As a lobbyist, someday, likely very soon, you are going to find out that very few people agree with your client’s point of view. Sometimes, you find out that people won’t even meet you because of your client, and when you mention your client’s name, they put the phone down on you.
You need to start from where the political world is and not from where you or your client see the word. This helps you get the political world to where you want it to be. If you can’t, this is self-deceit at its finest.
Winning Majorities
What you do when you don’t have the votes to win your case? Politics is not about who is right or who is wrong. It’s who has enough votes to get their position adopted. I find this easy to accept. I am a free trade, Social Democrat, Northern Irish Catholic. That’s a small political clique anywhere.
It is easy enough to work out in advance your chances of winning or losing. With the help of excellent services like VoteWatch Europe, this is easy enough to do. Looking at similar votes, you are often going to find out that the chances of your winning the case for your client are like a proverbial snowballs chance making a successful day trip to Hell and back.
What can you do when no-one agrees with you?
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It is useful to give the diagnosis upfront to your client. Are their chances: good, poor or terminal. People find passing on bad news hard. The good political consultant will like a good medical consultant and be honest to the client.
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There is no room for false hope. There are too many snake-oil salesman in the lobbying industry for you to join the band-wagon. Reject the urge to tell someone who is a political pariah that they are admired and respected. The reason people are putting the phone down on you is not that your client is liked too much.
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It is useful to show the line up of allies and opponents to your client. If after three reviews, you are way down on the votes you need, it is time to break the news, that on the current trajectory, defeat is coming.
- If people start wailing and gnashing of teeth and saying “you are with us or against us”, and gibber like a doomsday cult, follow the stoics, and get out as fast as you can. This all or nothing thinking is a sign of depression or psychosis. This madness does not have a place if you want to win.
Out of the Abyss
There are some ways out of the abyss.
1. The easiest way is to change your message. Find out what will persuade the majority of people making a decision, and say only that. Stop saying what your client wants to say. It really does not matter why people land up supporting your position. After all, if someone votes in the way you want them to, it does not really matter if they are your reasons or some other reasons.
2. Political euthanasia is common. Too often people don’t want to put forward a position that will ensure that they win the vote because they did not invent the idea or like it. If you are committed to ideological purity, you should get out of the lobbying business, and join an ideological think tank or end-of-times cult. Political suicide is hard to stop.
3. You can listen to what people and decision-makers are saying about your issue and mirror their language. Mirroring is a smart tool that is core to persuasion.
4. Finding someone who is respected and admired by key decision-makers and influencers to speak on your issue is useful. Someone of their goodwill may rub off on your issue. This is useful for the times when your client speaks all goodwill evaporates.
5. When your client presence turns allies against you, it is time to pull the client off the field. And, you need to tell them that’s why you are pulling them off the field.
6. Finally, if none of this works, you are left to hoping that an official made some technical error when adopting the decision. You can then see if the process is re-run. This mainly lands up with the same decision being made, but it buys some time. If not, you can drag it out by litigating.