Meeting with elected officials at the federal or state level is about sharing your perspective and being a resource for them in your areas of expertise. Here are some tips for how to get the most out of the meeting and leave the door open for building a relationship with policy makers.
Do:
- Call to schedule a meeting well in advance
- Know who you are meeting with: How to correctly pronounce their name, what they look like, what are their key issues, who are their key staff, and to what committees they belong
- Bring along or provide insight from local elected officials and constituents
- Share how a policy affects you personally
- Provide data to back up your claims
- Be honest and transparent
- Admit when you don’t know the answer to a question
- Make reasonable asks
- Think through your discussion and asks to make sure you can talk about the topics in a way someone outside the industry could understand
- Follow-up in a timely manner
Don’t:
- Insist on only meeting with the elected official instead of their staff
- Interpret other stakeholders’ positions
- Try to hide or gloss over problems
- Forget that you are the expert on utility matters – you’re there to be a resource
- Only reach out when you need something
- Try to drop in without an appointment
- Rely on jargon, acronyms, or technical terms to describe an issue
- Try to discuss multiple issues at once – it can confuse your message
- Get into an argument – explain any opposing position respectfully
- Forget to follow through on follow-up
