From 10 Years Stuck at Senior PM to Multiple Offers + Big Raise | Lynne Levy Coaching Review

Andrew, great to see you.

Yeah, you as well, Lynne Levy.

I'm so excited with where you ended up, and thank you for doing this recording.

Of course, absolutely.

All right, so let's start. So tell the folks out there, where were you before you started the program? Tell me, tell us what was going on.

Yeah, so as a senior product manager for a company, um, that in the energy sector for about, you know, 19 years. And I've been a senior product manager for roughly 10 of them. And, and, and it really found like getting promoted was very difficult. And also the, the, the pay, you know, my, I had a, I had a previous boss who was like, man, we need to fix this and, and prom made some promises and then he left the company. And of course that those went away. And so I was really feeling some frustration on there. Like I liked my job in general and I enjoyed who I worked with, but just really kind of sense of where are we going with this? And I needed, I needed to figure out, figure that out.

So what made you decide to take the leap and join the program?

Well, I think one, I really wanted some outside influence on my career and, and on the world of product management, because I kind of only had one real experience. So that was probably the main thing to really learn, you know, see what was I missing and what was I learning. And then also in the, you know, kind of being a little bit shocked on the compensation, um, options that were presented around, you know, we're basically, you know, total comp almost $100,000 more than, you know, what I was really getting. Um, so So that was pretty, that was also pretty exciting to see how that would play out. And, um, and yeah, I think that was, those are really the main, the main, the main reasons why.

So what, I mean, you, you dove into the program, every piece and part, you were completely decisive and coachable. What, tell us a little bit about your journey through the program.

Yeah. I think One thing that was really cool that I really liked was how you can apply the— I want to say the skills and frameworks of product management to your career. And I think that's really what I observed is, oh, we're doing, you know, we're doing the, you know, vision and mission. And we're, you know, you're basically thinking of yourself as a product and doing all the product management skills. So you're learning how to up-level your product management skills while you're doing those things to, you know, help launch yourself into the market, you know? And I thought that was, I really liked that because you, again, you, you get better at being a product manager and you're also, um, you know, out there, you know, pursuing, uh, other opportunities.

So tell the audience, where are you now? This is what gets me so excited. Oh, actually, where were you a week ago?

As of last week, I ended up really getting some traction on So I'm going to end up with 3 job offers, you know, all in the, you know, total comp of, you know, $230,000 range, you know, not including equity. So, so that was pretty exciting. And then what happened is I put in, I picked one from there. And, and so, so I chose one I was moving forward with. It wasn't quite the level or title I wanted, but The compensation was definitely so much better. I couldn't— and then the opportunities with the startup, and it was pretty exciting, you know, startup and opportunity to learn from a CPO and all that. So I was pretty excited about it. But then when I put in my resignation, um, cause I wasn't playing games, I wasn't trying to wiggle more money out of my current company. I was most likely, I'm just going to move on. And, and they, I did not expect their reaction. They actually kind of in 24 hours came back with They matched the offer in terms of compensation. Um, you know, they, they gave me the role I wanted, um, not quite the role I wanted, but a good path to get there, but definitely a promotion and additional— I'm on the, the, the VP of products, uh, staff now. So I get to learn directly from him and have, uh, you know, um, you know, at a mid-cap, you know, technology company. So So pretty exciting, you know, turn of events that were very unexpected. But, um, I also had— I didn't get all the way to the offer stage with them, but I was also in the running for, um, you know, a director position at, um, you know, at one of my top companies as well. And so, so yeah, so pretty good end result, as you know, pretty long journey, but we got there. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was good. It was cool. It's good. Awesome.

So if you were to bump into somebody on the street and they were to say, why should I join this program? What would you tell them? What questions should somebody ask themselves?

Well, I think it's, it's investing in your career, you know, like just like going back to school or investing in, you know, you have to invest in your career. If you want to go anywhere now, you really try to even just grow as a product manager, even without the financial components. I mean, it's definitely, you know, I don't, I think it's, it's definitely worth it. The time investment as well as the financial investment. No question in my mind.

Do you think you've become a better leader?

Yeah, I definitely do. I mean, if anything, it kind of validated a lot of my thinking around leadership already, but it also kind of gave more, better, more language to it and a little bit more to expand it. So. Definitely feel like I'm a better leader. And I think mostly just even just a better product manager in terms of like using product management to sell yourself. You are the product, or even thinking that, okay, my team is my product now, you know, and using those same frameworks and then the strategy sessions and some of the lab work is probably where I got the most, the most out of it. So yeah, definitely.

Awesome, Andrew. I'm so excited for you. I can hardly wait to watch your journey. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Bye-bye.