A lot of lobbying seems to like this:
You make cakes and you like to eat a lot of cake. You want more people to eat your cake. You think that “ we must pass a law so that everybody eats [my] cakes.”
You meet an official/politician who likes your cake. They are similarly obsessed with your love of all things cake and eating them. They agree with you.
This is a great start. Victory is assured.
You next meet with someone who does not really like cakes. They lack a sweet tooth and are training for a triathlon.
They seem at best disinterested and bored at your special pleadings for laws to buy more cakes.
Twice in the meetings that ask “should EU laws really be about forcing people to buy and eat your cakes?”
The next meeting did not go well. The person is diabetic and has a serious egg allergy. He reacts badly. He thinks you want to make him ill.
Instead of cakes, switch it with the issue you are lobbying on.
The support from fellow believers is easy to get.
The real issue is getting enough support from those who are indifferent or hostile to your pet subject.
You do this through:
- Engaging decision-makers based on their values.
- Engaging decision-makers with ideas and words that they understand.
- Reframe the issue from eating cakes to something more powerful: “resilient supplies of cake for the European people”.
- Get support from the majority because they dislike those who dislike your cake eating cause.
- Public support and celebrity endorsement for your “must eat lots of cake” campaign has turned the indifferent into big new allies.
- You find an obscure implementing act or annex to get your cake eating requirements in.
- 5 very important people involved in the policy process are addicited to your cakes and back you.
- Your issue is picked up in an Omnibus proposal. You just need to secure enough support in the EP and Council to get what you want into law.
You can switch out cake for anything that you are working on.