QUICK UPDATE: I’m moving away from my blog and shifting that writing over here, to Substack, where I’ll be posting about once a week with deeper insights, practical tools, and honest (and usually sassy) hot-takes.
I’ll also be sending my newsletter every other week with the best tips and resources so you can stay in the loop either way.
A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at the gate at Reagan National Airport in DC, waiting for a flight back to Iowa, when the guys sitting behind me started talking.
They had clearly had meetings on Capitol Hill, and they were heading home, comparing notes about their meetings with Senator Grassley’s and Ernst’s offices and their House members. From the conversation, it sounded like they were part of some kind of agriculture group. I never caught exactly which one, but definitely farmers.
And they were irritated.
One of them said something along the lines of, “Every time we come out here, they make us meet with staffers. It’s bullshit. If we’re flying all the way to Washington, we should be meeting with the Senator.”
The others chimed in, agreeing. They mentioned their lobbyist had warned them ahead of time that this might happen. Still, they were annoyed.
My first instinct was to roll my eyes, because if you’ve spent any time around federal advocacy, you know that meeting with staff is normal.
Senators and members of Congress have packed schedules, and there is simply no way they can personally meet with every group that comes through their office.
But the longer I listened, the more I realized something else was going on.
The Part They Were Missing
What these folks were really revealing, without meaning to, was that they were missing the most important part of the relationship.
Because if you have met with a staffer several times and you still feel like you are stuck in the staffer meeting loop, the next step is not to complain about it.
The next step is to ask the staffer how to get to the next level.
“Hey, we’ve really appreciated meeting with you and keeping you updated on what’s happening in our communities. We’d love to get in front of the Senator at some point. What would make that possible?”
That question opens an entirely different conversation.
Maybe the staffer will say the Senator is traveling to your state during the next recess and would be interested in a site visit. Maybe there is an upcoming roundtable. Maybe there is a policy moment where your group’s perspective would be useful.
Or maybe the staffer will tell you honestly that it is unlikely anytime soon, but they will keep you in mind.
Either way, you have moved from complaining about the system to working within it.
What Staffers Are Actually Doing
Here is the part people often miss.
As a former United States Senate staffer, I would not schedule a meeting with my boss for a group I had never met.
Not because I was trying to be difficult. Because I was the one writing the memo for that meeting and would be organizing it.
I needed to know who these people were, what they cared about, whether they were credible, whether they would use their 5 minutes of face time effectively, and whether there were any surprises my boss needed to be prepared for.
And even if the Senator did attend the meeting, I would still be there, sitting next to him, staffing it, taking notes, asking questions, and doing the follow-up.
Staffers are not gatekeepers in the dramatic sense people imagine. They are translators, filters, and advisors. They are the people who help the boss understand what matters and why.
Which is exactly why building relationships with them matters so much.
The Job of the Organization
But here is the other piece that struck me while listening to that airport conversation.
Their organization and their lobbyist should have been helping them move up that ladder.
If your members and advocates keep coming back from DC saying, “We only met with staff again,” that is useful feedback. It is a signal that the relationship might need to deepen, that the strategy might need to evolve, or that there may be opportunities to create a moment where the elected official can engage directly.
Advocacy is rarely one meeting. It is a series of relationships that deepen over time.
Staffer meetings are usually the first step. But if you want to get to the boss, the way there is not with frustration.
It is a partnership with the staffer who already has the key to the door.
How I Can Help
Sometimes it is a relationship problem. But more often, it is a strategy problem showing up in your relationships.
If your advocates keep getting meetings that don’t go anywhere, it is time to be more intentional about how you build those relationships and what you are building toward.
That is exactly the work I do.
If you are ready to move from spinning your wheels to actually building influence, let’s talk.
Ready to Build What’s Missing?
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