My trip to Washington, DC, as a board member and
representative of the Florida Panhandle Chapter of the AFSP (American
Foundation for Suicide Prevention), was enlightening and empowering. I'm
still processing much of the trip and the massive amounts of information that
we learned at the Advocacy Forum prior to our lobbying at the Capital.
In the process of our "Hill Day" I learned that that our requests are called "asks." The staffers, representatives and senators have very limited amounts of time, even when your appointments are scheduled. When you go in and finish introductions most of them quickly went straight to the point and said, "So what are your 'asks'?" In lobbying your "asks" are the things you are asking them to do or consider. There was no talk about weather, or really anything off topic. It was all specific with guidelines and goals. It also eliminated any initial awkwardness about making requests, because we all knew that was the entire reason for our appointment.
From a how-to lobby site: "Lobby meetings are often centered around a specific “ask” of the legislator, typically their support on a particular piece of legislation, releasing a statement or signing on to congressional letters, etc."
They knew we weren't there to just chit chat, but that we had a purpose, and that we needed them to help accomplish that purpose. Our success depended on how clearly we were able to define those requests and relay them on.
Even at lunch, in the food court tunnels under the Capital buildings, we met other lobbyists and they would also ask us what our "asks" were and we would inquire about theirs.
We could have spent our time, spent our resources (flights, hotels, etc) and accomplished nothing if we didn't know what we were asking for or willing to ask for it. How frustrating it would have been to do all that we did with no results, simply because we didn't ask for anything specific.
Yet how often do we do that with other things in life? We assume people will know what we need. We expect them to read between the lines. And even if they do know what we need we expect them to know what we want from them specifically. That isn't fair to them or to yourself. So just some food for thought. If you need something, be clear, know what you want/need, know how they can help, what exactly you expect their role to be and then ASK. They can still say no, but it eliminates the assuming and resentments that can come from that.
