How to Convince Your Boss to Send You to a Conference

  

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Are you dying to attend a conference, you're not sure how to convince your manager to let you go? Help is here!

Remember that the cost of attending a conference is considerable. They include conference registration fees, travel costs, hotel and time-away-from-work costs. It is likely your managers want some serious justification for you to attend a conference.

Here are some things you can prepare for your leadership to help convince them you should attend a conference or event:

See Sample Letter to Get Approval to Attend a Conference.

• Get a detailed convention program and outline the sessions you plan to attend and how they will benefit your work. Be specific. (i.e- If I learn more about social media I will be able to use it more effectively in my marketing efforts).
• Find out what Continuing Professional Development Credits will be granted for attending the conference sessions.
• If necessary, have a plan for who will cover for you at work while you are at the conference.
• Research the conference speakers, motivational keynote speaker or other industry guest speakers and have specific questions lined up relevant to their speech topics and your work or industry.
• Find out what other industry competitors are attending the event to prove it is a must attend event. Suggest to your manager that Networking with these competitors will be invaluable.
• Get a list of specific vendors whose products would be beneficial to your job, jot down questions you have about their products or services and present this to your manager. Visiting with a vendor can be like interviewing a high priced consultant for free!
• Tweet about the conference speakers, agenda, venue.
• Offer to share a room to reduce hotel expenses.
• Have specific follow up objectives and strategies you plan to implement after the conference.
• Have a plan to share what you have learned. Who will you tell? How will you communicate? ( ie- You will spend 10 minutes at the next staff meeting speaking about new industry trends presented at the conference;or Write an article for your newsletter, or offer to write a blog. Multiply the company's investment.)
• Justify the cost of the conference by comparing it to other educational courses and offerings. Almost any alternative will prove to be more time consuming and expensive.
• Visit the motivational keynote speaker's website, read and comment on the blog (we love this) and start some conversation before the event.

Read Motivational Keynote Speaker Jody Urquhart's Blog