Corporate Politics Are Real. Our Guide on How to Play the Game.

Good Morning. It's National "Ya Dig!" Day, so in honor of the holiday, here's a new cold call opener to try out: "Hey {Name}, it's {Your Name} over at {Your Company}. Can ya dig it?" Then say nothing. Just wait. Best case, they laugh and give you 30 seconds. Worst case, you get hung up on. Let me know how it goes. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

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When I was in my second BDR role, I sat down with one of our senior AEs to get his advice about moving up.

I wanted to know what it would take to get promoted to an AE.

That day, he gave me a hard dose of reality.

He asked me who I thought was the most well known BDR on the team. For the sake of this story, we'll call him Franky. Franky wasn't the best rep on the team and never worked the hardest. But he was loud, outgoing, and everyone in the sales org knew who he was. Management liked him.

The AE told me Franky would absolutely be the next one promoted. And it had nothing to do with his numbers, because his numbers sat right in the middle of the scoreboard.

That conversation changed how I thought about promotions forever.

So if you’re ready to play the corporate politics game, here’s what you should know. 

In a lot of sales orgs, your performance isn't the most important factor in getting promoted. It matters, but it's the baseline. 

A Georgetown University study surveyed over 300 business execs and found that 56% of them already knew who they wanted to promote before they started evaluating candidates. And even after evaluating, 96% still promoted their favorite anyway.

That means in more than half of promotion decisions, the outcome was decided before anyone looked at the numbers. And roughly 90% of the executives in that study admitted that favoritism plays a role in how they decide to promote at their company.

Let’s clear things up though… this isn't an excuse to stop performing. If you're at the bottom of the board, nobody’s going to promote you, and your manager probably won’t like you.

But if you're anywhere in the middle or above, the thing that separates you from the next person could be whether the people making the decision know who you are.

The reps who get promoted fastest are visible.

They speak up in team meetings. They share wins in Slack. They build relationships with managers and leaders outside their direct team. They volunteer for projects that put them in front of senior leadership.

You could call this kissing up. But it’s more about making sure the people who decide your career actually know what you bring to the table. If you put your head down, grind quietly, and expect your numbers to speak for themselves, you're playing a different game than the one being scored.

It would be like becoming the best musician in the world, but never promoting your music for people to find it. 

Franky understood this, and he was great at playing the game. He was the kind of person who made himself known, and when a spot on the AE team opened up, his name was the first one that came to mind.

You can spend your energy resenting the Frankys of the world, or you can learn from them.

The game has rules. They might not be the rules you want, but they're the ones that exist.

This doesn't mean you have to fake it and become someone you're not. You just need to understand that doing great work and making sure the right people know about it are two different skills. Most promotions require both.

Start small. Share something you learned on a call in the next team meeting. Send your manager a quick update when you close something worth mentioning. Grab coffee with someone a level or two above you that you don't usually talk to (although it can be awkward, this one is my favorite).

The best reps understand that selling internally is just as important as selling externally.

Today’s newsletter was written by Nic Conley