One document that helps you find the right coach and get budget for it
A product leader wanted to get coaching approved as her role grew in scope from managing a single product to owning more of the post-sales workflow. Her CEO was supportive of professional development but hesitant to invest without understanding what they’d get from it.
She approached it like a product manager. She sent the CEO a two-page document that outlined exactly what she was struggling with, what success would look like in concrete terms, and how she’d measure progress. Almost a PRD.
The document showed she understood her gaps, had done her homework on what kind of coaching relationship would work, and could articulate why investing in coaching would help her be more effective as she scaled her product responsibilities.
A short while later, she had CEO approval and found a coach who specialized in post-sales product work.
Six months into working with that coach, she reached out to me. The coaching had helped her navigate the GTM workflow challenge, and now she was facing a different set of problems as she shifted from managing a single product line to managing a portfolio. She needed to update her coaching focus and realized that she could use a different coach now.
She sent me her updated CRD—the same document she’d used to get initial CEO approval, now revised to reflect her new challenges. I could immediately understand exactly what kind of support she needed and how to work together.
What struck me wasn’t just that she got approval twice. It was that her document transformed coaching from a “nice to have” perk into a scoped development initiative with clear outcomes. She knew what she needed, could articulate why it mattered to the business, and as a result, got the investment she needed.
From the coach’s perspective, it helped me make sure I was always helping her towards those outcomes.
Why most coaching searches fail before they start
This product leader’s success wasn’t luck. She avoided the trap that catches most people who want coaching.
Most leaders never get to the point of evaluating coaches at all. The conversation usually goes like this: a product leader tells their manager “I want a coach.” The manager asks what they want to work on. The answer is vague – “leadership skills” or “becoming more strategic.” Without clear outcomes or success criteria, there’s no way to justify the investment.
Coaching gets framed as personal development, something nice to have but not essential to the business. When budgets tighten, it’s the first thing cut.
The difference in the story above? She had a document that did two things at once: got budget approval and helped her find the right coach match quickly.
When people ask me for advice on how to hire a great coach, I ask if they’ve written their CRD – their Coaching Requirements Document – yet.
Most haven’t. And that’s often why their coaching search stalls out before it even begins.
What a Coaching Requirements Document is (and isn’t)
The CRD flips this dynamic. Instead of “I want a coach,” you’re presenting “Here’s the development problem I’m facing, the outcomes we’re targeting, and how we’ll measure success.” You’ve translated coaching from a personal perk into a scoped development initiative with business outcomes.
A CRD is a one or two page client-authored document, similar to how product managers write PRDs before building features. Just like we don’t go picking solutions before we figure out what the user problem is, we shouldn’t go interviewing coaches until we have clarity about what we need from one.
What it is:
- A written articulation of what you want to work on, how you want to work, and what success looks like right now.
- A snapshot in time, meant to evolve.
- A document that serves double duty: helping you find the right coach AND making the case for budget approval.
What it’s not:
- A guarantee of fit.
- A permanent requirements doc.
- A way to optimize for speed or price-shopping.
If you’re thinking “I’ve never had a coach before – how do I know what to ask for?” – that’s exactly why writing the CRD is valuable. The process of articulating your needs forces you to think through what you’re actually trying to achieve. You don’t need to get it perfect. You need to get it clear enough to start the conversation.
The core sections of a CRD
If you’re looking for some good questions to answer, this list from Natalie Rothfels that was posted on Adam Fishman’s newsletter is a great starting point.
Here are the sections I recommend, along with guidance on how to think through each one:
- Context & Current Reality What’s your role, team size, and company stage? What constraints and pressures are you facing? Most importantly: what’s triggering the desire for a coach now? Something changed – a new role, a team expansion, feedback you received, a challenge you’re stuck on. Name it.
- What “Good” Would Look Like in 6–12 Months This is where many people get stuck because it feels abstract. Make it concrete: What would your manager notice is different? What would your team notice? What decisions would you be making more confidently? Think about observable changes in behavior, decision-making, or outcomes – not just feelings.
- What You Think You Need Help With A brief bullet point list of challenges you’ve been running into recently. Don’t overthink this – you might be wrong about what you actually need, and a good coach will help you refine it. But your initial hypothesis matters because it signals to potential coaches whether they have relevant experience.
- Business Impact How does solving this development gap connect to company priorities? If you become more effective in the areas you’ve identified, what becomes possible for the business? This is where you translate personal development into business value. Examples: “Better stakeholder management means we can ship features 2 weeks faster because we’re not stuck in approval cycles” or “Clearer product strategy helps the team prioritize better, reducing wasted engineering time.”
- Preferred Coaching Relationship (Initial Hypothesis) Do you want someone who gives you direct advice, or someone who asks questions to help you find your own answers? How frequently do you want to meet? Do you want someone who pushes back hard, or someone who’s more supportive? If you’ve never had a coach, make your best guess – you can always adjust.
- Constraints & Non-Goals What you don’t want, timing limits, org realities. Be honest here. If you can only meet during certain hours, say so. If there are topics that are off-limits, name them. If you’re trying to solve a specific problem and don’t want general leadership coaching, make that clear.
- Open Questions & Uncertainty Explicit acknowledgment of what might change. This section gives you permission to evolve. Maybe you think you need help with stakeholder management, but you suspect the real issue is something deeper. Say that. Coaches appreciate honesty about uncertainty – it helps them understand how to approach the relationship.
To help you out, I made a customGPT to help you draft your document. share it with your leadership to make your case, and then share it with potential coaches to make sure that they’re going to be a good fit. You can download an example here.
Why this document works (for finding fit AND getting budget)
For coach selection: Not every coach is the same. We all bring different approaches, philosophies, experience, and styles. I lean more towards product operations and thinking through how to structure and enable your team. Other coaches might focus on communication styles, developing strategy, or managing across a broad portfolio of products.
The CRD makes non-fit show up early in the process instead of several months in, after you’ve already committed. It allows coaches to select in and out honestly. When the product leader first reached out to me, I could immediately see from her document that I wasn’t the right fit for what she needed at that moment. Six months later, when her needs had shifted, the fit was clear.
For budget approval: The CRD transforms the conversation from “can we afford this?” to “can we afford not to invest in solving this problem?” You’ve demonstrated intentionality and readiness. You’ve created a shared artifact that your manager and HR can review together. You’ve made it easy for them to say yes.
One document, two critical problems solved.
The CRD helps you figure out if coaching is the right solution
You can write your CRD even before you start looking at specific coaches. In fact, that’s often the best time to do it. The clarity you gain from articulating your needs will make every conversation with potential coaches more productive.
When clients approach me without a CRD, we spend our first session writing it together. It’s the foundation that makes every session after more valuable. We get aligned on what we’re actually trying to solve, what success looks like, and whether I’m even the right coach for this phase of their development.
And as your context shifts—a new role, a major confidence jump, a change in organizational priorities—your CRD should evolve too. It’s a living document that reflects where you are right now, not where you were six months ago.
The goal of writing a CRD isn’t to find a coach faster. It’s to invest wisely – sometimes later, sometimes differently, sometimes not at all until the real need becomes clear.
Write your CRD now, even if you’re not ready for coaching
The real value of a CRD isn’t just getting coaching approved. It’s creating a framework for thinking about your professional development needs on an ongoing basis.
By writing down what you’re struggling with, what good looks like, and what kind of support you need, you gain clarity. You start to see patterns in where you need help. And more importantly, you can evaluate whether coaching is actually the right solution.
Once you’ve articulated your development gaps, ask yourself:
- Can my manager help with this? If you need context on company strategy or decision-making frameworks specific to your organization, your manager might be the best resource. No coach can replace that institutional knowledge.
- Can peers help with this? If you’re figuring out how to navigate a common challenge (like running effective roadmap reviews or managing up), other product leaders in your company or network might have already solved it. A peer mentorship or roundtable might be more valuable than formal coaching.
- Am I trying to understand myself and my leadership patterns better? If you’re working through challenges your manager hasn’t faced, or need confidential support your peers can’t provide, or want to accelerate development in ways your organization can’t support—that’s when coaching makes sense.
The CRD helps you be honest about which of these you actually need. Sometimes the answer is “all three, for different things.” That’s fine. The exercise forces you to stop treating professional development as a vague aspiration and start treating it as a concrete problem you can solve.
Take an hour this week. Answer the six questions in the framework above. You might end up with a document to get coaching approved. Or you might realize you need to have a different conversation with your manager about development opportunities. Or you might identify three peers you should be learning from.
Any of those outcomes moves you forward. The worst outcome is staying stuck because you haven’t articulated what you actually need.