Essential Tactics for Effective Communication in Public Affairs with Matt Klink

What if you could stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving landscape of public affairs communication? This episode promises to equip you with the essential strategies to do just that, featuring insights from the esteemed Matt Klink. With over three decades of seasoned expertise, Matt has managed high-profile issues for both public and private sectors. We tackle the critical need for companies to adopt proactive communication strategies to effectively address regulations and legislation, and understand the long-term commitment required to see real returns on investment in public policy efforts.

Curious about the shift from traditional grassroots movements to TikTok-driven campaigns? Matt Klink breaks down this fascinating evolution in political communication, providing a nuanced understanding of how to maintain supporter interest and identify true activists. We delve into the intricacies of modern advocacy, discussing the changing role of lobbyists in Washington D.C. and state capitals, especially in the context of term limits. This segment sheds light on the sophisticated tactics now required to drive authentic grassroots movements and political engagement in today's digital age.

From managing global crises to navigating the fast-paced media landscape, Matt's insights are invaluable for any corporate executive or communication professional. The conversation underscores the importance of real-time media engagement, strategic placement, and the influence of bloggers and influencers. Matt emphasizes the critical role of local knowledge and well-prepared spokespersons, especially in international contexts. This episode is a comprehensive guide to mastering the art of communication in the advocacy space, ensuring you're equipped to handle both everyday challenges and unexpected crises with finesse.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Interesting People, the podcast where we delve into the lives and stories of fascinating individuals from all walks of life. I'm your host, justin Wallen. In each episode, we bring you inspiring, thought-provoking and sometimes surprising interviews with people who are making an impact in their fields and communities. There's only one common thread that the world is more interesting because of them. Get ready to be inspired, entertained and enlightened as we spotlight the extraordinary. Let's dive in.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Well, I'm here with Matt Klink. Matt is a renowned professional and also a very good friend, with over three decades of experience which is hard to hear that I say that about myself and it's painful actually Working on complex, controversial and high-profile issues for public and private sector clients, as well as items in the elected field, so elected office ballot measure campaigns. Matt's worked for corporate clients, political clients, in more than 35 countries and in that way, you are especially unique. There's not a lot of folks with a track record of working internationally, and you've got that. There's not a lot of folks with a track record of working internationally, and you've got that. And not only that you've done it with clients who are not easy to create great reputations for. You've got a couple decades of experience working with oil, gas and energy clients in California, other Western states, and you hold a master's from George Washington University's Graduate School of Management and Political Management and a BA from University of California at Berkeley. So I'm humbled by that, because I got my BA from a little liberal arts school in Southern California. I don't hold a candle to that.

Speaker 1: 1:38

You're also General Secretary and Board Member of the National Association of Political Consultants. So, matt, it's great to have you here. Great Thanks for having me. Justin, it's good to be here. Yeah Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about effective communications. You're a communicator and I think one way that I wanted to jump in a little bit, since you've got experience over the course of years, is how is communications in the advocacy space, where you're influencing electives, trying to influence policy? How has that changed since you first got your feet wet?

Speaker 2: 2:10

The thing that strikes me as most challenging now is it's the pace at which communication occurs, and there is an over-reliance now on the reactivity of trade associations and corporations, meaning that, instead of trying to drive an agenda, they get caught reacting when things happen to them.

Speaker 2: 2:37

As you mentioned, I work for industries that are heavily regulated and taxed, which, to be honest with you, in California, it's a great business model because everything is heavily regulated and taxed which, to be honest with you, in California, it's a great business model because everything is heavily regulated and taxed.

Speaker 2: 2:50

But the challenge is that these companies, they spend billions of dollars marketing their products and yet, when it comes to being impacted by regulations or being impacted by potential legislation, they're like the little Dutch boy trying to put fingers in the dike to stop the flow of water. And what we work diligently with a lot of different clients to do is and I'm going to use a mix of different stories and analogies here we talk to them about getting on their front foot, about trying to drive their agenda so they can preempt legislation or change the dialogue that's happening about a complex issue. And it's difficult because a lot of times they say why would I want to spend money when I don't have a specific issue in front of the legislature and the most logical response that we give back to them is it will cost you less to do it now than it will be if you're trying to fight something, because then it's all hands on deck. A full body contact sport.

Speaker 1: 3:57

Yeah, that thing of ROI, I think, is one of the challenges that we constantly face in this space.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Right, because in the world of marketing and that's what we're talking about by any other name right it's assessed a different way. Marketing typically is tied to a sale. Whatever it might be, whether it's soda pop or toothpaste or tech or whatever it might be, someone's actually going out and buying it. So the direct link between what you're spending and what you're getting is more easily illustrated. But in the world of public policy, it's always a challenge and illustrating that ROI is part of the complexities of our clients. They have to go back and deal with internal budgeting, they have to prove that this stuff is worthwhile and that's why typically I think and maybe you disagree devolves into a crisis-driven or issue-driven, project-driven item, rather than that strategic look that you really get with marketing of this is a years-long, decades-long as long as the company exists or the industry exists effort and that shapes a more strategic approach, whereas in public relations and advocacy oftentimes we don't have that best case scenario, most effective approach.

Speaker 2: 5:11

Exactly, and it's challenging when corporate America, generally speaking, is salaried and bonused on year over year sales results and if something that you want to propose to a client takes longer than one year to implement, a senior executive is not likely to engage in that unless you can make the compelling case to she or he that it's worthwhile doing. And I've been lucky. I've been a. I've been a consultant for most of my life, but I served three and a half years in-house as a you know director of global government affairs for a fortune 50 company, and the interesting thing that we would we would talk to our consultants all the time about was we need some deliverables that we can measure progress and track success so that we can then keep the interest among senior management that look, their goal is to sell more. So I mean it was eye-opening for me as a consultant going into the private sector and now back as a consultant.

Speaker 2: 6:25

You have to structure things differently.

Speaker 2: 6:28

You have to set up milestones in what you're doing for clients who desperately do want to be proactive, but they will only do it if they say what tangible benefit am I going to get from doing that?

Speaker 2: 6:43

And interestingly enough, which I think should bring a smile to your face. You know, one of the things that we use as a foundation for that is research, and we use that research to demonstrate how consumers feel, or if we're doing panels with thought leaders or even with elected officials, where their thought process is at, and we can show in numbers that the executive level or the C-suite will believe that here's how we move people. This is what they need to hear to be able to make X, y or Z decision, or all of the above X, y or Z decision, or all of the above X, y and Z decisions. So I think that you know the use of research for us is an essential component. If you want to be pro, I mean, it's easy to use research when it's reactive, but if you want to get on your front foot, you've got to have research.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Yeah Well, and of course that does make me happy because I'm I'm like everybody else. Let's talk about something truly interesting, but with research. So that's what the client side is, whether it's an association or corporation or whatever it might be. But that can demonstrate efficacy, right, it can show change over time with those target audiences. But how is it used in other ways, integrated to a campaign? And maybe one way to look at this 100 million years ago, when people thought about advocacy, I think they thought about lobbying. That you'd see in black and white movies. You write them a large check and then something happens that's mysterious and we're not sure, but it usually has to do with a bunch of dudes sitting around and smoking cigars and drinking scotch and making decisions, and somehow your action did that. But if that ever actually did exist, it's a hell of a lot different now. So how does that communications landscape work differently and how do you integrate research into that?

Speaker 2: 8:43

Yes, the rumor of the dark, smoke-filled room and meetings held in the private. You know the private suites of. You know choose your favorite steakhouse in whatever state capital or the nation's capital. I'm bummed that I missed those. I missed those times. I miss those times.

Speaker 2: 9:26

But no, look, I think that the key thing now is that the tools and tactics that we use in ballot measure and people campaigns are the identical tools that we use in integrated public affairs campaigns. And research is important because it identifies, you know, which target audiences are receptive to which messaging, who is likely to engage, and then what we do as the public affairs or the political consultant is we have knowing these groups and working with the pollster. How can we most effectively reach these groups? Is it a combination of, you know, grass-tops engagement, where we talk to the heads of associations and then that message trickles down to their grassroots to take action? Is it digital media? Is it direct mail?

Speaker 2: 10:09

If we find out, for example, in a city that they have two newspapers but one is viewed much more highly than another one, we want articles or columns or editorials in those newspapers. It helps. The research helps us refine our plan, and I think that the misconception that the unsophisticated have is that oh, it's public affairs. You do the same thing for every client. You know, I wish that I wish our business were that simple. You know, it really becomes a case of you know you have to design a program that fits for what you are trying to accomplish and for many clients, especially long-term clients. We really work.

Speaker 1: 10:55

You know we do our best work over time and the tools and tactics that we use evolve as the client's issues evolve and you have some tools that are distinctly different than typical consumer marketing campaigns right, and you mentioned one grassroots, grass tops and I'd like to pick your brain a little bit more about that. There's an article and I'm forgetting whether it was journal or post or whatever it might've been, but it was recent, sometime within the last 45 days that was written as an expose of well. That was written as an expose of well. The world of advocacy has changed and look at what tech has been doing. When there's an issue at hand, they activate a bunch of people and those people call or use this, use apps and use social media to communicate, and the gist of the article was this seems underhanded, this tool doesn't seem right and genuine and free, and it's an unfair and undue influence of the elected process. What do you feel about that? I?

Speaker 2: 11:56

think you're referring to the activation campaign of TikTok. I am.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Yeah of TikTok. I am, yeah, and they, you know they have this great platform and it's used by a lot of young people as Matt Klink holds up his his phone that doesn't have TikTok on it. But they were very successful in basically scaring the the pants off of young, young constituents I say alleged voters, because young people don't vote with great regularity but someone so far as to say that they couldn't live if TikTok were to be banned. I mean it was kind of scary when you think about the power that one group has, but it highlighted this was real grassroots activation. Look, when I first started this, when I was you know, as you said now, that we're better in political, better in political consultants is the polite way for people to say you've been in the business a long time or you're old. But when I first started Astro, I mean there was AstroTurfing where it was fake grassroots, where you would create a group citizens for or you know, or you know, you know presidents against choose your issue. And then you would encourage, you would go out and either by walking or by mail because there was no email or there were no cell phones and you would get people to take action for you. They would send a fax to their elected official, or you could call them and you could punch them through to the capital switchboard and urge them to vote for or against something. I mean, what we do now is so much more sophisticated, but what we do real is where it's at, and creating real is very, very challenging, because a lot of consumers have and a lot of organizations have what we say is organization overload, meaning they're asked to join so many different coalitions that they're for this but against this piece of legislation that not only can the association not keep it straight, but the people that they reach out to they just get. Most people don't care about this stuff. They don't want to deal with it on a regular basis. So we have to factor in how to make topics interesting, which is where polling comes in. You know what's going to work with these audiences Again, the messages that we test in our research.

Speaker 2: 14:29

And then where the art of what we do comes in is if you have an issue that's six months away from a vote, you can't communicate with these people every week. You'll burn them out. So what's the cadence that you communicate with these people? And as you're communicating with these people, you may have 1,000 people in a list. I'll keep the numbers down, but hopefully you have more than that. Of that, maybe 10% are going to be what you call activists, people who are really into issues and are willing to engage, and the rest, your text or your email or your social media content. They're like, oh, that's kind of cool or this really pisses me off, but then a week later they have completely forgotten that they've signed up to receive more information.

Speaker 2: 15:20

So part of our process is we're trying to identify who are the people that are most likely to take action by asking them simple questions when we do talk to them, trying to get more information. So if you reach out to someone and you're talking about I don't know, say, an energy issue or an environmental issue, you're really going to get first name, last name, email address. You get more than I mean. But if you ask them for first name, last name, street address, email address, mobile phone, zip code, people are like, wow, this is really intrusive. I don't want to give anybody this much information because they think they're being scammed. So, but or actually I'd say but rather than so what we can do over time is we can go back and we can fill in other fields so we can get. If we get a zip code, we can, with probably about 90% accuracy, figure out where that person lives, you know, so you're constantly collecting more, and every time they provide you more information they're more likely to take action on your behalf.

Speaker 1: 16:32

That engagement, the efficacy of messaging that you're talking about, and getting people to respond, because it's one thing to capture attention, it's another thing to get them to do something. Oh my gosh, yes.

Speaker 2: 16:45

Right.

Speaker 1: 16:46

I'm interested in how that may have changed. And there was a time. Simplicity is always the goal right With anything you know engineering, messaging, so forth. But there are limits to simplicity and I'm wondering if have you seen kind of an arc of efficacy with messaging, you know? Is it enough to? And I'll use a clunky example from politics. You know, 30 years ago, when I first got started in politics, when in the primordial ooze, the, you could say someone the real adjustment invented?

Speaker 1: 17:21

yes, you could say that you know someone's a lobbyist, you could say something like that a negative and it would have an effect. And those types of messages I'm seeing are dramatically reduced in efficacy and messages have changed over time. Are you seeing that as well, or do you see that differently? How has effective messaging changed?

Speaker 2: 17:46

I think that the messaging is relatively consistent, but the messengers are changing In many respects. You know not in one, and here's where you have to differ. You have to know your targets. But in Washington DC, because there is no era of term limits, that the communication with the members of Congress or with the executive branch well, let's say Congress, because the executive branch can change One it's harder to get direct contact into that office because of not only the protections for physical security to get into the nation's cap or to get into the House or Senate office buildings, but lobbyists still are the main message carriers. And then the lobbyists can go in and say you're going to be hearing from your constituents or you've heard from your constituents.

Speaker 2: 18:45

I think now, like in state capitals, with the era of term limits, lobbyists have more power, meaning that they are the constant, and in many cases legislators and staff rely on lobbyists for that institutional memory and the ability of the lobbyists to know what is going to influence that legislature and then drive the right type of communication in to that office. I think that that's where there is real value and lobbyists work with public affairs consultants. In some cases they're fully integrated that they do both of both sides. But the actual message to you know, the messaging is still. You know you have to be able to simplify complex issues, highlight why something is good or bad and who is hurt or helped, but the messenger and then how that message is served up is changed.

Speaker 1: 19:48

So I hope that answers that yeah, it does, and you're talking about messengers. That brings up is changed. So I hope that answers that. Yeah, it does, and you're talking about messengers. That brings up another thing. So when you call Mackling's voicemail, you will have a specific portion of your message that speaks to reporters. If you're on deadline, let me know what it is. Things along those lines. People say that newspapers are dying, if they're not already dead, that a lot of media that we have around us is no longer relevant. How do you feel about that? I mean, readership is one thing, but credibility is another. What is the potential effect of institutional media types like newspapers, tv and so forth?

Speaker 2: 20:31

Absolutely so. Look, when I first started, the media world was very simple. It was you could hold an event at 10, you could hand out, you know. You could then go back and write a quick press release. If you didn't already have it written, you could make sure it was in the reporter's mailbox in the state capitol or in city hall by one o'clock. You knew it about between three and four. If they had any follow-up questions, they would call you to follow up and then they would submit it and the article would appear in the paper the next day. That doesn't happen now.

Speaker 2: 21:11

Now you go to events and the reporters that are covering you know let's see the LA City Hall. You know they're live streaming what's going on they will write their initial article 15 minutes after the vote happens, which forms about 75 percent of the article that appears in tomorrow's paper. So you have to be ready for every eventuality that comes down the pipe, not to mention that's the mainstream press. It's now a three-dimensional playing field because there are bloggers and, look, not all bloggers are created equal. There are some bloggers that, like CalMatter or I, won't call them a blog, but they're an online newspaper. They're doing it right. They have a slew of reporters. They're covering issues they publish online. They don't have a hard copy that they come out with. But then there are other bloggers that just go out and they cover there and they don't adhere to journalistic standards. There is no, you know, there is no on or off the record, even if you have an agreement with them.

Speaker 2: 22:25

You just have to be way more careful, and I think elected officials are sophisticated enough to know that.

Speaker 2: 22:33

You know, just getting something in, we say in print, but just getting something, even over the online that you can then forward around to people to show see what somebody else is talking. There are some entities that carry more weight. So I mean, if you get an editorial in the Sacramento Bee or the LA Times or the Chronicle or the UT, that carries a lot of weight. If you publish an op-ed in any of the above that I just mentioned, or like CalMatters or some of the other more notable, like Capital Weekly, that's going to get read. People are going to take it a lot more seriously than if you're on, you know, moe and Joe's Sacramento blog, because you know they may have nine followers. So I mean and that's where a good media consultant will understand you know what's going to maximize the impact and then, once the story runs, you have to assume that not everybody, that you want to shoot it to the right staffer, the right committee consultant or the member to make sure that they are aware that this is going on.

Speaker 1: 23:57

Yeah, you can't rely on it just being read, right, you have to repurpose it and weaponize it in some way. So, to that effect, it is the world of do-it-yourself. Now. Right, bloggers are talking about folks who call themselves journalists, influencers, all these different folks, and they are influential and they are different. They do change things and we have this ability to do almost anything ourselves, and that leads clients sometimes to look at a project or an issue and say you know what, I'm going to do things differently. I know the approach is X, y and Z. I'm going to do things differently. I know the approaches X, y and Z, but I'm going to do things a little more asymmetrically. I think I can do it for pennies on the dollar and I'm going to be successful. How often do you hear that? How often is it successful and why?

Speaker 2: 24:47

It depends upon the level of sophistication of the client or the industry involved. And there are some of the large corporations or even, frankly, mid-sized trade associations with whom I've had the pleasure of working. These people would make billions of dollars in the political consulting space. They are incredibly sophisticated. They understand how to drive an agenda, how to put messaging where it's going to have the most impact. Then there are the others that they have a great product that is, you know, it's a new or emerging industry and the relative level of sophistication is they haven't paid their dues and taken their knocks yet and they think that just because they're on Facebook or their kids on Facebook, that they're going to use that social media to drive their effort. And you really have to do a primer for them on, you know, on reach and frequency and not all followers are equal and the technical, technological sophistication of how you can use social media to target elected officials, you know, not by just boosting a post that they can do on their own, but by going into the meta ad manager or Twitter doesn't do political, but going. Facebook and Instagram are basically the same platform and how you can target that and you start talking this and you can just see their eyes glaze over. They don't understand it. And you start talking this and you can just see their eyes glaze over they don't understand it.

Speaker 2: 26:36

Using LinkedIn, which I think from a business standpoint is probably the most valuable platform, and differentiating between look, we should buy a full page out in the LA Times and it's like, okay, well, there's a reason why people do that, it still is valid.

Speaker 2: 26:48

Okay, well, there's a reason why people do that, it still is valid. But you could buy digital in the LA Times and get much more targeted coverage because you'll appear on a specific section or a specific topic and the ads will run. You know, if you buy the back page of the front section, you know you run that that is targeted, that's high visibility that the LA City Council or the County Board of Supervisors is going to see and say, wow, this someone wanted my attention. So I mean and that's what, that someone wanted my attention. So I mean and that's what a lot of clients don't understand is that it's not just you know, it's not three or four options. There are literally hundreds of options, which is really exciting if you're a consultant, but from a client standpoint it can be daunting because it does require resources.

Speaker 1: 27:51

Yeah, and that a full page ad in the times, for example. What may not be as effective as something digital, but whatever the spend, is part of everyday life. What are the biggest components of successful crisis communications that you always have in your back pocket and you would counsel your clients?

Speaker 2: 28:24

The greatest indicator of success in a crisis situation is preparation, and the last thing you want is when you're working for a client and something happens and you say what does your crisis plan say? They're like plan what plan? I mean, it's even the basics of you know. If some you know what are. First of all, what are the levels of a crisis? Not all crises are equal. There are some that are super important but aren't going to have the potential to cause reputational damage. There are others that are like stop everything.

Speaker 2: 29:02

This is a category one hurricane, all hands on deck. We need to mobilize. So it's you. Know who needs to be in the room, for what circumstances? Do we have accurate contact information for them? That's a basic, but a lot of companies are like we don't know where Mary is. It's 10 o'clock at night. She's not picking up her phone. It's like okay.

Speaker 2: 29:27

Two is the ability to accurately understand what the crisis is, because a lot of times, information will change or you'll get reports from on the ground where you know well, we think that this happened and it's like no, no, what do we know?

Speaker 2: 29:44

And if you have a plan you have thought about, you set up contingencies and you're not going to cover every single crisis, but you can cover the most frequently occurring ones, and you have to update this plan and you have to keep them short.

Speaker 2: 30:01

But that's how we help manage these crises. And knowing like, for example, if you have like, if a corporation has facilities scattered around the United States, in what cities are those facilities located? Who are the local, state and federal elected officials? Who are the reporters that cover those facilities? Do they have any groups that are active or activist in those areas that could potentially cause problems? I mean, that's kind of, if you have that, you're three steps ahead of the game. You know, do you have a company spokesperson or an on-the-ground spokesperson who has been trained in how to respond to questions to the media? You know, because the last thing you want to do is go on a live television broadcast and they ask a question and you say I have no idea and then everybody's looking at you I mean, and I've seen it happen before and it's, it's horrid.

Speaker 2: 31:07

Uh, you know, and again, you can't plan for every eventuality, but you can. We do offer people, you know, effective, proven techniques in how to answer questions the right way and in how to, if you don't have an answer, how to at least make the reporter think that you're on top of the situation and can get them an answer quickly. So no, crises are part of what we deal with. Crises are part of what we deal with. They're fun after the fact to think of what you have done and if you've made a difference. But while you're they're like political campaigns. While you're going through them they suck, and when you're done with them, you look back and you say, okay, lessons learned, this worked really well and we're never doing this again. And with each one you get a little bit better in how you manage them and how you can counsel clients to manage them.

Speaker 1: 32:03

Is it different overseas than it is here in any part of that communications world?

Speaker 2: 32:08

Oh my gosh. No, I mean, look, when I was working overseas, we would talk about successful things that we did in the United States and we were working in, you know, all over in Asia, in the Middle East, in Africa, and everybody would look at me with, you know, they would kind of go. That's great. When I stopped using American examples and used examples in other countries where this worked, that's when I gained more credibility. Because democracy in America is easy.

Speaker 2: 32:42

The rules of the game are they're more or less fair, they're more or less standard. I mean, if you go to Turkey and you're on the wrong side of the government, you could literally wind up in jail. You know, there is the First Amendment is not a global phenomenon, it is an American thing and you have to understand the rules of the game in those countries. And if you don't understand the rules of the game, you'll make stupid mistakes. And there I mean the political world is replete with examples of consultants, you know, applying American standards to you know, country campaigns that don't work, about having, you know, a hamburger patty shriveling to demonstrate that the inflation is eating up more of the local currency. That works great, but most of the people in that country can't afford to eat beef, so it doesn't hit right.

Speaker 2: 33:40

You know government processes are different. You know Europe, for example. You know they don't particularly like it when any Republican is president of the United States. Because Americans want to put America first, they're not considered joiners, whereas the Democrats, when they're in office, they talk with much more reverence about the European Union, about collaboration with allies and, generally speaking, they take a softer approach to power. So they're much more popular.

Speaker 2: 34:12

But if you go to, you know Australia, or I mean even the Republic of Georgia, former Soviet Georgia, I mean they look at the world differently and you have to have you have to have local knowledge. But the tactics that we use are still available. We can still use digital, just use it differently. We can sometimes use direct mail, depending upon the availability of voter lists and or the reliability of postal service. You can do advertising. I'll give you an example that struck home. So we were in Thailand. We were in Thailand and I wanted to do a digital campaign in Thailand and the corporation that I was working with at the time had a difficulty. It said we can't use social media. You know it's a project that you know we're worried about minors getting on. And I wrote a whole long thing about what we call the age gate technology, where you know you have to prove that you're 18 to go on to whatever the website or whatever we're doing and on social media. And they said well, what happened if someone lies? And I said, well, then that becomes the problem of the person and they should be kicked off the platform according to the social media platforms terms and conditions. They said, well, we're not really comfortable with that. Yet why don't you just build a website, drive traffic to the website. That way, we control it. So we did and we built this.

Speaker 2: 35:44

Justin, this website was stunningly beautiful. Nobody went to it Nobody. It was like a tree falling in the forest. It was out there. It was probably one of the most pretty websites I've ever designed and implemented. And then I went back to our legal counsel and I said, look, I go into clubs and restaurants and every single person that we want to reach they're on their phone talking on a social media platform, and they finally let us do it. And we crushed it because that's how they communicated. But that country, the way that people communicate, is different than how Romanians communicate or Austrians communicate or Israelis communicate, and you have to understand that nuance wherever you go, and that for me, it was the most fun, but it was like fitting together pieces of a puzzle.

Speaker 1: 36:41

I'm going to ask you a question. It's an obvious question, but I think people ask it. How do you figure that out?

Speaker 2: 36:47

Well, a couple of different ways. There's a ton of publicly available resources about how different adults or different consumers or different voters consume information. There's a ton of marketing research out there, and you just want to make sure it's from a reputable organization. To make sure it's from a reputable organization. Two, you actually do research in that country, and in some countries, polling is literally going door to door and taking surveys, and it takes a month to do a good poll.

Speaker 2: 37:21

Other, though, it's like, just like you were saying, you know, multimodal, you could do it the way you do it here. And then you try to find someone on the ground who can serve as a local consultant, who has the knowledge of the decision makers and who has really worked with them. Not someone who just, oh yeah, I read about, I know who the prime minister is and I know how the government works I could learn that by going that route but someone who really gets the country. And then you combined all that together and you develop a plan and you implement it and it's I found it to be in completely invigorating and new and fresh, and the things that we did in the Philippines were had no bearing on things that we did in Russia, and it was phenomenal experience.

Speaker 1: 38:13

Yeah, it's funny. I think our business is about talking to people, but that component about learning about how to be successful. There's the research components that you talked about third-party sources that exist, all these items that you could do, primary research but at the end of the day, all of that is useful but it's never completely useful unless you do what you're talking about. You pick up the phone or you reach out to people and you actually talk to people, you engage them, and that's not only interesting, it's one of the best parts about the business, right? I mean, there's extraordinary people in this world.

Speaker 2: 38:44

And one thing I think that we all forget is that failure is sometimes your best teacher. Is that failure is sometimes your best teacher that you can try. Classic example is the one I just gave you about Thailand is, if we hadn't failed miserably and we were getting moderate engagement on that website, we probably would have stuck with it and just said we don't have the messaging right. But the fact that we knew we had the messaging right and nobody cared because nobody saw it led us to make a very strategic pivot to go away from this and toward that. So I mean and that's where I mean, clients are not. Clients may not like the fact that something that you recommend fails. What they want to see is the ability to recover quickly and get them back on the path that they hired you for. And that's where experience comes into play.

Speaker 2: 39:49

And nobody bats 1,000. And nobody bats a thousand, but we bat a heck of a lot better than 300, which is, if you hit 300 in baseball, you're a hall of famer. But for our, I mean, we get it right more than we get it wrong, but we still have made mistakes. But we learn from those mistakes every time. And the sophisticated government affairs rep or legal counsel or, you know, chief information officer for a corporation or for a trade association. They have prepared their management adequately for that, to know that this is not a you know, if we turn the conveyor belt on faster and increase our advertising dollars, we'll sell more product. That's not the scale of how we can do our business. So I mean and that's again, that's the fun part of what we do it's so awesome when something succeeds, but it's also really interesting, when you do not achieve the results that you were anticipating, to try to figure out not only how you can fix it but where went wrong, because if you don't understand where it went wrong, you can't make a lasting change.

Speaker 1: 41:04

Listen, matt. You've been fantastic. It was great talking to you. We are out of time, so I appreciate everything. You've been terrific and, yeah, it's great to see you, great to talk to you. Thanks for all your insights. Thank you for tuning in to Interesting People. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast on your favorite platform, and don't forget to follow us on social media for updates and behind the scenes content. I'm Justin Wallen.