Here is a sample email that you could send to a decision maker, extolling the virtues and benefits of your virtual attendance.
TO: [your supervisor’s name]
RE: Improvement of my PowerPoint skills and presentation effectiveness
I understand how, with the uncertainty in our current situation, our company needs to control its 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 that was held in the summer, is still available to us, and that will help our team immeasurably. It will help us with presentation development and delivery, both in-person and virtual, while reducing expenses and resources needed to craft, design, build, and deliver presentations to the level expected of our organization. And this year affords a unique opportunity.
The 2020 Presentation Summit, held virtually Aug 10-13, was attended by over 400 people and remains available until Feb of 2021. The Summit is hosted by well-known author and presentations consultant Rick Altman — he and his team presented over two dozen seminars, workshops, and keynote addresses over four half days. 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 and select the seminar titles that you think would provide the most benefit for your company.]
As a virtual event, the organizers have taken the fee from $1,600 all the way down to $395, while still bringing in the same talent. That is extraordinary value.
With the current economic conditions, everyone at [your company] is being asked to spend wisely and control costs wherever possible. This conference is a small capital investment and yet a giant leap in empowering me and others involved in presentations to up our games. 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.
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.