How can you possibly get promoted when

you keep getting overlooked and there's

no one senior pulling you into the right

roles? Well, I was in that position a

few years ago, but I figured out how to

fix it. And over the next few years, I

used it to get promoted consistently,

start earning more, and finally feel

like my career was actually moving

instead of watching others get the

opportunities that I should have had.

And it was all because I figured out how

to build a system that gets you promoted

despite being stuck in the same role for

years. So, in this video, I'm going to

show you exactly how I did it, how you

can use the same system to get promoted

and earn more even when no one is

opening the doors for you. Right, so to

start, when you're trying to get

promoted, you want executives to see you

as ready, and you want to avoid being

overlooked when the opportunity does

present itself. So, you probably make

the same mistake I see even

high-potential employees making. You

prepare to showcase your skills,

demonstrate everything that you bring,

and make sure the right people can

actually see how ready you are in the

assessment process. But doing that has a

big problem. It assumes a promotion

works like a job interview that you used

to get into the company in the first

place, which is where you perform well

in a formal process and the best

candidate gets picked. But by the time

the internal process is scheduled, the

decision is largely already been made.

The formal process confirms what the

right people already believe about you.

And if you haven't shaped that

perception before the process starts,

then no matter how well you do in the

process, it's not going to save you. You

see, when decision-makers are selecting

who gets promoted, they're not waiting

for a formal moment to form a a view on

an opinion about an an employee. They've

already decided who they see as ready

for the next level, and they're just

using the process to validate it and

tick a box for HR. So, if you're waiting

for that moment to make your case, then

you're already behind everyone else

who's already made it. But as I'm about

to show you, there's a way to shape that

perception before the process even opens

up. So, I'm going to show you my system.

It's the same one that got my clients

results like this, and there are only

three steps to it. And the magic of this

system is, when you do all three, they

work together and become more effective.

So, your career will stop feeling like

luck and feel a lot more like a process

that you can actually control yourself.

So, let me show you what these systems

are and how to use them for yourself.

Right. So, step one of this system is

important to get right because the other

steps are going to build on top of it.

So, if you get it wrong, the other steps

aren't going to work. So, the first

thing you need to do is position

yourself for a promotion using the

need-driven choice principle. So, think

of it like this. Think of a multi-tool,

right? It does 20 different things, but

when you need to tighten a screw, you

still grab a screwdriver because people

pick the best tool for the job in front

of them, not the most useful tool

overall.

And this is called a need-driven choice.

And promotions work in the same way.

Leaders don't promote the most useful

person overall, they promote the person

who best solves the business problem

that they're worried about right now.

So, if you want to stop watching less

qualified people get the promotions you

deserve, then your goal is to stop

marketing yourself as a multi-tool and

start becoming the solution to a

specific business problem. And that's

what step one is. It's to build a

positioning statement that tells

leadership exactly what problem you

solve. So, let me show you exactly how

you can do this. I'll show you the

positioning statement for yourself. You

just need to complete the sentence, "I'm

the person who gets results in specific

situation without problem by unique

mechanism." So, for example, "I'm the

person who delivers cross-functional

projects on time when the business is

facing uncertainty without last-minute

firefighting by aligning stakeholders

early and locking in decisions. And if

you want your positioning statement to

actually work for you to build

credibility with leaders and position

you for the next promotion, instead of

just sounding like something good on

paper that you can post on your bio on

LinkedIn, then it needs to do two

things. Now, this tool will help you

dial that in, but a positioning

statement that is going to get you

promoted fast is one that is in the

right position on this graph. This

measures how broad or specific your

statement is and how senior it is. A

good position statement isn't too broad

because then anyone can do it and you

don't stand out and then you're just a

multi-tool again, but it's also not too

narrow either because then the problem

you solve is going to happen so

infrequently then they don't have need

for you. It also needs to be aiming at

the right level. It needs to signal

something above your current level so

leadership sees you as someone who

solves a problem at the next level from

where you are, but not too high either

because then they just see you as

someone who can support whoever actually

does deliver that. And if you get that

just right, when leadership has a need

such as we're under pressure, we need

someone to lead this, they pick the

person who fills that exact need. But

none of this matters unless you do step

two because you can have the perfect

positioning statement on paper and still

be invisible to the people who make

decisions unless you know how to

communicate that positioning statement

and I'll show you exactly how to do that

in step two. So, step two is about

making sure the right people already

know what you're about before the

conversation about promotions ever

happens. And I'm going to show you how

to do that using personal branding. Now,

hold on a second before you switch off

and tell me that playing politics isn't

your style, then you're right and this

has nothing to do with that because

personal branding at work is about being

the person they think of when an

opportunity comes up so you're already

the person they picture in that role.

And that's what my clients use to go

from being high performers who get

passed over to being the exact person

leadership thinks of whenever they have

a problem that needs solving. So, let me

show you exactly how this works. One

time, I lost a promotion to someone who

failed to complete half of the

assessment because he didn't realize

there was a second page of instructions.

We were the last two left standing after

weeks of tests, presentations, group

activities, psychometric assessments,

and then after it was all done, before

any announcement was made, we were

talking to each other. And that's when

he discovered there was a second page of

tasks that he completely forgot about. I

knew then that I was going to get the

role. Only, I didn't get it, and he did

instead. In the debrief, the management

told me they were genuinely surprised by

how capable I was, but that was the

problem, that they were surprised by it.

They'd never seen it before. So, when it

came time to deciding who is ready to

get promoted into this role, they picked

the person who solved the problem in

front of them. It didn't matter how good

I was if the only place they got to see

it was a formal assessment. He got

picked because when the business problem

came up, they decided who the answer was

before he walked into the room. And

that's when I understood that waiting

for the assessment to make your case is

already too late. You need a personal

brand to get you selected before there

is even a role. And since then, I've

never actually gone through another

formal assessment for any promotion

because they've all just been given to

me because I was able to position myself

as the person who solved the business

problem using the system that I'm about

to show you. So, if you want to be

pre-selected for the next opportunity,

then step two is to take your position

statement and build a network map to

make sure the right people know about

it. And this is a step that

professionals I work with most often

need help with because they often

misunderstand who the right people are

that have the most influence on their

career. So, let me show you how to do

this right. Take anyone in the

organization, and you can pop them on a

graph like this that has two axes. One

is the scale of the seniority of that

person, and this is what most people

understand, and so that's what they

focus on. So, at the top, we'd have the

CEO, then the executive team, and then

the leadership layer, and so on all the

way down to intern. And where most

professionals make the mistake that

delays their promotions by years is by

putting their attention entirely on the

seniority scale. They think that by

getting visibility with the leadership

team and presenting in meetings is what

is going to showcase their personal

brand and get them promoted. And it

stands to reason, the more senior they

are, the more influence they have to get

you promoted. But, this is only partly

true, because if you ignore this other

axis, you're missing out on all the

people who actually move a career

forward, and instead you waste time

trying to impress people with good job

titles who won't actually influence your

next career move. That's because the

second axis is career influence. This

tracks how much influence someone has

over a career decision for you. And when

you plot both axis, you create four

distinct zones. The high authority, low

influence, low authority, low influence,

high influence, high authority, and the

most important one, high influence, low

authority. Ignoring this zone is the

biggest career mistake you can make, and

that's exactly what happened to my

client Andrew. You see, Andrew came to

me and said he's struggling to get the

right people to notice him. He feels

overlooked, and he wanted help trying to

get more visibility from the chief

commercial officer. But before we even

did that, we went through his network

together, and what we discovered is what

got him the senior manager role a few

months later. Because we realized that

the CCO sits up here. He has high

authority, but very little influence on

his career. So, getting more visibility

and presenting in front of him in

meetings won't really help him that much

when it came to getting picked for

promotion. What we discovered was there

were several people in the low

authority, high influence zone that

Andrew was completely ignoring because

they lacked the job title, but they were

actually the biggest influences on

Andrew's career. You see, Andrew focused

on impressing his boss and the people up

that chain because Andrew, like most

professionals, thought that that's how

promotion decisions happen. But in

reality, it's much more like a

complicated web of interactions like

this. And when you realize that

promotions are a need-driven choice, it

means they don't actually happen via

clean sign-off lines. Promotions happen

through interactions where your personal

brand spreads. So, when a need comes up,

your personal brand is what fills that

gap. So, the biggest influences on your

career are not hierarchy, they're the

people like this senior manager in a

department that Andrew works closely

with who frequently sends updates to

this VP, or this HR partner who has a

project on internal staffing, or this VP

who briefly attended a meeting you in

once, but left with a positive

impression of you. And when I worked

with Andrew, we realized we had all

these people who he wasn't focused on,

who sat in these high influence zones,

especially the low seniority high

influence area, who are the most

overlooked zone, but are the easiest to

spread your personal brand to. And

that's who you should focus on. When

Andrew stopped trying to get a meeting

with the CCO and instead focused his

networking on this group of people, they

became strong advocates for him. And

within months, a need popped up in their

area of business, and instead of one

person who sits at the end of the chain

who signs off on the budget being

Andrew's only advocate, he suddenly had

a dozen people who all saw him as the

person they needed to solve the specific

problem that was in front of them. And

that's when he was offered an

opportunity to move into that team at

the next level. But most people say to

me at this point, "Yeah, Josh, this is

great and all, but my company doesn't

work like that. It's too political. It's

too small, or it has a different

culture. They just don't create

opportunities. And if that thought has

crossed your mind, then let me show you

step three of this system that brings

the whole thing together and allows you

to create your own opportunities instead

of waiting for others to come to you.

When you do this, you bring the average

promotion timeline down from the global

average of about 5.1 years to the point

where HR will start making exceptions

for you because you're going to be

moving up faster than their guidelines

say is possible. Right, so step three.

And if you're like any other

professional, then you've seen people

who always seem to have the

opportunities come to them. That guy who

walks in one day and suddenly has a new

job title, but hold on a minute, there

wasn't even an internal role advertised.

Or the person who, despite the HR policy

that says you have to do 18 months in a

role before you can move up, seems to

have had three roles in that timeline.

Or the person whose pay conveniently

sits outside of the pay scale as a

special exception. Well, none of that

was luck because, as I'm about to show

you, there is a system that anyone can

use to create their own opportunities to

get promoted and earn more. So, step

three is opportunity engineering. And

together, all three of these steps work

together to form what I call the career

engine that will get you promoted

quicker and more often. Because the

stronger your personal brand, the better

suited you are to opportunities when

they come up. And the stronger your

network, the more people there are to

advocate you for those opportunities.

And the better you get at this next

step, the more opportunities there will

be for people to advocate for you. And

this is how you engineer opportunities

for yourself so you can accelerate the

pathway to promotion instead of waiting

for someone to notice you. But very

quickly, if you want my help putting

together a career engine for yourself,

then I work with a small number of

professionals at a time doing just that.

The reason I can only work with a small

number at a time is because each one not

only gets all the frameworks and tools,

as well as an app to manage the engine,

I personally help you through every step

of the way with anything like

presentation preparation, salary

negotiation, a big meeting coming up, a

tough boss, whatever it is. So, if

you're tired of being overlooked and

think that sounds right for you, then

check the link in the description. And

if we're a good fit for each other and I

think I can genuinely help you, then you

can be part of the small group of people

that I help. Right, so step three is

about identifying the opportunities,

then leveraging them. And as I'm about

to show you, there are far more

opportunities than most people realize.

Most people wait for formal

announcements for roles before they

think they can advance. But there

actually dozens of times a year where

movement happens. Whenever there's a

change in the company, it represents an

opportunity for advancement. For

example, budgeting season, a new

leadership has come in, a big initiative

starts, and so many more opportunities.

Each of these are times of change in the

organization, and they're actually

windows that you can leverage to advance

your career if you do it right. So,

before I show you how to do it, you

should understand the key here is that

not every opportunity is guaranteed to

be a yes. But trying eight times a year

with a smaller chance of a yes,

leveraging each one, is going to be far

quicker than waiting five years for one

announcement to be made and then being

looked over for years again after that.

And the great thing is, every time you

get a no trying to go for one of these

opportunities, it creates pressure for

you to get a yes the next time. So, the

big idea here is to stack the

opportunities instead of thinking it as

making one request and getting a yes.

So, what you do is, whenever there is an

upcoming opportunity, for example, like

budgeting season, have a conversation

with your boss or whoever it needs to be

about allocating some budget for your

advancement. Now, you're almost

certainly going to get a no at that

point. And that's okay, because if you

do what I will show you, then that no

will become a yes down the line. So,

what you do is, you take that no as the

starting point or runway for the next

opportunity. And you do that by asking,

well, what would it take for you to be

comfortable saying yes to that? Or, I

understand the timing isn't right right

now, but how have exceptions been made

in the past? What process did they

follow? And this does two things.

Firstly, it gives you a pathway to

getting a yes later because if they just

told you what the requirements are, then

if you fulfill those requirements, it

makes asking the next time more likely

to be a yes. And secondly, it opens an

ongoing dialogue. So, you can come back

to your boss periodically and say, "Hey,

I've done these things to be put in

place for the next yes." And then you

can start working on the next question.

And in almost all cases, you'll get a

bunch of no's in a row, but if you never

let the momentum drop, you have a strong

personal brand and a network of

advocates. Using this career system, you

will get promoted more often, reduce the

time between promotions, and if you work

with me on negotiation, each jump will

earn you more than you would have got

following HR policy. And if you want to

see what that conversation of getting

yeses looks like, then check out this

next video where I walk you through

step-by-step how to ask for things in

your career and exactly what to say to

turn every no into a yes. And if you

want to be one of the few people I can

help at a time, then check out this link

below because together we can work on

this engine, you'll get all the tools

and frameworks in the app that'll make

this easier, and I will personally work

with you four months every step of the

way to get you the result.