How to Convince Your Work to Pay for your MBA

The MBA qualification is prestigious, let’s make no bones about it.

If you hold an MBA in Australia, your chances of a respectable reputation and a return on your financial investment is high, and there are plenty of MBA courses right here in Oz for you to choose from.

If you want your work to pay for you to be an esteemed MBA holder in Australia, then all you need to do is demonstrate to them why they should pay for you to study for an MBA qualification. Justify to your employer how they will achieve a return of financial investment by having an employee who holds the MBA qualification.

After all, money talks and if you can persuade them on this argument then, they’ll have no reason to doubt your ability to make magic happen as a result of your MBA course.

To convince your employer to part with the hard cash you’ll need to put together a deal that they cannot refuse.

This means thinking and acting as though you already have the MBA qualification and showing off your business prowess through your careful consideration, objectiveness, research, and presentation of a solid pitch.

Let’s face it, you are asking for substantial investment and if you think you can walk into your boss's office to ask them to stump up the money for your education randomly on a late Friday afternoon (or even worse a Monday morning) without preparation you will be disappointed.

You’ll need to create a deal that your employers cannot refuse and then pitch it to them like you’ve never pitched before. And then you’ll need to continue to pitch the same kinds of deals consistently for your employer to maintain the commitment from them.

Here’s what your pitch should include:

• Demonstrate why you are already world class and why they need you in their business for the long-haul
• Exactly how your employer will benefit from your education
• What types of MBA courses are available, the costs, your recommendations from a practical and a desirable perspective. Tell them what you want but give them a choice. Show your ability to research suppliers thoroughly and objectively. If you can, try to negotiate a deal on the course costs
• Demonstrate why holding an MBA in Australia will make you an authority when representing their business in the future
• A demonstrable financial plan for how you will ensure that your employers break even quickly on their investment in you
• A demonstrable financial plan for how they will profit from your education
• Acknowledge the risks, and create a contingency for reducing the risks to the business ideally to zero (because that’s what great business minds do, right?). Risks to consider should be resignation, sickness, not completing the course
• Any sponsorship deals you might be able to incorporate. But make sure they have been planned and thought out with the utmost diligence and respect for your business relationships
• What sweeteners you might be able to bring to the deal to make sure that it’s one that they cannot walk away from (you are top class, so you’ll know what you need to do to make this happen)
• Add case studies on how other people who hold an MBA in Australia have delivered world-class success to their businesses

Whatever happens, you’ll need to make sure that you have a solid reason why an MBA is for you, and you’ll need to demonstrate that you have a carefully thought out and easily executable plan for studying and for how you will enhance your employer's business.

But here’s the caveat—your plan needs to be flawless and one that your employer cannot resist.

Now that we’ve laid down the gauntlet, are you going to rise to the challenge?