My Campaign Coach Minute

Here’s today’s tip: Never lie or embellish your campaign bio. You WILL get caught. This seems on the surface like a no-brainer…but you’d be surprised to find out how many candidates get slammed for failing to follow this rule. Look, we all want folks to like us. And if you’re running for office, you’re probably pretty proud of your accomplishments in life. What’s the big deal in rounding up your college grade point average or padding the number of lawsuits you won? Would it hurt to make your position in the military seem more dangerous or cooler than it was? How about how many years you’ve lived in the district or how many years you’ve been voting in your party’s primary elections? I’ve seen people, in some cases, GOOD people, fudge the numbers on all of these. And it’s always a mistake. Jon Ossoff, the Democrat running for the special election congressional seat in Georgia last year got slammed for this in a very public way. In Jon’s case, the way he phrased his bio appeared to deliberately mislead voters about his national security credentials. Since that was a central pillar of his campaign, when this was called out as a lie, it deeply damaged his candidacy. Once you make a statement, it can be challenged. And folks can be forgiving if you mis-state something accidentally. That’s not the case when it comes to your bio, your experience or your record. Those are all bits of knowledge you should have down pat. Never let your ego or a campaign aide talk you into embellishing your background. You WILL get caught! To find out more about what it takes to win a political campaign, go to MyCampaignCoach.com. You can also check out our interviews with Candidates, Elected Officials, Consultants and Campaign Staff on the How to Run for Office Podcast! On Facebook, you can find our campaign mastermind group by searching for the Elite Campaign Mastermind and our page under My Campaign Coach. If you want to help support our efforts, you can do that with financial support via Patreon.com/mycampaigncoach or by giving us a nice rating on iTunes! Here’s today’s tip: Never lie or embellish your campaign bio. You WILL get caught. This seems on the surface like a no-brainer…but you’d be surprised to find out how many candidates get slammed for failing to follow this rule. Look, we all want folks to like us. And if you’re running for office, you’re probably pretty proud of your accomplishments in life. What’s the big deal in rounding up your college grade point average or padding the number of lawsuits you won? Would it hurt to make your position in the military seem more dangerous or cooler than it was? How about how many years you’ve lived in the district or how many years you’ve been voting in your party’s primary elections? I’ve seen people, in some cases, GOOD people, fudge the numbers on all of these. And it’s always a mistake. Jon Ossoff, the Democrat running for the special election congressional seat in Georgia last year got slammed for this in a very public way. In Jon’s case, the way he phrased his bio appeared to deliberately mislead voters about his national security credentials. Since that was a central pillar of his campaign, when this was called out as a lie, it deeply damaged his candidacy. Once you make a statement, it can be challenged. And folks can be forgiving if you mis-state something accidentally. That’s not the case when it comes to your bio, your experience or your record. Those are all bits of knowledge you should have ...

Here’s today’s tip: A good message without proper repetition is wasted air. A good message without proper repetition is wasted air. A good message without proper repetition is wasted air. Got the message? Ok, so that was a bit literal but I think you’re hearing me. There are two parts to today’s tip. Throughout a campaign, you’re going to be touching a lot of voters and trying to get your message, record and platform in front of them. But once isn’t enough, right? We’re knocking on doors, making phone calls, sending mail, hitting social media and more. One hit isn’t enough. Now, experts differ on how many touches are necessary to make a sale. There’s no magic number. But most will tell you between 3-7. The higher the quality of the contact, the lower the number needed. Your campaign knows how many votes it needs to win and roughly how much you think you can raise in funding. From there, start building out a plan to repeatedly touch voters. Canvassing and phone contact are the most personal, while TV is among the least impactful. Your goal should be to maximize the number of high-quality touches per voter, within your target group. The second part of the tip is about driving home a PARTICULAR message. If you have a good line or a message that’s resonating, don’t just say it once and assume that it’s going to get out there. There’s a reason that most candidate stump speeches are virtually the same from one whistle-stop to the next. When I was working for Ted Cruz, I could have basically recited his stump speech verbatim. Spice up your speech with comments tailor-made for your specific audience but make sure you keep driving home the key message components that you know you need to communicate. Repetition is the key! To find out more about what it takes to win a political campaign, go to MyCampaignCoach.com. You can also check out our interviews with Candidates, Elected Officials, Consultants and Campaign Staff on the How to Run for Office Podcast! On Facebook, you can find our campaign mastermind group by searching for the Elite Campaign Mastermind and our page under My Campaign Coach. If you want to help support our efforts, you can do that with financial support via Patreon.com/mycampaigncoach or by giving us a nice rating on iTunes! Here’s today’s tip: A good message without proper repetition is wasted air. A good message without proper repetition is wasted air. A good message without proper repetition is wasted air. Got the message? Ok, so that was a bit literal but I think you’re hearing me. There are two parts to today’s tip. Throughout a campaign, you’re going to be touching a lot of voters and trying to get your message, record and platform in front of them. But once isn’t enough, right? We’re knocking on doors, making phone calls, sending mail, hitting social media and more. One hit isn’t enough. Now, experts differ on how many touches are necessary to make a sale. There’s no magic number. But most will tell you between 3-7. The higher the quality of the contact, the lower the number needed. Your campaign knows how many votes it needs to win and roughly how much you think you can raise in funding. From there, start building out a plan to repeatedly touch voters. Canvassing and phone contact are the most personal, while TV is among the least impactful. Your goal should be to maximize the number of high-quality touches per voter,

Here’s today’s tip: Never pass up an opportunity to say, “Thank you!” There are no two words in the English language more powerful than “Thank you.” But I’ll tell you what, I’d be hard-pressed to find a campaign that uses them enough.

Here’s today’s tip: You can’t win a campaign by working banker’s hours. Taking on a campaign, depending on the scope, is basically like signing up for another part or full-time job. Just like taking a new job, there’s a lot to learn and an adjustment period where you have to re-learn the art of balancing your schedule and figure out how to juggle your competing responsibilities.

After more than a year of publishing the How to Run for Office Podcast, we're launching a new podcast channel! For the last 60 episodes, our listeners have been expanding their knowledge of campaigns by tuning in to our weekly interview podcast. With over 30,000 downloads, our listeners have been overwhelmingly supportive of what we're doing! Interviews are great, and we're going to keep doing them, but we had a number of requests for a shorter podcast that regularly shared important campaign tips. Something that you could listen to while you're coffee is being made in the morning or while you're getting dressed. That was the thought that developed into the My Campaign Coach Minute. In 60-90 seconds, we'll kick off each weekday with an important campaign tip that will point you in the right direction! Please subscribe on iTunes, give us a rating and consider supporting our work with a small monthly donation. Even just $1 is a big help! https://www.patreon.com/mycampaigncoach You'll Learn About Things Like: -Why you should never attack your opponent before you've defined yourself. -Why personal attacks nearly always backfire. -Why Donald Trump is the only candidate who should wear a hat! And much more!