How to convince your boss to send you to a conference

You are probably familiar with this scenario: you see a nice conference or workshop, the topic is of your interest and you know it will bring a lot into your work. Then the question is “How to Convince Your Boss to Send You to a Conference”. And hopefully, the story is not ending with the “no” answer to your request. You will find how to effectively argue your request for a conference so that the boss agrees to your trip. Start with the template of the email to get approval and attend dreamed event.

How to reason your request?

First of all, if you want to go for a conference you need to ask a decisive person. It might be the HR, Marketing, Sales, IT Manager or Team Leader – it all depends on the company’s structure. Some associations, like Motorola Solutions, have a counsel which is deciding about employees’ participation in the events.

Benefits for the company and you as individual

You can ask what is taken into consideration while deciding on the event participation. The answer is – results. The importance is a measurable outcome and leads.

Advantages of the event participation may be very differentiated, depending on the type of the occasion.

The atmosphere during the conferences or fairs is special. Attendees, speakers and exhibitors are eager to share their insights and exchange observations. Their time is dedicated exactly for that. Sometimes during the call or meeting, you may notice the hurry in someone’s voice or a feeling of wasted time. You are not having that impression at events where the goals are: making business contacts and exchanging knowledge.

Moreover, your manager cares about the other people present during the conference, because the community is special, directed and specified. While going to the proper event you already have your target group.

As Arie de Gauss, the head of Shell Oil Company’s Strategic Planning Group, said “The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage”, event participation may be the great possibility to the check up what is happening in your trade and learn from your competitors.

The conference has its sponsors and media, so it is also the opportunity for cooperation and promotion in the media.

If you want to convince your boss to send you to a conference, be sure that you know about its benefits and you have the answer for your boss when he or she asks you what the company will gain from it.

Formal request for a conference

Managers are usually working on multiple Excel spreadsheets and forms where they collect requests, justifications and sometimes (hopefully more and more) results and analytics.

The communication, in most of the companies regarding event participation, is taking place in the mailbox to have it archived. When you talked and tried to convince your boss to send you to a conference, you can expect that he may forget about your request shared by the verbal communication. In fields of conference attendance, with a lot of details, it is not the proper way to share the information.

While preparing the email, mention the basic info about the conference you want to attend, its place and time. Don’t forget about the valuable numbers. Mention the number of participants and exhibitors, as well as the choice of lectures and topics. If you know also the names of present speakers or visitors, maybe some of them are just the people your company wants to cooperate with? Worth mentioning.   

If you want to convince your boss to accept your request for a conference you can check here our suggestion in ready sample letters!

Eventory planning as a brand new platform to manage events requests

In order to avoid plenty of not synchronized and organized spreadsheets, the new platform is out – Eventory Planning. It’s one simple tool for both managers and employees attending the event. It will help to collect information about requests, accepted events, rejected ones in one place and also suggest other interesting events from the business perspective. An employee can easily fill the information about the conference with the explanation. The platform is giving the possibility to collect all the data and analytics. As an administrator, you can see who attended what event, how much of your budget is spent on each team member etc. So it means no more emails to convince your boss to send you to a conference, one platform will let you do it.

What about the payment?

There is nothing like a price too high for an event ticket if you don’t know the benefits coming from attending a given event. What matters is how much will the company get back. A very expensive event to go to may turn out to be very cheap if you make a lot of valuable business contacts that later on convert into clients. While thinking of the benefits you want to present your boss in order to make him accept your request for a conference, try considering:

Leads and event participation can be measured and converted into money!

However, remember that also your absence at work during the event or conference is a cost that your employer is paying. Going to an event may cause more waste than benefits. Imagine a situation when the employer is losing all the programmers because of the hackathon. And this day a page crashes, that is causing a great loss of money from clients who couldn’t use your online shop.

Wrap up

The aware manager sees the value of event participation. But the process looks like a sale. You need to understand your target audience and see their point of view. If you can do this, the likeliness to hear the boss’ agreement on your request for a conference is bigger.

Search for the opportunity and find the right conference for you and your company.