5 Steps To Gain Approval For Attending An Administrative Conference (Part 2 of 6)

Hopefully, you read my first blog about deciding which conference to attend based on your goals. Before you can even consider persuading your executive to invest in your training, you need to be 100% confident that you deserve to attend an administrative conference. These 5 steps should help you gain approval for attending an administrative conference.

Points for you to Consider

1. You need to continually learn and grow. In today’s competitive marketplace and at the pace this profession is changing, if you do not continually enhance your skills, build new ones, and have a strategy for your career, you will get left in the dust.
2. Don’t feel guilty about being out of the office to attend a program or conference that will make you better equipped, faster, smarter and sharper.
3. Get your executive to see the long-term payoff. Often executives think about the number of days you will be out of the office. You need to help your executive see that while you may be gone three or four days, you will gain skills and knowledge that will take you, and them, into the future.
4. Executives travel all over the country. Why shouldn’t you? Some assistants tell me they can only attend seminars that take place in their city or state. That is not 21^st Century thinking. Assistants should be a business partner to their executive, so start acting like a business partner and convince your manager why you should be allowed to travel out of state.
5. Don’t give up. If you really believe this training will help you professionally or even just rejuvenate your enthusiasm about your career, realize it may take three or four attempts to convince your manager. You may have to try different ways or formats to persuade your executive and, remember, timing is important.

You have to believe in what you want in order to persuade others. Be sure to read the rest of this Series.

We also have a great webinar on this topic. You may access the webinar here.