5 Mistakes People Make When Deciding to Run for Office
1. Organizing a “committee” to run your campaign.
A “campaign by committee” is often a loser. This mistake usually occurs when well-intentioned people decide a candidate needs help or when a candidate thinks their race is too small to pay for any assistance, or doesn’t want to hire a professional campaign advisor or manager. It also occurs when stake-holders want to ensure their candidate wins. Campaign committees spend hours and hours in meetings. Everyone has an opinion; everyone wants to be heard. Unfortunately, if the committee members were good enough to run campaigns, they’d probably be in demand, professionally. Instead, create a “kitchen cabinet” which helps recruit and organize volunteers, help create positive chatter, help with door-to-door canvassing and assists with small fundraising tasks. While a kitchen cabinet can be a huge help, they shouldn’t make important strategic and issue decisions for your campaign. If you are sitting in a campaign meeting talking about what colours your sign should be – you’ve already made this mistake.
2. Asking the wrong people for opinions.
People start asking opinions when they are thinking about running for office. And of course, everyone has an opinion. Most often, people will give their honest opinion, but that doesn’t mean it’s correct. Certainly family members need to be consulted. After all, they’ll be directly affected by your decision to run. However, asking arm-chair pundits their assessment could plant very inaccurate misconceptions about a certain race or set of issues. Instead, before you start “asking around,” talk to a qualified political consultant – even if you do not intend to hire one (but be upfront with them). Good political advisors will meet with any serious candidate and be happy to give you more information than you could ever find by “asking around.”
3. Choosing to run for the wrong office.
With dozens of seats open each election cycle, there are always people who decide to run for the wrong electorate. In their mind, they may be best suited for the seat they choose, but that may not be the case. Other times, people choose to run for an seat because they think it comes with power and prestige. Running for a political office will be one of the hardest endeavours you’ll ever undertake. The money you’ll earn (if any) will be very little. You’ll have to attend more meetings than you can imagine, and you’ll have to meet and listen to a lot of people’s opinions. Instead, think through your skill sets and what office best suits your talents. It’s important to run for the right office for the right reasons.
4. Assuming buckets of money will appear on your doorstep, droves of volunteers will show up to help and everyone who “owes you one” will come through.
The idea some benevolent donor, a busload of experienced and dedicated volunteers and all your friends will rally around you and make sure you’re elected is just plain wrong. Running for office is a tough and lonely task. You’ll have to make lots of calls asking for money, knock on hundreds of doors, learn dozens of issues and a host of other things you’d never imagine. Unfortunately, there’s less money and fewer volunteers than ever. Assuming help and money will just show up is a setup for failure. Instead, understand early on that you’re in this nearly alone. You’ll have to work hard for every campaign dollar and every volunteer hour. Support must be built one voter at a time. Money must be raised one ask at a time.
5. Not Creating a Budget
Creating a campaign budget is a simple thing to do, which means it’s also a simple thing not to do. Without a campaign budget, your campaign cannot be organized. And, organization is the key to winning. Unfortunately, most candidates massively underestimate what it takes to get elected. Instead, create a plan for how you’ll win your race. Decide what activities you’ll do in your campaign, then figure out what money it will take to fund those activities. Make sure it’s written out so you can refer to it throughout the campaign. You can certainly make changes to the plan as your campaign progresses, but having your budget on paper will help you keep on track. Don’t underestimate the amount of time, money and energy it will take to run your campaign. Winning a political office is hard; that’s why it’s called a race. So when you decide to run for public office, run hard and run to win. Be in top mental shape and in good physical condition. There’s no reason to run and lose, so that extra effort – every day of your race – can be the difference between winning and losing.
Become a great speaker
Think about how often you successfully communicate your ideas to loved ones, co-workers, or friends. You make a simple point. You choose language that they understand and to which they can relate. You answer their objections satisfactorily. You close with them agreeing to do something you want them to do. You just employed the great elements of a successful speech.
Then you are asked to speak to 15 people about a subject you know something about. (Why else would you be asked to speak?) You become scared to death. You have a totally different mindset about “public speaking” than you do about “daily conversations.” Why? You’re scared because you think you don’t know how to communicate. You think you have nothing important to say. You think you don’t know the correct way to phrase your thoughts. You think the audience will disagree with you. You think the audience will dislike both your ideas and you personally. You don’t think you can persuade them.
You plod on, prepare your speech, rise to deliver it and all of a sudden, you experience one or more of the following “stage fright” symptoms.
Rapid heart beat: Your heart is beating so fast and loud that you’re sure everyone in the room hears your heart pounding. Relax. Only you can hear your heartbeat. It’s beating faster than usual because adrenaline and other chemicals are increasing your heart rate. Breathe slowly and deeply. Concentrate on your speech. Focus on someone in the audience you are comfortable with for a few moments. You heart rate will slow once you become immersed in your presentation.
Trembling legs or hands: You’re embarrassed because one of your legs or hands is trembling. Everyone who sees it knows how scared you are. You feel like such a coward. Relax. Take several, slow, deep breaths. Contract and then relax the shaking muscle. Again, adrenaline and other chemicals have supplied more energy that your body needs, and irregular breathing has disrupted your blood circulation.
Shift your weight on your feet to stop your leg from shaking. Use large hand gestures that move your hands and arms. Connect and press together your index finger and thumb on the trembling hand while relaxing your other fingers. Hold the connected finger together for ten seconds and them relax your hand. Repeat this if necessary. Your breathing and tension/relaxation exercises will stop the trembling.
Shaking or cracking voice: You begin speaking and your voice shakes or cracks. Your voice sounds so weak and you’re embarrassed. How can you continue? What should you do? This problem is simply caused by irregular breathing. You can easily eliminate a shaking or cracking voice by slowing your speaking rate and gaining control of your breathing rate. Focus on someone comforting in the audience. Intentionally slow your speech, inhale, and lower the pitch of your voice as you continue.
Dry mouth: Your mouth feels like it’s full of cotton. Your lips stick together and slur your speech. You’re afraid that the audience won’t understand you because of the slurring. It’s the old adrenaline problem again! The adrenaline is pulling moisture from your mouth. If you can take a drink of water, stop and do so. Hold it in your mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. Pause for a few seconds and relax. Breathe to relax. If you cannot take a drink, pause or stop to collect saliva in your mouth and hold it there for a few moments before swallowing. To diminish the chance of this happening, chew gum or use a mint before speaking.
Perspiration: Your forehead and upper lip feel moist. You’re very self-conscious of this and feel growing embarrassment. Your perspiration is probably caused by your rapid heart rate that raises your body temperature. Then again, maybe it’s just warm in the room. Try to ignore it as much as possible. Wipe your upper lip and forehead briskly with a handkerchief, and then continue your speech.
Flushing: Your face and neck look like you’re coming down with the measles! It’s all red and you know people can see that you’re scared. These red splotches are caused by irregular blood flow to the outer layers of your skin by adrenaline. This mostly happens to women. There’s usually no way to stop it once it starts other than to relax in order to slow the adrenaline rush.
Why don’t these speaking problems occur when you’re talking to loved ones, co-workers, or acquaintances? They don’t usually occur because you’re relaxed when you speak to people with whom you are familiar under comfortable circumstances. More than anything else, relaxation is the key to delivering great presentations to groups. Delivering presentations in conversational tones is one of the easiest ways to force yourself to relax.