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INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads | | SEPTEMBER 4, 2001 JANE APPLEGATE How to Make Washington Pay Attention Entrepreneurs need to remind legislators to look out for their interests. Here are a few tips about making your point
Faris says the NFIB is looking forward to working with Barreto on strengthening the SBA's Office of Advocacy, which acts as the "official voice of Main Street within the executive branch of government." So, if you didn't like the way Washington handles the issues you care about, stop complaining, get involved in the political process. "If you don't blow your own horn, someone will use it as a spittoon," quips Ted Fowler, chief executive officer of the Golden Corral Corp., a chain of 460 family steak restaurants in 38 states, which is based in Raleigh, N.C. Fowler, who also serves as vice-chairman of the 230,000-member National Restaurant Assn. (NRA), says business owners can make a big difference if they make their opinions known to lawmakers. For example, he says grassroots lobbying efforts by restaurant owners lessened the financial impact of the Clinton Administration's minimum-wage increase. Although the NRA didn't prevent Congress from increasing the federal minimum wage to $5.15 an hour, efforts by restaurant owners pushed lawmakers to include training-tax incentives, which made the increase less painful. NEVER TOO BUSY. "If you own a restaurant or any small business, it's vitally important to be involved politically at the grassroots level," says Steven Anderson, president of the NRA. "We literally storm the Hill during our public-affairs conference in September. The legislators know when the restaurant owners are in town." Anderson says thousands of small-business owners belong to his group, since 70% of America's eateries employ 20 people or less and post annual sales of under $500,000. While you may think you are too busy running your business to be active in politics, consider how state, local, and federal policies affect your bottom line. Health and safety regulations, environmental standards, labor laws, and the tax code all impact the way you manage your company's affairs. "The key thing for a small business owner is to personalize an issue and explain to employees how a government action can affect the business, positively or negatively," says Amy Showalter, a Columbus, (Ohio)-based consultant who helps large and small companies become politically active. "Small-business owners have a great advantage because they have a personal relationship with their employees. Once you inform them about an issue, then, help them get involved." CAPTIVE AUDIENCE. Showalter managed grassroots political efforts for Nationwide Insurance for about 10 years before starting her own firm, The Showalter Group. Her expertise is creating presentations and conducting workshops aimed at tapping the political power of employees. "Many small or medium-sized companies don't have the financial resources to hire lobbyists," notes Showalter. "However, you have a rich resource in your employees." Even the busiest entrepreneur can quickly obtain current legislative information from their trade or professional association and pass it along to employees via e-mail, company newsletters, meetings with supervisors, paycheck inserts, even bathroom-stall posters. "Posters work really well because you have a captive audience and people read that stuff," says Showalter. "You can also call a staff meeting and say there are things happening that will impact our business." Showalter suggests building political awareness by hosting a voter-registration drive for your employees. Or, invite local politicians to visit your company. If you are located near the state capital, organize a field trip for a few employees to meet with legislators. "The number one way to communicate with your legislator is face-to-face," she stresses. "Number two, is a personal letter, and three, a phone call. E-mail and faxes are way down the line." "The groups that get in front of the lawmaker, eyeball-to-eyeball, have the advantage over those who are sending emails," she says, adding: "The key question a politician asks himself or herself when meeting with constituents is, "Who is more likely to vote against me?" PERSONAL TOUCH. Sue Pechilio, director of political programs for the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting, hired Showalter to conduct a workshop for 20 members of the 2,000-member trade association. She said all of her association's members own their own agencies, which sell sophisticated insurance products to high net worth clients. "We do have our own lobbyist, but our members are our best lobbyists," she says. Encouraging the leading agents to become involved in politics is easy, "because our industry is regulated by the tax code. We remind them, these lawmakers are legislating how our members will be selling their insurance products to the public." Groups to contact: National Federation of Independent Business (www.nfib.org) and National Small Business United, (www.nsbu.org).  Succeeding in Small Business(©) is a syndicated column by Jane Applegate, author and founder of sbtv.com, a Web site offering free multimedia resources for business owners. For a free copy of her new workbook, The Business Owner's Check Up, e-mail your address to: info@sbtv.com, or mail it to: Check Up, P.O. Box 768, Pelham, N.Y. 10803. Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
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