How to Justify Your Professional Development Costs and Save Money through Attending Progress Revolution

When budgets are tight and time is scarce, it’s hard to justify investing dollars and man-hours on activities and programs that don’t directly and immediately impact the bottom line.

Many managers view professional conferences as expensive perks for staffers and don’t understand the value that conference attendance brings back to the organization.

The return on investment for conferences is undeniably challenging to quantify – it’s virtually impossible to specify the value of an individual’s  “networking” and “professional development” to the broader organization.

How can you reframe the thinking around the benefits of conference attendance within your organization?  By focusing on what specifically you will bring back as a return on the investment – content, tools, technologies and best practices that you can implement to improve bottom line performance including notes you take during conference sessions, documentation from your exhibitor meetings and cards from all of the people you network with at Progress Revolution.

To get started with building the case for attending a conference, it’s important to have a solid handle on the expenses that you will incur – registration, transportation, and lodging.  This comprises your investment, or sunk cost.

Then, estimate the dollar value that a new tool, technique, or solution could bring to your company – think in terms of both revenue generation and cost savings. The next step is to assess breakeven – how much lift or savings is required to recoup the initial investment and how long you think it will take to achieve the return?

When you propose attending Progress Revolution 2011 in Boston from September 19-22 at the Westin Boston Waterfront to your organization’s stakeholders, focus on the specific benefits that your attendance will bring to the company.

For a modest investment we’re confident that your organization will reap the rewards of improved efficiency, reduced cost and a better customer experience – this translates into more dollars in the coffer.

We’re looking forward to an informative, valuable, and lively event in September and hope to see you there.