Practical ways to build strong relationships with local decision makers

Effective government relations is less about personal influence than knowing who to call. The relationships that resolve a permit crisis are built long before it begins.

You have probably felt the bureaucracy of getting things done. It is not a matter of personal connections, but rather knowing who to talk to and who can help you navigate it.

This matters most for commercial enterprises, where a permit issue can delay a project. The worst time to start forming government relations is during a commercial crisis. Better to have contacts in place so you know who to call.

Local Government Engagement Before You Need It

For commercial companies, you are less beholden to federal or state politics than you might think. That is what fills the newspapers, but if you want the following, you are dealing with the local council or county government:

• Inspections
• Licensing
• Procurement rules
• Road closures
• Local levies

All of these are decided by very accessible local people, many of whom have no secretary and answer their own phone.

Local government engagement depends on knowing who the elected officials are and which committees they sit on. You also need to know when your area’s budget is set, because once it is, the UNC School of Government says you will struggle to get anything done, however good your relationships are.

If you are unsure how local government relations work, attend a council meeting yourself. You do not have to speak. Go to two or three before you need anything, to get a feel for how they work.

Online research tells you plenty, but it is no substitute for sitting in the room where decisions get made and seeing who is influential. Turning up is one of the more underrated community influence strategies: people notice who is there when nothing is at stake.

Connecting With Decision Makers Before the Crisis

The worst time to meet a local official is when you are in a crisis needing help. Decision makers meet a lot of people, and that interaction is a key part of local politics. However, they often meet someone only once, exactly when that person needs something, and never see them again.

The best way to connect with decision-makers is organically, and ideally you will provide assistance first. You might give them a heads-up about a problem brewing in the district before the local papers hear of it, or insights into how your industry bears on an issue.

Research from Alexander V. Hirsch et al backs this up. The most effective lobbying techniques at the local level start with this kind of informal interaction, not a formal meeting.

Relationship Building Tactics That Beat Transactional Contact

Once you have made this kind of introduction and proven yourself prepared to participate, you are far more likely to get assistance than somebody who deals with local government transactionally. Over time, that is what turns occasional contact into a real government relations practice.

Building Strong Government Relations Early

This is not complicated. Get to know your local council before a permit problem forces you to. You should attend a few meetings and learn when the budget is set. Offer something useful before you need to ask for anything.

If you do that, government relations becomes a contact list you already have, not one you are scrambling to build. Interested in similar articles and local Baltimore news? See our archives for more.