You know you want to attend Learning • Technology • Design, but you have to make the case to someone else to get approval. We can help. This page provides our suggestions for how to talk about LTD as well as an e-mail template you can use for making your case.
Tie LTD to achieving your goals.
Think about your organization’s goals for its learning business in 2020 and beyond. What strategic or tactical goals have you identified? If any tie to driving enrollment or registration numbers, introducing new products or services, improving existing portfolio options, or measuring the value of your offerings, then LTD is the ideal option—the event is specifically designed to help you grow the reach, revenue, and impact of what your learning business does.
If your organization hasn’t identified goals for its learning business, discuss goals with your boss. Ask, “What would be the ideal outcome for our learning business in 2020?” Odds are the outcomes you generate will have to do with growing the reach, revenue, or impact of your offerings—or all three.
Finally, if coming up with clear goals is what your organization is finding challenging, LTD offers the perfect opportunity to understand what other organizations are doing and to draw on their experiences to help you articulate meaningful and realistic goals for your learning business.
Position LTD as an investment.
Too often education and training are seen as an expense rather than an investment. This is a perspective all of us in the learning business must be committed to challenging. If you buy something that generates more value than the cost, then it’s an investment, not an expense.
The ideas and information you’ll get through participating fully in LTD will yield a return many multiples of your organization’s investment in your registration fee. We guarantee it. Literally. If you fully participate in the live sessions but don’t feel they’ve helped with your learning business, we’ll issue a refund.
Understand the top benefits of attending LTD.
Here are what we see as the top benefits of attending LTD—use them all or focus on the ones most likely to resonate with your boss.
- Real solutions to critical challenges
LTD emphasizes sessions led by practitioners, the sharing of actionable information, and case studies from organizations like yours. This years session leaders will include professionals from organizations like the NIGP: The Institute for Public Procurement, the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE), the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), and Design Arts Seminars. (View the full program and list of speakers.) - Highly cost-effective
LTD is a virtual conference, held entirely online, which means no travel or hotel costs. Registering now will save even more money. Plus, the organizational registration allows you to learn with others on your team. - Access to recordings
After the live sessions are over, you have access for at least 90 days to the recordings, allowing you to revisit sessions you find most useful. (And, if you can’t attend a live session, this means you don’t miss out on that content.) - A valuable team learning opportunity
If multiple people work in your learning business, LTD represents a great way for all of them to learn together through an organizational registration. LTD sessions provide common content for discussion, debate, and innovation within your learning business. - Leading advisors
The hosts of LTD, Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele, actively participate in and contribute to the community. They have decades of experience working with organizations in the business of lifelong learning, continuing education, and professional development—and they’re in that business themselves. Through LTD sessions and the online community, you’ll have access to ask them for guidance to help grow and improve your learning business. - Insight into meaningful trends
LTD—through its featured speakers, practitioner sessions, other attendees, and the hosts—is one of the best ways for you to stay on top of trends. And one of the best ways to help ensure your learning business remains relevant.
State your case.
Below is an e-mail you can customize and use to make the case to your boss—or use the language below as a script to help you make your case in person.
NOTE: There are some bracketed bits of text [that look like this] that you’ll need to update. And, of course, you can customize other aspects as well.
SUBJECT LINE: Improving the reach, revenue, and impact of our offerings
Hi, [Your Boss’s Name],
I’d like to attend Learning • Technology • Design. LTD is specifically designed for people like me, who work in lifelong learning, continuing education, and professional development. Attending will enable me to discover new ways to grow the reach, revenue, and impact of our educational offerings.
My participation in LTD can help with the following goals:
- [List specific goal and how LTD helps.]
- [List additional specific goals and how LTD helps, each in an additional bullet.]
I’ve heard very positive things about LTD. Attendees walk away with actionable tactics they can put into practice right away. After LTD, I’ll share my takeaways and apply what I learn to my daily work.
LTD 2020 is a Leading Learning event hosted by Tagoras and takes place February 25 and 27, 2020. It’s a virtual conference, held entirely online. That means the only hard cost is the registration fee.
Here’s the event page: https://ltd.leadinglearning.com
With your permission, I’d like to register while the preferred early pricing (saves $50 on individual registration/ $100 on organizational registration) is in place [Mention organizational registration if applicable and ideally name the colleagues you’d suggest attending with you.]. Please let me know what you decide as soon as possible.
Thank you,
[Your Name]
Feel free to contact us with any questions.
We hope to see you at LTD!
—Jeff Cobb & Celisa Steele