Dear _(amazing boss)_

I’d like to kindly ask for your approval to attend an Online Workshop (smashingconf.com/online-workshops) that will be taking place on DATE and led by SPEAKER. There are many online courses and webinars out there, but I’ve picked this one because I feel that the insights and learnings presented and discussed there are exactly what our team needs in our company to get more efficient, stay ahead of competition and avoid unnecessary costs.

The workshop is quite small, and hence very focused and well-curated. They’ve been known for a strong commitment to very practical sessions and hands-on workshops. As they say, the entire workshop is built on top of “real-life examples and practical techniques applicable to your work right away”. So I would see how other companies work, design, build and what mistakes they’d done in the past, and what we can learn from it.

While it is impossible to travel to conferences and training at the moment, I think that an online workshop will be a great way to improve my skills, and continue my professional development. This will ensure I’m up to date, and is a great use of my time while working remotely.

Advantages for our company

The workshop will help me to:

• Have time to ask questions of the expert leading the workshop, which are relevant to the things we need to do at work.
• Design better processes to design, build, debug and deploy faster,
• Improve performance and responsiveness of our web properties,
• Improve accessibility and flexibility of our front-end architecture,
• Improve usability and interface design and hence conversion of our web properties,
• Learn how other developers, designers and companies have solved issues that we have as well,
• Learn and share findings through workshop materials and recordings which we can re-watch later.

My personal advantages

I sincerely appreciate the opportunities to grow as a professional in our company, and I’m very excited about this workshop because:

• It’s led by a known expert who works with technologies, tools and methodologies we use daily,
• Hands-on workshops with experts give me an opportunity to learn new practices and techniques and improve my skills right away,
• The friendly, intimate spirit of the workshop make it easy to interact with speakers and attendees and ask questions,
• Unlike watching online tutorials, I will have the chance to spend time with other professionals and experts which is important at this time when we are all working so remotely.

Summary of costs

Item	Expense
Workshop fee	$195–$450
Work hours spent	5–12.5 hours
Flight	$0
Ground transportation	$0
Food	$0

On a personal note, I’ve been following Smashing for years now. Smashing Magazine, by the same folks who run the workshops, has been around for more than 13 years, and it’s been my trusted source for cutting-edge design and development practices that helped me grow as a professional in the industry. I feel confident that I’ll bring back a ton of useful notes and takeaways for the team, and I’m looking forward to improving our efficiency and reducing unnecessary costs. We’ll receive all workshop materials and presentations that we could use internally as well.

I’d kindly appreciate you considering my letter, and I hope you have a moment to take a look at the website — www.smashingconf.com/online-workshops/ — and the overview of topics covered there. I couldn’t be more excited to attend this one, and I’m quite certain that it’s a good investment in training for our entire company.

Thank you for your time.

— Yours truly (your name), an employee, passionate about learning and improving our work.