Here are moments when the “ask” is most likely to land:
🔄 New Role (Internal or External): Starting a new job? Congrats. Now’s the time. Executive coaching during the first 90 days can make or break your success.
📈 Performance Review Season: You’re already talking growth. Slide it in.
💥 After a Big Win or Rough Patch: You crushed a project—or maybe you hit a bump. Either way, it’s a natural moment to level up.
💰 When the Company’s Flush: Just had a record quarter? Ride that high.
🛑 Hiring Freeze or Raise Freeze: Coaching can be a creative way for them to invest in you when raises aren’t on the table.

Before you pitch this, you need to:
✅ Know what the coaching will cost
✅ Know who you want to work with (or at least have a shortlist)
✅ Understand how the coaching will benefit your company (not just you)
✅ Check whether there’s a professional development policy, budget, or precedent

Also: anticipate their questions. (You’ll find common ones below.)

This isn’t about you wanting “me time.” It’s about your boss getting a better, stronger, more effective version of you.

Focus your pitch on:
🔧 Skills: What will you do better as a result of coaching? Think communication, delegation, influence, managing through change, etc.
⏱️ Efficiency: How will this make you faster, smarter, or more focused?
💥 Team Impact: How will your growth benefit your direct reports, peers, or cross-functional work?
🧠 Retention/Engagement: Coaching boosts satisfaction and growth—things HR drools over.
💵Coaching delivers serious ROI -- 7x the investment! 

Bonus: If the coach offers a structured approach with tangible outcomes (like assessments, stakeholder feedback, or a 90-day leadership plan), mention that too. It shows this isn’t fluff - it’s ROI. BTW - at Pixel, we measure the impact of coaching at the end of your engagement with a "Change Assessment" - so we can demonstrate real, observable changes!

“We don’t have the budget.”
👉 You say: “I’m open to a cost-share model or starting with a shorter engagement.”

“How will you balance this with work?”
👉 You say: “Coaching is usually 1 hour/week, and I’ll schedule it during less disruptive times. Plus, the focus is on work—so it directly improves my day-to-day performance.”

“What’s the actual benefit?”
👉 You say: “I’ll come back with improved strategic thinking, better communication, and a clearer plan for my role. That directly supports [insert key team/department goal].”

Once you’ve prepped your pitch and feel confident in your research, it’s time to ask for the meeting. 

Optional Attachment: Include a one-pager with your coach’s info, cost, goals you’ll work on, and anticipated ROI. Bonus points if you connect it to company initiatives.

Subject: Request for Executive Coaching Sponsorship

Hi [Manager’s Name],
I’ve been reflecting on ways to grow as a leader and continue bringing more impact to our team. One opportunity I’d love to explore is working with an executive coach.

I’ve identified a potential coach/program that aligns with my development goals—especially around [insert focus area like navigating change, building strategic influence, etc.]. Coaching would help me improve in real-time and translate that into results for the business, from [insert a benefit like faster decision-making or more confident cross-functional leadership].

​The structure is typically one hour per week, and I’d be happy to ensure it doesn’t impact team priorities. I’ve attached some details below, including cost and potential ROI. I’d love to set up a short conversation to walk through how this could support my growth and our team’s goals.

​Let me know if we can connect soon. Thanks for considering this investment in my development—I’m excited about the impact it could make.

Best,
[Your Name]

Don’t panic. You’ve got options:

• Offer to pay part of it.
• Ask to revisit the request next quarter.
• Request budget for a group workshop or a shorter engagement.
• Invest in yourself for now and ask for reimbursement later, after showing results.​

🕰️ Ask at the right time – new role, performance review, or strategic moment
🧠 Do your research – know the cost, coach, and company policy
📈 Make the case – show how it helps them, not just you
📧 Send the email – ask for a convo, not just approval
🛡️ Expect objections – and come prepared
💡 Don’t give up if you hear no – get creative

Want help making the pitch? We’ve helped dozens of leaders craft win-win coaching proposals that get approved—and more importantly, transform careers.

Shoot us a note if you’d like support or sample coaching engagement outlines.

We’re nerdy, we’re fun, and we help leaders like you become legendary.

Whether you call the past year the “Great Resignation” the “Great Reshuffle” or some other catchy description, as a society, we have witnessed an unprecedented mass exodus from jobs that people have had for months and even years.

Businesses have been hit hard and are unprepared. 

While there are a variety of factors that have converged to create the “perfect storm,” organizational culture, business practices, and their leaders seem to be the significant driving force behind this phenomenon according to reports by McKinsey, MIT Sloan, and PlanBeyond (to name a few). 
Essentially, businesses have failed to understand and address the basic needs of their workers and have critically underestimated the impact of their people managers as the drivers of the success - or failure - of the business. 

The 2022 MIT Sloan survey of employees revealed that the top three predictors of turnover in 2021 were: 1) not feeling valued by the organization, 2) their relationship with their manager, and 3) not feeling a sense of belonging at work – all three are directly related to the actions of an employee’s manager. Gallup found that 52% of exiting employees reported their manager could have done something to prevent them from leaving – suggesting that managers can play a critical role in preventing unwanted employee attrition.

Despite their tremendous impact on an organization’s bottom line, less than 10% of businesses invest significantly in the comprehensive development of their people managers across all levels of the organization - not only missing key opportunities to retain and engage employees but likely costing the company millions of dollars. 

Most people managers are unaware of the simple drivers under which their employees operate that keep them satisfied and productive. Many do not know how to have a professional development conversation or a stay interview. All too often, people managers don’t even meet regularly one-on-one with their direct reports - citing that they don’t have the time.  

So, if you want to prevent employee turnover and significantly increase employee engagement and productivity look no further than your people managers. Invest heavily in their development. Support them through ongoing training. Provide real development augmented with group mentoring, peer support, and one-on-one coaching. Remove toxic managers from your organization as quickly as possible while showcasing and rewarding individuals who are talent maximizers. ​

Share your thoughts in the comments!​

I graduated high school a year early to start college at age 17. While my previous classmates were going to dances, football games, and enjoying that one last year of youth, I was hitting the books.

This series arose after an experience I had with a fellow YP – or young professional - that I think we all could benefit from discussing: the quintessential young professional value of being paid for output and not input has replaced the value of “pay your dues,” which was embraced by prior generations.  Check out Part 1 for the back story.  A few years ago, I was a YP expressing my desire to be paid for output and not input, and my boss's response is the best I have ever heard regarding this topic.

She said, “You are a high performer, but it takes a lot of input for you to create your output! As a young professional, you want and need much more time, feedback, direction, and encouragement than a more experienced worker because you’re still learning so much.”  She got me. I love feedback (like most Young Professionals do). I needed my one-on-ones and closer guidance because so many of my projects were new to me. Yeah, they turned out well, but was it 100% because of my hard work, or did her guidance and support along the way help me to succeed? If I stepped back and took an honest, humble look at my work, my work was valuable just as much because of her input as mine.

Think about how much time has been spent discussing your work and your growth with your manager. If people in your organization translated the hours they have spent on your development and training to dollars, you, like me, would have a pretty large invoice to pay! Additionally, the time she spent working on my projects with me was time she wasn’t spending on her own deliverables. The reality is that my boss hired me to take care of those projects so that she wouldn’t have to spend her time and energy on them. 
 
This principle can be understood globally like this: The more supervision, monitoring, and input that a particular job requires, the lower the salary range is going to be, because the investment of time for that person and task is going to be greater. In fact, this is a lesson that feedback-starved young professionals need to know: the higher up you go in an organization, the less feedback and direction you will receive (especially positive feedback). That’s because as you get promoted, leaders count on you to work without close supervision, monitoring, and input. Hence, the higher salary for that position. Make sense? 
 
So there you go! While it can be a tough pill to swallow, accepting these 3 Workplace Compensation Realities will help you to better understand and navigate the world of work (for more tough realities, read 3 Reasons Why Millennials Are Getting Fired). I know for me, since accepting these principles, I’ve been able to grow, achieve greater success, and even get a few promotions along the way. 

Reality #2: It takes 10 years to get 10 years’ experience. There are no shortcuts.
This series arose after an experience I recently had with a fellow YP – or young professional that I think we all could benefit from discussing. Check out Part 1 for the back story.  The quintessential young professional value of the 21st century: Pay me for output, not for input! 

This bright, entry level employee had been in the workforce for 10 years, and with our company a little over one year. She was killing it in her job and felt like, since she was producing as much (or more) than other employees who have been doing the job for 5 times as long, she should be compensated as much. 

I used to feel that way, too – not out of entitled greed, but based on unrealistic expectations. Remember when we YPs were told when we signed our promissory notes for college that we would be making bank right out of the gate? We counted on making good money after college if we had any chance of paying back our student loans each month. Between our lightning fast pace and the financial pressures of post-college expenses, we can have a pretty hard time understanding why we aren’t making more money.
 
As a young professional, and an HR professional, I am here to give you a dose of reality.  In this three-part series, I am going to share 3 realities about workplace compensation.  So here we go:
 
Reality #1: When you Google an average salary, that’s what it is – an average. And you may not be including your total compensation when you’re comparing the numbers either.
 
When a YP wants to discuss a raise, as an HR professional, here’s what I say out loud: “Okay, let’s talk about it. What makes you think this Google Search is an accurate reflection of how you should be compensated?”
 
What I say internally: “And what do you think these silly compensation analysts are thinking when they prepare compensation plans for job offers? Don’t they realize that you can just google that stuff? Who cares about region, industry, market dynamics, or tenure, amiright?”
 
Listen, there are entire companies whose main service is benchmarking salaries and compensation plans based on many different variables in order to help organizations determine what is right to pay an employee for any given job in an industry and part of the country. The cost of living in California verses Alabama is going to affect the average salaries there, and the industry that you work in will affect that as well. A random google search for your salary will not accurately account for the variables of industry and location.
 
Most organizations are not just making up salaries and offering them randomly to whoever applies to try to “get the best deal” like you’d negotiate for a new car. Most likely, there is a compensation strategy with a salary range for any given job, and where you fall in that range is based on your education and experience. Even with your college degree, if that is a requirement to do your job, you’re still probably going to start in the lower range for compensation early in your career. That’s just the way it is, but it isn’t all bad, because chances are that you’re being compensated more than you recognize.
 
Have you heard about the “hidden paycheck?” This term talks about all of the additional dollars that a company invests in an employee that they may not think about behind the scenes. When you filed your taxes, did you see a dollar amount in Box 12? I’ve had employees come back and say that they never saw the thousands of dollars that showed up in this box, and I have to help jog their memory. How much of your medical/dental/vision insurance is paid for by your company? Do they make a contribution to a health savings account on your behalf? How about a 401k match? Any company-paid employee assistance programs, disability plans, or gym membership discounts?  Add up those dollars and tack them on to your base salary to get a better picture of your total compensation, and you’re closer to an accurate number.
 
I’m not saying that a raise isn’t reasonable to ask for, but IRL: YPs should approach the topic with their manager by being informed, and a Google search does not help your case for a raise. It looks more like you’re rubbing your tech-savviness in everyone’s face and over-simplifying the way compensation works. 

Watch for our post next week for Reality #2.

But how do you find a job like that?  How do you know what moves to make to get to that dream job?  What do you have to do to be the one that gets the promotion? How do you become an influencer at work so your ideas are heard? How do you become an effective people manager so your staff are engaged?  How do you learn to be the leader that you know you have the potential to be?
​
​But Really, We Get It.
​Probably more important than our education or expertise is: we’ve been there.  We’ve been in the boring, mindless jobs that sucked the life out of us.  We’ve worked for the insensitive boss whose cruel words left us crying in our car in the parking lot.  We’ve questioned “what’s the point?” because we realized what we spent our days doing wasn’t making an impact.  We’ve been overlooked for the big project, the promotion we had hoped for, and the job we’ve always dreamed about. 

We’ve felt confused, uncertain, overwhelmed, and stressed out about what to do “when we grow up” and…once we thought we had the answer…we’ve felt lost about how to get there. We’ve searched for guidance, formal education, learning opportunities, mentoring, and experience so we would could get the job we really wanted, and we have been disappointed with what we found. ​
​
So, we have been there, done that. We’ve been successful, but we’ve also failed (a lot), and we’ve tried, tried, and tried again. We’ve learned, we’ve grown, and we’ve figured out what it takes to thrive.    ​

​This is a journey.
Great leaders can make great things happen.  Exceptional leaders can have an exceptional impact on the world.  We are still on our personal and professional journeys to become the most effective and impactful leaders we can be, while finding meaning, purpose, and satisfaction from the work we do.  We want to be better leaders who change the world for the better, and we want to help you to do the same. 

​This space provides us a vehicle for an exploration of leadership through the lens of science.

​Like the lens of a camera, our goal for Pixel’s Leadership Lens is to provide a different, unique perspective. We’ll help you to broaden your focus to see the panoramic view on the horizon.  We’ll also zoom in on specific issues in order to provide practical, concrete, and actionable guidance and skills to help you achieve your career goals and become a more influential leader. What to expect:

• ​We’ll bring you portraits of stellar leaders, successful young professionals, innovators and thought leaders who are doing what you want to do and making a difference doing it. 
• We value and hope to amplify the voices and ideas of those are not typically highlighted in mainstream business and leadership spheres.
• We will filter through all the information out there to provide data-driven guidance and real-world advice to help you chart your path and identify actions that are right for you.  
• We expose you to new and interesting ideas about the world of work and what it takes to succeed. 
• We will provide a clearer picture of what leadership excellence looks like, and how to live it every day. 

​We will provide a space where we can learn new things and have a lot of fun.  We hope you'll join us on this adventure!