How to justify attending the Presentation Summit

Here is a sample email that you could send to your manager, extolling the virtues and benefits of attendance.

FROM: [yourname]
TO: [your supervisor's name]
RE: Improvement of my presentation skills

I understand how the recession has forced our company to cut back on training costs and I know that it is looking for ways to get the most for the money it spends in every area. There is a cost-effective professional education conference in October that will help our team with its presentation development and delivery skills while reducing expenses and resources needed to craft, design, build, and deliver presentations to the level expected of our organization.

I would like to attend the 2010 Presentation Summit in San Diego, Oct 17-20. The Summit is hosted by well-known author and presentations consultant Rick Altman — he and his team will present over 35 seminars, workshops, and keynote addresses over three days (four counting Sunday). Topics cover all aspects of presentation: message crafting, presentation design, slide creation technique, and delivery. Here are a few that I think would be particularly helpful:

[Visit the seminar schedule page and select the seminar titles that you think would provide the most benefit for your company.]

Costs and Benefits

The registration fee among the lowest of any I have found for a multi-day event — still under $1,000. The room rate at the Catamaran (a four-star resort) is under $170, and flying to San Diego will cost about [________]. There is shuttle service to and from the airport and I will not need to rent a car.

With the current economic conditions, everyone at [your company] is being asked to do more and control costs wherever possible. This conference is a small investment in empowering me and others involved in presentation creation to do even more. The seminars will provide us with essential knowledge about the best way to design and deliver presentations, and the technical sessions will teach us much more about PowerPoint than we could learn otherwise (including the new version, due out this summer).

This knowledge will enable us to handle [a particular client or project] with more professionalism and confidence, which will reflect favorably on all of us.