply and our proposal asking for the sale.

We shattered every sales record at the company. I slowly locked in this one workflow until we did the same every time, and it worked like clockwork. Next, was applying what worked for us as a team, on an individual level.

Doing the same, but alone:

I cemented the process for myself.

• The questions we’d ask (the Partner’s role).

• Our loops for objections (what my boss did).

• How we positioned our offers (those follow-ups I was already writing).

Once I had everyone’s part down and could repeat the entire flow myself, I applied it to my work and started closing my own clients. But, not before many mistakes.

I’d take meetings with leads that were not our target (wasted time). I’d drive to clients’ offices (how was I supposed to demo our tech without it?) Bad idea; I should’ve asserted they need to show up. Clients would ask me about the value proposition, and I’d describe how their customers benefited. They’d look at me deadpan and spit, “How does it make me money,” right in my face. Lessons learned.

But I did get it right (eventually) and closed just under a million dollars in new business in the next twelve months myself. For context, the company made less than two million in total before hiring me.

Despite all the mistakes, deals were being closed, and that’s the point. Mistakes along the way are normal as long as the end result is what everyone’s after. Everyone experiences these growing pains, and mistakes will be made. It’s normal. Remember that you have the job for a reason, that you’re capable, and as long as the company is moving in the right direction, mistakes are part of the process.

I then repurposed our in-office workflow so it could be done entirely remotely (years before covid made this popular). Expansion into the US started in this way.

I’d send hundreds (maybe thousands) of cold emails, record presentations, do virtual walkthroughs, and whatever else it took. I closed deals in Florida, Texas, California, and my favourite in New York (the client was Skadden Arps). All with nothing but phone calls and emails from our Vancouver office.

Then, I got promoted.

Easy right? Yes and no. Again, it’s straightforward but not necessarily easy. Hard work is always required.

The “Skills” I applied

I write “skills” because they’re not skills at all. These are things anyone can do.

Extreme hard work and focus.

Anybody reading about how to get ahead at work has been told to work hard. But there are a few things that are not as common. But what did I focus on?

1. High performance consistently. If you can do a good job for a long time, you’ll win. I worked 10-12 hours consistently for a year. Small mistakes are easily forgiven if you’re in the office for 12 hours a day.

2. Learning new skills efficiently enough to apply them to work. I went from never having sold anything in my life to what I just described above in ~12-16 months. I learned a lot and learned quickly.

An extra hour or two a day can go a long way. If you prefer balance, I respect it (a lot), but ultimately, moving up sometimes requires that extra time. Maybe not every day, but it's hard to move into a bigger one if we never go above our current role (while we’re in it).

Unbelievable attention to detail.

People don’t give this enough credit.

The details matter. I know people talk about “vision,” “strategy,” and “getting out of the weeds,” but I think it’s all nonsense. I always recommend that it’s important to sweat the small stuff. That doesn’t mean ‘make every small thing a big deal.’

1. Remembering people’s names, their questions, and what they’d say about the market (that we could slide in with other customers). Everything mattered.

2. Nothing fell through the cracks (12-hour days ensured it).

3. But, many small things that would have been nice, were ignored on purpose. Not everything is a big deal, but many minor details matter, so priorities are also important. Attention to every detail requires understanding, which is most important right now.

‘Committing to the bit.’

I was polite and respectful at work. I wore a suit and tie, showed up to meetings a little early, and spoke with confidence. These were rooms with 55+ year-olds who’d been doing real estate development for 30 years (or more). I wanted to be taken seriously, so I’d ‘commit to the bit.’ If clients didn’t take me seriously, how could my boss take me seriously for that promotion?

Bit of a rant here, but if you’re not taken seriously, how are you getting promoted? Especially in an in-office ‘luxury real-estate’ industry with matching values? You don’t necessarily have to ‘conform,’ but if you show people you put in the effort with your work, appearance, and attitude, it shows people you respect their time and their opinion enough to really try and that you care. In return, they have a reason to reciprocate. Will they? Can’t say for sure (some never will).

For you, it may not be a suit and tie. That’s fine. Whatever it is, remember that showing that you care about people’s time is always respectable.

Should they respect you anyway? Sure. But, anytime I got promoted, it started with me. It didn’t start with a sense of entitlement that people doing this for 30+ years owed me respect (or anything for that matter). If you want more from your job and/or a promotion, it has to start with you. I don’t know why saying “pay your dues” is taboo nowadays, but it’s still true.

Go to work looking like a bum who put in zero effort, and you’ll be treated like one. Do people fake it? Yes. Did I want to shave, put on a suit and tie, and drive for an hour to the office every day? No. Did I want to show up so early I’d have to wait outside the locked door until someone else showed up to let me in? No. It happened so many times they had to give me a key. That was the ‘bit,’ and it sucked sometimes, but I wanted money (shocker, it’s a job).

Better to pay those dues and get what you want than let a sense of entitlement stop you. If you’re going to work the job and push for the promotion, then commit. Or, get a different job where the “bit” matches who you are already, and it’s more natural for you.

More importantly, there’s an element of self-respect here that mattered to me (a post for another time).

Anyone can do these things.

I work hard, but I’m not getting promoted…

I hear you completely. There were a few contextual reasons why this worked for me.

A big impact on a smaller company is more easily seen.

There were 10 of us when I started working at LNG Studios, and we peaked at 40. If there were 300 people, processes would have been in place, and I’d have been measured by how well I followed processes instead of actual business impact.

So, it's harder to stand out if you’re at a company with thousands of employees. At a small company, it’s about writing minutes, nailing the sales flow, and closing deals. At a 3,000-person company, it’s either about:

• How well I followed the company’s process (probably data entry and making PPT presentations).

• Success on a much bigger scale that’s much harder to achieve(and even more challenging in a confined set of processes).

Sometimes, the big, prestigious company has so many restraints that it holds back hard workers who could make a major impact. I try never to work for companies that have restraints like this. Worth considering.

The owner and partner in the business loved my manager.

My boss at that company was closing every deal that crossed his desk. Every sale, every client, he was a superstar. Naturally, when he brought me on, I benefited from this reputation through the association. This also means the reverse is very likely true.

Your internal affiliation matters, too, and could be holding you back. It hurts to say it, but if you’re in a 3000-person company and your manager is considered a ‘low-performer’ or ‘loser,’ then you’re on the ‘low-performer’s team,’ and it’s tough to shake that. Admittedly, company culture issues in some places are just like that, and there’s not much we can do about it.

I know I said no ‘networking’ was involved, but it’s always important to consider the manager you’ll be working under when deciding to take a job.

An impeccable (or terrible) first impression matters.

When I spoke with the team years later, they said they knew I’d get promoted within the first week or two. They didn’t know if I’d be in sales, but they did know I’d be moving up somehow.

This was after they watched me ask dozens of dumb questions and awkwardly struggle to learn about real estate and design. This goes back to everything I ranted about above. That good first impression did a lot for me. But it’s not always like that.

A short-sighted decision that you’ll never grow in the business may have already been made for you. I’ve never heard of an employee who had a terrible first three months growing into a leadership position.

To play it safe, I’d assume in the first three months, you’ll know if you’re on a fast track up or if you’ll be repeatedly denied promotions/raises.

Learn to love AI

Think of this as a little bonus on fantastic tech I wish I had been using sooner. I use AI for almost everything now and recommend it to everyone for work. AI is amazing for you if you are a hard-working, coachable person. With AI, I’d have been 10x more productive back then. You can do the same now.

But, it’s also a bit scary. I often get the question: “When AI can do so much work, how can someone stand out with their efforts?”

Popular advice suggests that hard work doesn’t matter anymore for this reason. There is a plethora of ‘advice,’ saying to focus on ideas, strategies, and directing AI. There’s some truth to this.

But I can assure you that hard work is always respectable and always shows. AI is not at a point where it can completely displace effort (at least not yet). It has been displacing people who make themselves look busy when they make no impact on the business. Hard workers with AI outperform everyone else that much more.

AI is a major differentiator. It can instantly take someone from a 6/10 to an 8/10. There is no point in being the “idea guy” or “idea girl” at work if no one respects your opinion anyway.

Of course, if you start your business and grow it with AI, that’s completely different because you have no boss. The “idea guys” are also easily replaceable as soon as they run out of ideas that work, so watch for that.

Regardless, the sooner you learn to love using this technology, the sooner you enjoy the benefits. Promotions are just the start. It’s completely transformative. I’ll be covering this more with time.

Thanks again for reading. See you next week!