There are two lobbying techniques that are extremely effective in persuading officials and politicians to support you. They are rarely used in Brussels.
The most popular model
A lot of lobbyiing seems to amount to a variation of one of two stories.
Story 1: If you do this, my industry’s profits will collapse, even though your constituents will be able to breath safetly on a sunny day.
Story 2: If you don’t stop all urban transport today, moss growth on roadside gullies will decline.
I’ve never seen this approachwork. By that I mean, not persuade anyone who was not already on-board. I’ve been on the receiving end of both stories on the same file.
It is similar to a sales pitch that amounts to “buy this because it will make me money, and I don’t care why the product or service could be of use to you”.
My guess is that this is the most common approach used today.
Alternative Approaches
If you are fed up with not winning, you can try these two technqiues.
They are called ‘mirroing’ and ‘standing in the other person’s shoes’. They are so closely related that you may think they are same.
Stand in Other’s Shoes. Stand in the shoes of the person you are trying to persuade. You can play a mental trick and try for a moment to look at an issue from the same perspective as the person you are trying to persuade.
This lets you see how someone else sees the issue. From this, you are going to learn what that person needs to hear and see to persuade them to change their mind.
Mirroring. The other tool is taken from NLP. It is called mirroring (more information is here).
It leads you to using language and examples that will gel with the person you are trying to persuade. It can extend to looking the part. The most successful NGO lobbyist I knew looked like a Brooking scholar with a tie.
Turning up to a meeting pleading that a decision will cost your company a fortune wearing a watch and suit that costs more the official’s house sends off some mixed signals.
If you try these two techniques your brain won’t explode. Holding two separate ideas in your brain at the same time is not going to imperil your mortal soul. Your chances of winning go up a lot.
If you don’t want to win other than on your own terms, please ignore.