A Few Thoughts for Aspiring Product Coaches
Over the past few years, I’ve received an increasing number of requests from aspiring product coaches. I was curious about why that was the case, then overwhelmed by the number of requests, and ultimately decided to share some of my thoughts on this topic.
I’ve divided this post into three parts:
Part 1: Why the sudden interest in becoming a product coach? (And why I’m the wrong person to field these requests)
Part 2: My advice for aspiring coaches
Part 3: Some resources to get you going
Feel free to skip ahead to the part of this post that’s most relevant to you, or, of course, you can read it from start to finish if you’d like!
Part 1: Why the sudden interest in becoming a product coach? (And why I’m the wrong person to field these requests)
2022 seemed to be the year of the product coach.
For years and years there only have been a handful of people using that title and doing the work of a product coach. (You can read more about what product coaches do here). And once or twice a year someone reached out to me to share that they wanted to become a coach themselves. They’d ask if I would be up for a coffee so that they could hear how I built my coaching business and if I had any advice to help them get off to a good start. And as I love chatting with humans, I often said yes to these requests.
And then came 2022! In the first quarter, I got around five of those requests a month. In Q2, it grew to five a week, and it peaked some weeks ago when I had no less than 30 (!!!) people reaching out to me in a single week.
Why now? Why so many? What has changed?
The short answer: I don’t know. But the notion I got from the conversations I’ve had supports the following theory:
Back in 2021 (when we were economically in a different place) a lot of people seemed to be unhappy with their jobs. Many companies don’t offer opportunities for the senior IC career path and so they are stuck in rather boring roles. Their experience is not valued or can’t come into play in their current role. (Internal product coaching is not (yet) a thing in most organizations.)
Some coaches (me included) seem to make a good living on product coaching and what we do looked so appealing from the outside. (People might frame their desire to become a coach as, “I can finally share all my wisdom” or “I can finally tell people how to do product right.” By the way, this is not what coaching is all about, but all too often how people describe their motivation to go freelance.)
So people were already considering making the move. For most of them, personal reasons topped their list of reasons: They wanted to be “their own boss” or wanted to “have a more flexible schedule so that they could spend more time with their family / traveling / …” but were still unsure if it was safe enough to make the move.
And then there was a SVPG workshop in London. Marty Cagan and his partners started their “Coach the Coaches” session with 50 something senior product folks and I think that is what has ultimately changed the climate—and not only for the attendees of this session. Many people read about it and decided that this is the sign they were hoping for: Product coaching is a thing and the time is now to become a product coach.
What all these folks have not yet realized: They are not alone. I counted all the emails I got from aspiring product coaches and it has been around 100 this year so far.
So the obvious question for my inner business woman was:
Should I start a business to coach product coaches?
But the answer was an easy no. I love working with product leads and don’t want to reduce the time I spend with them.
And, after thinking about it for a minute or two, I realized that making a living from product coaching has way more to do with finding product-market fit for your offer, with sales and acquisition, with optimizing your funnel, with setting up a website, with creating and sharing content, with networking, with bookkeeping and tax affairs, and many other boring (to me, anyway) things. And I would have needed to make that part of the coaching as well.
Because it is not so much the product knowledge or the coaching technique that makes you a successful coach (you of course have to have those things covered), but in the end it’s more than that.
So what should I do with all these requests?
In the beginning, I tried to keep up with them and spent quite a lot of hours with aspiring product coaches (who are all lovely human beings, by the way).
But at some point it had to stop. I want to work on the things that I’ve decided to dedicate my time to. And not on career coaching for others.
I created some boundaries for myself and drafted a template email response:
“Unfortunately, I get requests like this every day. I currently reserve my calendar for clients, content creation, and my conference, so I’m not able to respond to these types of requests. As an alternative, I strongly recommend you reach out to prospective customers to get feedback on your product/idea. Their input will be far more valuable than mine.”
I’ve started to answer any email inquiries with this short auto-reply. Some people got quite upset that I set boundaries. And as setting and enforcing boundaries is not one of my talents, I thought about: What is it that I can do to still provide some value to them while keeping my calendar for the things that are important to me? And that is how I’ve decided to write this blog post to collect some resources and some advice that might be helpful in the beginning.
Part 2: My advice for aspiring coaches
Do what product people are good at: Start with why.
Do your own product discovery.
Ask yourself: Why should clients buy from me? Where is my competitive edge? What’s my niche? How do they get to know me? What’s the one moment that will trigger them to reach out to me? How would I structure my services? What’s my target coaching audience and is the audience I need to sell my services to any different?
If you have read to this point, you already got the idea: It’s all about finding product-market fit first and then growing your coaching business from there.
And you know that it is better to go talk to “the user” than it is to look at your competitors (that’s me) too much. I started my coaching business nine years ago and I’m sure most of my learnings would not even apply to your situation.
So reach out to potential clients, talk and listen to them, get your first coaching gig, and think about how you could make this coaching thing work for you and your coachees.
I can tell you that there are many, many companies out there that might need your help. So focus on them.
If you are looking for great resources that will help you get started, I’ve compiled a list for you below.
Part 3: Some resources to get you going
My book STRONG Product People talks a lot about how to explain certain product management concepts to coachees and would make a great first read.
My PMwheel is a PM assessment tool that you could use in your first session with a coachee to help them assess themselves.
The Future-Self template makes a great conversation starter if you want to help a coachee to create their personal development plan.
I’ve created a set of coaching cards that help if you want to coach product development teams.
This blog post over here might help you to decide what type of a product coach you want to be.
And on my “Book Shelf” you can find a section on Coaching & Psychology with some reading recommendations. (I would also recommend you read or reread several product books as well. With the framing of you being a coach, think about when you would recommend them to your coachees.) If you want my top three, they are:
Michael Bungay Stanier – The Coaching Habit
Dianne R. Stober und Anthony M. Grant - Evidence Based Coaching Handbook
Michael M. Lombardo – FYI: For Your Improvement
Self-reflection prior to your start might be a good idea, too. You could look into the ikigai model and check out Jeff Gothelf’s Forever Employable as it holds some great advice even for people who want to stay independent.
If you want to get some inspiration from how other product coaches are framing their services, here’s a great list of fellow coaches.
And Anamaria Nino-Murcia has put all her experience in an extensive blog post as well: How I Built My Coaching Practice.
Final Note
I hope this is helpful for some of the aspiring product coaches out there. Let me encourage you to explore this career path even in times of uncertainty and in times when many other people are starting to move in the same direction. If it is your calling, talent, and passion and if you are willing to put in the hours, I’m sure you can make it work. There are many companies out there that could definitely benefit from a dedicated and experienced product coach.
And who knows: Maybe the role of the company-internal product coach will become more common and positions will open up for this kind of work within the company where you are currently working. So maybe it’s not even necessary to look outwards and you can find and create this role internally.