Pillow Talk - Advocacy Tip #6 - Know How To Keep Score
Last week, we explored AATC Advocacy Tip #5: Know How to Play the Game. Effective advocacy requires skill, strategy, and savvy. Politics is a rough and tumble, full-contact sport in which the rules and players continuously change. Politicians do not play-nice in the white marble Washington nor red granite Austin sandboxes. Knowing how to play the political game ensures AATC’s advocacy efforts succeed.
Now that you are actively playing the political game, it is vital that you understand Advocacy Tip #6: Know How to Keep Score. In politics, like life, you win some, you lose some, but, more importantly, you must live to fight another day.
Advocacy involves small battles that lead to victory. Coffee with a mayor. A property tour with a city council member. A meeting with the code compliance director. Serving on a city board or commission. Hosting a crime watch meeting. Donating to candidates. Running for elected office.
In your own County, there are government officials, business leaders, ad hoc citizens organizations, single-family homeowner groups, neighborhood associations, and community activists who have not, do not, nor ever will agree with our industry’s point of view. AATC pro-actively engages with these groups to educate them about the industry and to help them better understand our perspective, but we do not waste our time attempting to change their minds.
Advocacy is not about changing hearts and minds; rather, it is about accumulating votes. Votes are the score. AATC’s advocacy efforts are about securing elected officials to vote on a specific issue on a specific day. Votes matter. Feelings do not. You win when you have a majority of the votes – even if you never have their hearts and minds.
Perry Pillow is AATC’s Director of Government Affairs. For more information, contact Perry at pillow@aatcnet.org or call 817-616-0354. Original article here: http://dimensionsmag.org/pillow-talk-advocacy-tip-6-know-how-to-keep-score/
