What Do You Do Ep. 5: Nicole Schlinger

From Campaign Cycles to Founding CampaignHQ Welcome back. My name is Matthew Heard. I'm director of professional services here at Leadership Institute. You're tuned in for the podcast. What do you do? Our guest today is Nicole Schlinger, and so I'll just open it up. Nicole, what do you do? Speaker 2 Well, thanks for having me. And I'm the president and founder of Campaign HQ and we're the top Republican phone vendor in America. So any way that you might want to contact voters or constituents to either win an election to ID persuade, turn people out, or to mobilize people to put grassroots pressure on their lawmakers on an issue, anything you do with a 10 digit phone number, that's that's what we do and that's how we reach people. Speaker 1 And I'm really excited about this conversation, Nicole, because this is, we're going to dig into industry stuff over the next hour and really drive down into, into how to talk to people, how to talk to voters, how to talk to constituents, maybe dispel some myths and, and sort of chart a path or blaze a path to what the future looks like. But I'm really interested at the onset of, of finding out how you got to, to, to be where you are today. Talk a little bit about your career path through this experience. Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. So the first ten years of my political career and the 1st 10 years in in our business was exclusively fundraising for Iowa candidates. And so I am a Leadership Institute graduate direct mail school, 1998. And that was, that was an influential, it was an inflection point in my early political career and I'm grateful for it. But I worked, I was the finance director at the Republican Party of Iowa in the 1998 election cycle. And you know, it would, despite every place I had been to raise money, I'd worked on 2 congressional races and at the state party had raised a record amount each place I'd been and still found myself for the, I believe, fourth time in four years looking for another job. And you know, I'd looked at the landscape and thought, if I am going to be able to continue and endure in this, something's got to change. And I remember Morton Blackwell saying you can't change the world if you can't pay the rent. And so it was, it was around that time I had the notion that if I could find 3 candidates or elected officials that would allow me to do their fundraising for them, their, their mailings, their scheduling of donor meetings, their events. None of those candidates might need a full time finance director and wouldn't be able to pay a full time finance director. But three of those could replace my salary that I've been making and could potentially be a way for me to do this on a more permanent basis. Speaker 1 You know, for some people who are listening, they may be in in the campaign world. And I, I remember as somebody who worked a couple of cycles, it is, you know, you start up depending upon the size of the campaign, if it's a congressional race, maybe it's June or July the year before, but it's really a boom and bust experience. January 1 and we may dig into Iowa a little bit. January 1, you hit the ground running and by November you're looking for a job. You, your candidate wins. And if you want to go into government, you could. But that's not really the place for a lot of people in on the campaign side. And some people go and they find out for themselves It's not so. So by November, I remember November 2010 sitting in a Coca-Cola bottling plant, which was our headquarters. I was very cold in there. I live there. We converted the syrup room to a shower and it was very cold. And I thought to myself, I don't know what comes next. And that uncertainty that you could, you could feel from campaign cycle to campaign cycle. And so you, you were doing the campaign cycle kind of experience and you said I've got to professionalize this. Professionalizing Services and Scaling CampaignHQ's Reach So what was the next step that you took? Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. So the the cycle that I was at the Republican Party of Iowa was I believe the only time where the finance director was also responsible for raising money for the legislative majority fund, which meant by the time I was done with my two year stint, my chairman didn't run for re election, but I'd raised money for the speaker, the Majority Leader and and the president of the Senate and the Senate Majority Leader. So I'd raised money for all four leaders, had worked with all of them and with most of the assistant leaders. And so that was I had AI had a unique opportunity and advantage that you know, I chose to, I chose to take the resources and then the situation that I had and make it into something that I thought could be more permanent. And ultimately I had three contracts signed before I put in my 2 week notice. Speaker 1 My gosh, that's awesome. And you think about that in building out and I know sort of toward the end of this conversation, we're gonna talk about business development from campaign HQ's perspective. But you were really, you know, your work product was well known to people who could make those kinds of decisions, give you opportunities in the future. How did you sort of how did you leverage your personal and professional network into that? What were those, without going into too many details, what were those kind of conversations like when you went from, you know, I was the finance director here and now I would like to provide this opportunity to this service. What did that look? Speaker 2 Like it was, it was enormously nerve racking. I will tell you it was much easier to ask a donor for for money than it was to ask these legislators to hire me. In fact, I remember I asked someone who was the he was the district director and had been the campaign manager for one of our incumbent Republic looking members of Congress. I shared with him my idea and I said, do you think this is a good idea? Person I respect and and was well is well regarded and and he said no I don't. Speaker 1 How do you, how do you come back from something like that? Like, like I've seen and sometimes we talk about, you know, every set back is an opportunity to learn and learn and grow and, and and figure out a new pathway. But what do you do when you're when you're faced with that, that kind of feedback? Speaker 2 It was. It was jarring. Ultimately, what I realized was I did not do a good job of expressing the value. I didn't do a good job of explaining why should you do something different than what you've always done at that time. You know, at that time, if you were an average lawmaker in Iowa, you were going to do your own fundraising. The notion that you could hire someone and let alone hire someone fractionally, it's it's, it's done so much more often now. It's very commonplace now. It was not commonplace then. And so we were, I was telling people that there was an opportunity to do something that didn't exist. It wasn't a you already buy the service, now buy it. For me, it was creating a new market. Ultimately, I think that was to my benefit in terms of I was swimming in a blue ocean. There was there was no one with whom I was competing at that particular moment. There was later on. Speaker 1 So, and I, when you're, when you're talking about this, this aspect of candidates sort of going their own again, I think about my campaign experience. We printed the house file in house. It was a volunteer project. I, I wrote the house file, the candidate approved it and, and, and we, we had literally volunteer stuffing envelopes in in the office. And, and I know at the beginning of campaign HQ, that was something that you guys did talk about a little bit. And this is the part where we get a little nerdy, the evolution of services and now what you can do and what you do and how you're blazing, blazing a trail in this in this industry that you're in now. Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. So what wound up happening was demand for what we were doing grew quickly. Once once the first few people started showing results, there was there was a surge in demand. So the question was how can I scale just me, myself into being able to do this for more people? And ultimately that was looking at each component of what we were doing and what of that could we make into a process that others could do. One of the first things was the mailings. I also, I had my own stable of volunteers. We, they would come in at, they'd come in after lunch every day and we would have mailings for them to do every single day. And that was at the my mother-in-law. They were all of her friends from church. Oh my goodness. And when we ran out of her friends from church, she went to the other churches. We actually at one point did an appreciation party for them in Brooklyn, Iowa, a town of 1500 people. We had 60 ladies. Speaker 1 Oh my gosh, it's. Speaker 2 Amazing. But the second thing that we found that potentially could be scalable was the phone calls we would be doing in a, let's say it's a fundraiser for Jeff Kaufman, who's now the the very long serving chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa. He was one of our clients. I remember he said, I'm not sure I can raise that much money in Wilton, IA, but I'm willing to give it a try, Nicole. And boy, he did. And the next thing that would scale was if you were doing a fundraiser, you'd send out those invitations and then you needed someone to call everyone who received an invitation, encourage them to attend. You had people who you wanted your candidate to have a meeting with, you needed to call and get those meetings scheduled. You had pledges and a fundraising deadline coming up. You needed to get those. And so so we started building just a little call center on the side. It was, it was essentially a, a side quest with the mission of supporting our primary goal, which was to raise money for these candidates. What wound up happening though, was people started seeing what we were doing and it was actually my clients and others in the political industry that really looked over the wall and were able to see what this could be. We would get requests for, could you chase these absentee ballots? Your calls are so great. Could you, could you do these ID calls for us? And so ultimately it was, it was you could do a lot more than this. This perhaps the by the time this came about, we were, I believe we were doing the State House, the state Senate campaign for governor. I believe we had three of the four congressional races. There was, there were no more, there was no more fundraising to be had in Iowa that was worth having. So the question of where do we go next? It begins with pattern recognition. What do your clients ask for more than once and are you paying attention for that? And so that's really where where the move into voter contact began was this was something that we could do in all 50 states. It's something that could be done by people using, using the methods that I helped develop, certainly. But it was something that could be done and trained by other people and, and could really scale the impact beyond just the number of hours in the day that that I had being a ringleader of all of this. Speaker 1 And, and think about the timeline for this. So you, you founded campaign HQ in 1999 and, and you're, you're doing sending out invitations, following up, getting, getting meetings on the schedule. And now clients are saying, could you do this? Could you what what did that look so 1999 to when did you when was this first evolution into new services that that client driven new services? Nicole's Personal Experience with Iowa Caucuses Dynamics 2006 2007 OK, so it was it. It took that long to climb that first mountain to be able to see over the mountaintop as to what should be next. Speaker 1 All right, I'm going to go on a side quest myself. So, so campaign HQ in Iowa, Iowa frequently makes headlines, particularly, you know, we're, we are in 2020, we're in a midterm cycle. But obviously there's there's interest. Talk a little bit about your personal experience in the Iowa caucuses, you know, first in the nation expression of political viewpoints and, and in your experience there and, and maybe how the caucuses of the caucuses changed over the years or, or what what you see, what you've personally experienced and, and what you see in Iowa. Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. So I've I've been on 4 presidential campaigns, Lamar Alexander, Mitt Romney and the first Mitt Romney campaign, Tim Pawlenty and Ted Cruz. And ultimately, I believe that one of the one of the opportunities Campaign HQ had was that people from all over the country got a chance to come in and see what we were capable of doing. And so the growth and success of Campaign HQ, I believe is, is inextricably linked to the Iowa caucuses. You have hundreds of the most talented operatives, consultants and strategists from all over the country coming to work on more present. There are more presidential campaigns in Iowa than in some of those later states, of course, because, you know, we have the widest, we have the widest field. And our job in Iowa is to winnow the field. That's our mission is we are going to kick the tires on those candidates and see what they're really made of. And do they have the ability to put together a grassroots organization? If you cannot inspire grassroots Iowans to come out for you at 7:00 on a very cold Monday night in January or early February, perhaps you don't have what it takes to launch a nationwide campaign. And that's really that's our job. Speaker 1 You and, and just by being in private, you were in, you were in Iowa, in Iowa there's ADC presence. Now talk about that in, in the business development part of this conversation. But because you had a presence there, it was easy for people to come in to see what you're doing. You, you talk about those cold nights in January. It was two years ago, right? Two years ago. That was the coldest. It was I, I flew in, I know I flew into Saint Louis. It took three days to get to Story County. And I, I went and I wanted to see a caucus experience in him, which is really impressed that of the, there were 130 people in this middle school auditorium. And that that really was it retail side of it where the candidates obviously come through. But then at the caucus experience, you have a representative and that representative could be could be a very high profile party member. It could be somebody from in Iowa, could be an outsider, or it could just be the guy who who made the pitch for for President Trump in in the Story County precinct that I was in was a mechanic. And he said, you know, this is a lot like putting brakes on a truck. And and we'd like to the first time you don't do it right. And the next time you figure out, you know, you iron out the kinks and you do it the right way. And so, you know, think about your 4 presidential campaign experiences in Iowa. Do you have any? Do you have an interesting, the most interesting story from from I'm going to put you on the spot with. Speaker 2 This gosh. Speaker 1 One that you can tell. Speaker 2 Oh, let's see, I'm trying to think of an interesting caucus story to tell. I mean, to what to your point, the thing I love most about it is there's, you know, there are I, there are detractors that the Iowa caucus is a party run, volunteer run event. It is not an election. It's not run by the Secretary of State. And so it, you know, it's different than a primary. People can't absentee vote. They, you know, they have to show up. It is the Republicans and Democrats are quite different, which is, which is another to the point of something interesting about the caucuses. Republicans do count one person, one vote. You do actually mark a ballot. They're counted. It is, it never ceases to amaze me that you have, you know, close to 2000 individual caucus precinct sites. Each one is run by a volunteer and they are able to, you know, assemble the, the the observers and to call in that vote and that we are able to tally it as quickly and as accurately as we can. Democrats do it a little bit differently. They have you stand in a corner, you stand in the Elizabeth Warren corner, in the Bernie Sanders corner. I will make no editorial judgement about what standing in corners happens to mean, but any candidate that doesn't get 15% is considered not viable in that precinct. They disband and then you have to go from to the different corners again. So there's a lot of convincing that goes on. And your vote is actually not secret in a Democrat caucus, which also means there's some pressures, there's social pressures that that can happen about where you go if, you know, let's say you're in the same room as your spouse or your employer or people at your church. There's there's pressure that may be about more than those candidates. The real problem comes in, though, that that you do not present to the state A, to the state Democrat headquarters a total tally of the votes you present to them. A. What do you call it? A A proportionalized number of delegates awarded to your precinct. And there is no there's no paper trail of the actual votes and who was there. Speaker 1 Wow. So I again, I sat through the entire process in in story count and I was so impressed again, privately run by by a party organization. I was so impressed. I said I just remembered the auditorium was large Rd. chairs and then in the back and I sat there and I gave $100 to the cause at the at the culmination of that, I said this is a really impressive thing. More than 100 people showed up -19° it took me 3 days to get here. I wasn't even, I was dropped off by a friend of mine. I was like, I don't even know if he's going to be able to come back and pick me up. And just just the lore around the Iowa caucus and I think a lot of people who may be listening this don't see retail politics at that level. And it's because Iowa, Iowa even more so, and I know you appreciate even more so than New Hampshire is uniquely positioned to have. Again, all of those candidates come through and have to build out a grassroots operation. And there are there are key players, grassroots players in the state and and elected officials who may weigh in or, or, you know, switch in the middle or whatever it happens to be. And it's so fascinating to see because it does take again, an enthusiasm people have to be they have to want to go out and and make the case for their for their candidate. And in the instance for the Republican Party, mark a secret ballot in in your vote, your vote counts. I was just very impressed by by that. So, so we get through this, this the first life cycle of of campaign HQ 1999 to 2000 and. The Latest Evolution of Phone Contact at CampaignHQ Six. We like to call it CHQ one point. Speaker 1 O one point O So what happened after that? What it where? What does 2 point O look? Speaker 2 Like absolutely. So there was a transition period and so I used the profits from the fundraising business that we had to bootstrap the voter contact operation. But really after the 2008 caucus, it was clear to me that this was the direction that we as an organization, we're going to move. That if we were, you know, that if we were going to build something that was going to have more impact that that doing so doing so in a way that could take what what what we were uniquely positioned and qualified to do, which is talk to people by phone and scale that to 50 states that this was. We weren't going to. What got us here wouldn't get us there if you will. And so that was actually about a four year transition. 2010 was really the transition out of Iowa, fundraising out of major donor fundraising for us. Speaker 1 And, and so again, this was client driven and you said that there's a way to do this bigger and go to all 50 states. What did a jump like that look like? And I, and I asked that in the context of a lot of places, a lot of, a lot of places in a lot of industries, they'll try a lot of things and they're not really good at doing 567 or 8 or 9 things. And, and you, you sort of get this market signal. And he said, let's let's go here. Were there? What were the big lessons out of that next those next four years? Speaker 2 Yeah, the thing that we found was that your network is sort of like a Pebble in dropping a Pebble in a, in a pond that, you know, you have your client, but then that client is going to go to another campaign. And if they think you did good work, they'll follow. It's all of the people that those people know. And so we didn't, you know, we didn't do this through a massive advertising campaign. We didn't, you know, we did this by working through our network from one phase to the next. And so we grew, you know, somewhat organically, but by by using the, you know, by using what worked, which is doing good work gives you the opportunity to do more good work. And to your point, over the years, we have continued to actually hone in on the services we provide. So rather than rather than taking that that current and trying to widen it out, at which point you know you've got something that's not moving very fast at all, we have really focused on our lane and become the best in our lane. Speaker 1 That that nimble agility allows you to to then own that space. Yeah, exactly. So that was 2.0. What? What phase are we in now or how look back at the last now that was 2010. Looking back at the last 15-16 years. Yeah. What has happened in in the in that time since? Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. So we, we consider ourselves right now in CHQ 3.0. So we, we spent that time and for for some time we did telephone fundraising as well as telephone voter contact. And so in 2021 we sold our telephone fundraising business and that really launched what we consider this 3.0 phase. What got us from what, you know, what took us from that phase to where we are now is people and process. So we were able to bring on some people who had already proven themselves very effective and very successful in this industry to be part of our executive leadership team as we were in. And we were able to, you know, use the benefits of use the benefits of, of that knowledge while still main being nimble players. We are of, you know, of the phone vendors, we're we're the newest and the hungriest of them. And so that's, you know, that's an exciting place to be after 27 years to say I'm still the new kid on the block. And, you know, to that point, we really focus on, we really focus on where can we, where do we see the industry moving and where can we get results? So over time, as we focused in on those services, we started only with live calls because that been what we were doing for our Iowa candidates. Well, then we added automated calls into that. Then came the, the jump into you're not just calling landlines, you're also calling cell phones now to the point of your calling 80% cell phones. So we added in telephone town halls, text messages, live ringless voicemails, surveys, anything you're going to do with a 10 digit phone number. That's that's the area that we that we inhabit. Speaker 1 You know, this is pretty nerdy, Nicole and and I and I think that, you know, there are campaign professionals out there who, you know, there's a there's an argument that doors win wars and there's a conversation. Let's let's inundate them with mail and and people. Some people may not think about phones and they, and when they don't think about phones, they may not know what all phones can do and, and what all, and who all your services could be provided to. And so let's, let's educate them because I think people think they, they're just not thinking about it. And So what are, what are the things now, as you've now you're in three-point O and you're in this, you know, 15-16 years in, in this space. What if, what have you innovative? What do you do? What do you surprised me with? And and where's it going? Speaker 2 The number one thing, to your point of doors win wars, What wins wars is talking to human beings. And when you knock on doors, as you know, the doors that you get, where you talk to the person to whom you wish to speak, that's enormously effective. What about all the ones you missed? How many times you're going to go back to that neighborhood? And the answer usually is one time or none at all. How many of those will the candidate, him or herself be able to hit? So, you know, what we look at is how can you have a conversation with the largest number of people? Because what we know is, yeah, Abraham Lincoln said make a perfect list of all the voters and determine where each man stands. That is still what we're doing. And so, you know, when I one of the misconceptions I often get, especially in this post iOS 26 world, is that no one answers the phone. Everyone's filtering and phones don't work. And that's absolutely not the case. We have at a macro level aggregate all of our call results for the last five years and pre iOS 26, post iOS 26 and the difference of the of the percentage of people we dial versus who answer the phone is unchanged. Every voter list we're calling whether it's ID, persuasion, get out the vote is typically 80 to 85% cell phones, the rest of its voicemails. One of the things we see is with with the over reliance on texting. Speaker 1 People, if you're telling me, yeah, you're telling. Speaker 2 Me you have. Speaker 1 People, my phone's buzzing now. Speaker 2 Exactly. We have people who opt out, but also people who still, if someone has and uses a landline phone, what do you think about that person? They're older, they've lived in their home a long time. They are very likely to vote. Speaker 1 Certainly going to vote. Speaker 2 Exactly. And so when I we as an example, if we are leaving messages, we will typically get a 70% file penetration rate on an average live call project. That means we're going to get 30 to 35% of the people to answer the phone and talk to us. So why would you? Why would you exclude that? Speaker 1 Yeah. And, and thinking about that, so there are a number of different vehicles through which you're making these calls and and you've mentioned a few patched through and and Tele town halls. Yeah, again, we're digging into the nerdy stuff and, and some of the listeners may not know what those are and, and who they're best situated for. So I've, I've, I've reference patch throughs, I reference tell town halls. Let's talk about a few of those and, and then who who the ideal client for one of those is. You just meander through whichever 1 you want. Deep Dive into Effective Phone Contact Strategies You bet. Let's start with patch through calls. So live patch through calls are perfect for issue organizations where you're trying to mobilize grassroots support to put pressure on lawmakers. Ultimately, A lobbyist, you know, a lobbyist can do what they can do. But politician, the one thing politicians fear most is the law is their next re election. And so having people call and say, I, I wanted you to vote for this bill or I wanted you to vote against this bill and it'll be kept in mind when I'm voting next time. That's a powerful statement. So when the executive director of the organization or a lobbyist or you know, some high level stakeholder goes in, we've primed the pump and set the stage for that person to have the right kind of audience with that lawmaker. That it's, it's not just a person who's getting paid to come in and convince you. It's real people who impact this person. So the way that we do that, we call it the three S method. We call and we tell people about the issue. I, you know, we in five seconds or less, I've got to get your attention away from Wheel of Fortune and onto your issue. So we will hit them over the head with it hard. And we'll say, do you agree that your lawmakers should vote yes on this bill? Only if they say yes to that. Do we then explain why we're calling? Because what we don't want to do is to take people who might not agree and send them through. Then we explain that we can transfer you to your lawmaker. Would you like to do that? Yes. Great. Let me explain to you what to do and what will happen. Are you ready? Yes, we do that to try to get rid of people who might get cold feet, people who, you know, maybe don't really want to do it or, or confused, really, it's the confused person I'm most trying to weed out there. Speaker 1 You know, I'm I was thinking about this through the lens of three different either organizations or issue inflection points. And the first one I don't think was a patch through, but it but but it it illustrates the importance of directing this energy. And I just remember when President Obama was going to bomb Syria in 2013, Congressman Justin Mosh was representing Western Michigan libertarian Republican, and they were getting the offices were getting hundreds of calls opposition of bombing Syria. And I talked to Justin at the time and I, I said, how many, how many calls into the office are you getting on this? And he would say 100 a day. And they're 81 are don't do it and, and 19 are, yeah, whatever. And I said, well, how many does it take for an elected official to to look up and he goes 40 calls in one day on an issue. And and so you look at that sort of organic activity. And then for a while I worked at Americans for Prosperity and at the state level, pass through calls are a big thing. And then we recently at Leadership Institute, we had a series of training conversations with the Association of Mature American Citizens and EMAC Action and they did pastor calls on the big beautiful bill. And so, you know, you're, you're getting people, you're letting them know the issues in front of them. And that's not, I'm, I'm not going to say you're getting people riled up. People have a lot of things going on. They are, they are going to work 406080 hours a week. They're raising kids, they're preparing for retirement, they're paying the mortgage. They have a million things to worry about. And, and frequently they trusted when they went to vote, they trusted their elected official would go and vote the way he or she said they would. And that doesn't always happen, surprise in politics. And and so you have to take you, you mentioned Wheel of Fortune. You have to take that person away from one of the things that they have going on of the million things in a week and say, did you know this is happening? Yeah. No, I didn't. This is important. Is this something you care about? Yes. Yes, let me tell you more about it and then are you comfortable having a conversation with the legislative aid or whoever or your member to to get them to do this? What is what have you seen on the back end of that? And we don't, I don't want to go into proprietary information, but what do you see on on moving people, particularly moving legislators to make those right decisions? Speaker 2 Yeah. So a few things. The first is it is I'm trying to think of the right way to right way to say this. But sometimes when you are pressuring A lawmaker, it is because they are not voting the way that they're not voting the way that you think they should. And so if you are, if you are needling them, if you are sometimes when you have the effect that you want to have, the pushback you can get can be, cannot, can be less than positive from them. And so to understand that, understand that the lawmakers reaction maybe to say, well, now I'm, you know, now I'm not going to do it just because you sent these calls to me or, you know, no, I'm not receiving any calls. That's the typical one we get. They claim they haven't received calls, but that's because. Speaker 1 I can look at the data. Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. That being said, if we were, you know, if they were already voting the right way and we were all cozy together, we wouldn't be doing this. And the reason that Patch through calls are so particularly effective on that is, you know, often times they're used as part of an overall comprehensive strategy. So the organization may have some digital ads going on, they might be doing some CTV. And all of those things are fantastic because they they build broad awareness. But what they don't do is promise that you will get those 40 calls in before noon when the hearing is at 2:00. And that's what Patch Through calls can do. They give you the absolute absolute precision that you will get the number of calls you need by the exact time you need. Speaker 1 It's a it's a surgical strike ahead of the deadline. That's that's really cool. And and so Tele town halls is sort of the next kind of thing. Talk, talk a little bit about that is somebody who is somebody who has received a couple of invitations to join a Tele town hall. Tell me what what does that do? What are those? Speaker 2 So on a telephone town hall, it is typically the largest audience to which any organization or candidate will ever speak. So we will dial out to to an audience of anywhere from 10 to 50 to 100,000 up to 1,000,000 and invite those people to join us into essentially a large conference call. So you can typically expect if you dial 100,000 people, you're going to get 10 to 15,000 people on the line. I don't know about you, but most meet and greets for candidates 10 to 15,000 people not showing out of them. But you can, you can have a candidate, you know, a statewide candidate, even a down ballot candidate, talk to that many people in an hour. We are calling out to both landlines and cell phones. So you are getting people where they are and they're staying on and listening 8/10/12 minutes, which when you think about the cost of a TV ad to get someone to listen to you 20 times longer than a 32nd TV ad for something that is interactive. Speaker 1 And and also also the television ad is passive. I'm sitting on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune ATV ad happens to me. This is I'm I'm opting in. You know, I get the call and the call may be a passive experience, but I've decided if it's a universe of 100,010 to 15,000 are are cloning in, they've taken that extra step to say actually, yeah, I am interested. I. Speaker 2 Would like to do that right? And how long they stay on is a function of how interesting you are as the as the subject matter being said, we have done telephone town halls on issues from Supreme Court justices, high high interest gubernatorial candidates, U.S. Senate candidates. We did one on the Iowa bottle bill and people were interested in that too. So people are more interested in what is going on in their community than perhaps we give them credit for. People are interested in the What we found recently is with the rise and excitement of podcasts, things like this, in a world where voters think anything can be fake, something that is a real authentic interaction in which they can participate is something that they are going to listen to. So they may be listening to it. They may put it on speaker the exact same way they put Joe Rogan on a speaker and listen to. Speaker 1 Yeah, no, I was, I was thinking about, it's been several years, but the last Tele town hall that I, I, it was dialed out to me and I opted in. I did, I was doing some work around the apartment and I just, I just had it on speaker and I was, I was listening and, and again, not, not passive because I opted into it, but but then listening along to see if there was a point. It's like, what's they ask? What are they trying to get me to do or what do I need to know? And, and so it's, it's really what kind of clients engage in Tele town halls. Obviously you've got candidates, but there may be. Speaker 2 Every kind of client that we work with can engage on a telephone, town hall and a candidate from the local level all the way up to statewide. Issue organizations working on state issues, issue organizations working on federal issues, and also office holders, members of Congress, senators, governors can also use this as part of their official communication. I remember a couple years ago when the hurricane hit in North Carolina, we had North Carolina members of Congress using this as a way to get out and talk to voters about what is happening with this relief effort, what they were doing to get the relief effort, and where they could go for help. So using it as a constituent service on top of all of that at a time when you know, you're probably not going to go to an event in, you know, in the in. Speaker 1 Western North Carolina yeah, it would be it would be impassable or impossible to to reach that many people. And in in that very specific instance, many of those people are dealing with the effects of the hurricane to their home or in their community. And they didn't they didn't have the wherewithal or the bandwidth or sometimes the the ability to go to a Community Center and listen to a congressman, you know, espouse, you know, talk about the relief efforts. So so the convenience factor there was was really stands out to me and that what are other things? Ringless Voicemails and Strategic Business Development Again, I think I think a lot of folks who may be listening don't know what all phones can do. These are two super cool, nerdy, nerdy things. What else? What else is happening on the ground or on the line with with phones? Speaker 2 The first thing is live calls are the perfect way to plug the hole in your voter contact. The people that you did not reach at the doors, the people who didn't come to your events, the people who are not you know are not addressed digitally. It is the IT is the only two way conversation you are likely to have. And so you know, so it's just simply including it as a way to plug the holes that are in your existing plan. The second thing and something that's new for us is these live ringless voicemails. So you might remember back in the old day, people would ask, do you do Sly dial? And the reality is you cannot leave a recording on a cell phone unless you have prior permission. The FCC has been very clear about that. And while many things have changed about how you can dial, that has not. And so we're using that one to many technology that we're using on a telephone town hall, applying that to a voicemail. And so we can get out voicemails to, you know, fifty 100,000 people in under an hour. And it's a live person simply delivering the voicemail to many voicemails at once. The exciting thing about that, Matt, is we talked about the over reliance on texting. Texting is enormously effective. But the problem is. I've seen candidates they've sent 27 text message, 40% of their list has opted out. How are you going to get to those people when with the iOS 26 changes? What we found is more from, from our reports, under 30% of people have opted into any of the filtering features. Those features have existed on Android phones for years. So we've seen the people who were not answering the phone before are the people who are not answering the phone now. Nothing has changed there. But there's a lot more filtering of what pops up and what lights up that lock screen. And a voicemail is lighting up more people's lock screens because they don't want those filtered out, because those voicemails tend to be from the dentist, from their kids school. They're the kind of thing that should they be an emergency, you don't want those muted. And so we're we're getting that lit up on the lock screen. We're getting that voicemail e-mail and we're able to reach the people who either are filtering or or have opted out of your texts. On top of that, what we found is there's a greater degree of control of when you can deliver them. I, you know, I think everyone was in the situation in 2024 when they were pressing send on their texts at 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning. And you know, God knows when they were getting delivered. Well, we were able to in the New Jersey election, we did a pilot project and we delivered all of our messages before 10 AM. We knew exactly when they started, exactly when they ended. The level of control you can get on a day when you need that is is like nothing else. Speaker 1 Wow, that is, it's really fascinating to think about and, and especially the having seen the back end of a text message operation, especially there if somebody's clicking or volunteers are clicking, you know, if you've got a universe of 87,000 text messages. I I got a I know in the last cycle I got a a campaign text that I am certain was meant for the day before and it and it came in early or. Speaker 2 And that's not the volunteers fault. Verizon said that Election Day in 2024 was the busiest day of text messaging since text messaging text messaging. Speaker 1 What, what else do you see on the horizon in, in this space? We're again, we're, we're about to dive into the, we are diving into the midterms. It is happening. But obviously there's a presidential cycle in in a, in a year and a half, certainly earlier in Iowa. Speaker 2 We already have people who are generously donating their time to our legislative candidates. Speaker 1 But that excellent, excellent. That's you know, we've got candidates who are running at the top of the ballot and they they announced say in Virginia, we have elections every year. And the gentleman announced last year and I said, he said, what do I do? And I said, you show up to every everybody else is on the ballot this year. That's right. And you, you show that you have skin. You want to have skin in the game. Yes, but what it what else? What's on the horizon in this in this industry? Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that as as people, as voters become more and more discerning that people will, people will be very wary and distrustful. People think that videos are created by AI, that, you know, that they're not talking to real people. And so genuine authentic interaction is going to be is going to be king. So we, I mean, we've seen people are looking for ways that candidates can directly interact with a large audience. And, you know, so whether that's going to be through, you know, they're going to do virtual meetings, they're going to do Zooms, they're going to do telephone town halls. Ultimately, I think the direction that people are going is in a way that is indisputably authentic and cannot be mistaken for AI. Speaker 1 I was just thinking about that I'm I'm of a certain age, but I fell for an AI video on X the other day and I'm still I'm still thinking it's still like is plaguing me. But so so talk about we've talked about sort of the evolution of campaign HQ CHQ and I want to shift to business development again. Brooklyn, Iowa is a few miles away from where we are in Arlington, VA. But you guys at some point established ADC presence. So let's talk about the business development side. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention these, these socks that you you brought in just before this beautiful swag. It's it says, what does it say here? Yard signs don't win elections. So which is something is as a guy who's on the ground election cycle to election cycle, this is this is one of my 10 commandments, but talk a bit about business development and, and, and what you see in that space. Speaker 2 What what we found is that at campaign HQ we solve a very specific problem, which is you need to talk to voters quickly and you need to reach the voters that you're missing and you're typically in a no do over situation. You can't hire someone to make calls the Monday night before the elections and if they don't get it done, hire someone else. It has to be done right the first time and you need to have trust it will always be done right on the first time. That being said, it is rare that we talked to someone on that Monday of the day that they actually need us. And so all of our, our all of our business development is, is in our marketing is based on that premise that we need to be top of mind. So when you have the problem we solve, we are your first call and that's the reason for those socks. Speaker 1 I and I'm, I was thinking, I was out in California 2 weeks ago and, and there's not a big meeting that I go to where I don't see Ken or, you know, somebody from your team. And, and again, how do you, so how do you establish A presence? And, and again, before, before we started this, I told you like in my direct placement opportunities. It is this cycle primarily on LinkedIn, where an employer, a hiring manager has seen that I'm placing somebody for a role and then they say, Oh my goodness, I need somebody in a role. I'm going to reach out. So so how do you, how do you become top of mind and and what steps have you taken to do that? Speaker 2 Well, it starts with relationships, people only. People only do business with someone they know, like and trust. And you cannot know, like and trust us without knowing us, particularly the trust part. So, so direct conversations is king. So we, we are very focused on maintaining our relationships in a natural, authentic and true way. So there's, you know, I think there's no magic to that other than that I care about people and I care about this work. And we bring people on our team who share our values about that, you know, but on top of that, we, we work hard to put out interesting, relevant, useful content, whether it's on LinkedIn or X that addresses that. And so, you know, will you see every post on LinkedIn? No, but if you see enough of them that you know, the kind of problems we're solving and that, you know, that we're truly experts in this kind of communication, then the day the problem happens, you'll think of us. And so it's putting out useful content, but it, it's also showing up at events. And it's also that swag, again, the swag is specifically made for Please remember us, please keep us handy at the right moment. Because you know, if our business development strategy were to call you every Tuesday at 3:00 PM and say, Are you ready to buy? Are you ready to buy? I would wager you are not going to be ready to buy. But if you have something on your desk from Campaign HQ, that's a reminder in a way that says I know you, I get you and I'm ready for you. The Human Element: Building Relationships in Politics You know, and, and, and thinking about that many people who are listening to this are, are new or they're making a shift into politics. And so you've, you've hired A-Team and, and you've managed to maintain a team through several iterations. And you yourself, you were once new to all this. What are what are if? If you have two or three tips for somebody who's looking to navigate, get involved or refocus their career or find find their purpose in politics, what would you say to them? Speaker 2 It is 100% all about the people. Every single thing that I did on the day that Campaign HQ was founded, we do not do anymore. But you know, I looked at our project dashboard one day a few months ago and I saw at least four people that I had worked with for over 20 years on the dashboard still doing work with them. They grew and we grew and we grew together. So the thing that I would say is every, every single person you meet, make note, keep track of who you've met, keep their contact information, but more importantly, keep track of where they go and track their journeys and be genuinely interested and and caring that give first and expect later. Speaker 1 You know that again, every, everything that you've said is I've been able to think about a flashpoint or an experience. And for many people in politics and public policy, they do make a career of it. And, and so where, where you were as finance director in what 199798 is, is very different than where you are now. But it is, it is concentric circles of many of the same people and then new people who've come in who have, who have followed maybe a similar pathway you have or who've been alongside you in that pathway. And I think that is something that, particularly in Washington, DC, you go to networking events and people say, what do you do? And they ask that question so they can assess your value, so they can put their resume on your corpse and climb over your body for the next opportunity. That's kind of a cynical approach, but it's kept me focused on, again, those those human relationships. And I think, you know, you guys, again, I want to talk about the DC you guys open. When did you open this DC office? Speaker 2 We opened ADC office in 2022, OK, so not very long ago. Speaker 1 And, and again, those personal relationships, you guys have hosted events and every time if I'm in town and there's a CHQ event, I, I know it's a high quality event and I know that when I go in, I'm going to know not only the people who work there, but the people who have been invited because it is a community and, and on that business development side, it is, it isn't that 3:00 PM Tuesday call. Are you ready to buy? It's it's hey, how are the kids, Ken, you know, when are we getting cigars next? Or, or you know, the, the picking up on the conversation that you, you left off in the last the last time that you met. And I, I think that is, there's such a human element and I'm going to bring it back to Iowa because you were born into it, molded by it again, the retail politics side of Iowa. And, and I think that is really the, the, what you've manifest in, in campaign HQ to where, when, when, and I know when Ken reaches out, it's the opportunities to partner for sure, but none of it feels like that 3:00 PM call. And, and I think that that is advice that I'm pulling from you here is, is like the, the human element of this and the importance of, of that, that long term connection and being genuinely interested in what someone is doing. Are you doing anything interesting right now, Nicole, outside of outside of all the political work that you're doing? Speaker 2 Outside of them, yeah, there's something outside of all the. Speaker 1 Political work, I know I'm very I'm confused. Somebody, you know, Iowa well, you know, it is, it's it's interesting to to see because again, it's so it's I'm just thinking about, you know, a 20 something who's, who's got bitten by the political bug. And they say I'm going to go work a couple cycles and they're like, you know, I'd really like regular hours and and health insurance and an office maybe. But but so much of that is, is, is again about that human element is. Do you have any parting advice as we sort of close close this conversation today? Speaker 2 If you are, I mean, if you are putting together a plan that involves trying to influence other human beings, we absolutely can help you with that, that talking to people by phone works. And so, so don't, don't assume that that it's being taken care of elsewhere and don't assume that it's a channel that doesn't work. It absolutely works. And if you're not doing it, I guarantee you your opponent is. Speaker 1 I've learned so many things that I didn't know about this channel of communication for voters and constituents, and I just really want to thank you for spending a little bit of time with us today. Thank you also for joining us. This has been what do you do conversation in public policy. My name is Matthew Hurt, Director of Professional Services here at the Leadership Institute, and we will see you next time.