Any type of consultant role affiliated with politics, including campaign strategists, public relation managers, and crisis management specialists embodies a multi-step process that stretches beyond identifying a problem and finding the means to amend it. With the right tools, political consultants can bridge the gap between problem and solution and build out everything in between in order to set the client up for success. Throughout the entirety of it, a consultant’s ability to build trust and create a long-lasting positive impact for the client comes down to a variety of skills and one platform.

Skills for a Consultant’s Success:

• Analytical skills to identify arising issues and their impact for the client.
• Problem solving skills to provide solutions to emerging challenges.
• Leadership skills to step forward and create opportunities for change, including talking with Congress and committee members, and pitching client’s perspectives to decision makers.
• Presentation skills to layout strategized plan in an organized and comprehensible way for stakeholders.

5 Pro Tips for Consultants

For optimum performance, consultants need these interpersonal and practical skills to build rapport with clients and key decision makers. POLITICO Pro is designed for policy professionals, such as consultants working in fast moving industries such as telecommunication, power technology, cybersecurity, and health care informatics, to utilize Pro’s information and resources and provide strategic guidance for their clients to stay ahead of policy. We’ll go over five tips for consultants to utilize Pro to their advantage.

1. Broaden Your Outreach

As a part of the dynamics in the business field, it is essential for consultants to build relationships with key decision makers on behalf of the client or develop effective outreach plans for their client. With POLITICO Pro’s Directories feature, consultants have the resources to contact state and federal Congressional members, committee and subcommittee members, agency members, as well as the respective staff for each group.

For example, consultants who are focused on energy technology could easily locate the contact information for staff members of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Technology to Market, who supports technology developments and commercialization efforts for energy storage and transportation programs. Reach out to key members of programs to discover how their efforts could align with your client’s goals and objectives. Utilize Pro’s Stakeholder Management, an integrated stakeholder engagement solution, for the outreach undertakings.

2. Track Relevant Legislations and Regulations
It can be overwhelming trying to weed through all of the new and updated legislations and regulations just to find the information that pertain to your field. Pro’s Legislative and Regulatory Trackers are designed in a way to filter through federal and state results based on your topics and timeline. For example, consultants looking into clean energy technology can create customized saved search with selected topics and set their preferences to receive alerts in their inbox when new actions have been taken to related bills. Or they can limit their search by committees such as the House Energy and Commerce Committee and specifically look at transcripts involving technology. Spend less time figuring out how to keep track of all the relevant bills and rules, and more time on cementing the strategy for your client’s mission.

3. Lead with Data
Using data in explanations is always encouraged, but the data is meaningless if the people absorbing the information do not understand the context. Pro Analysis includes Pro Bill Analysis that communicates key factors and stakeholders involved in a bill, Pro Issue Analysis summarizes an emerging topic, the power players and next steps, and Pro Data Analysis visualizes complex data in an impactful way. Pro Analysis offers high-quality insight into the current status and issues we face. Easily build a case for your client with visualized data that creates an overarching understanding on the current issue and how to move forward.

4. Interact with the Campaign Races Dashboard
Elections are important to keep track of because election outcomes could bring policy changes and widespread market implications. Pro’s Campaign Races Dashboard is an indispensable tool for consultants during midterm and presidential election years. Interact with maps that show every federal House and Senate race and highlight the most impactful ones. Easily track key races, explore race ratings, and view states with incumbent candidates. Watch races in battle ground states, pin important races for easy look up, and further analyze campaign financial data to better understand who is supporting particular candidates or issues and to what extent. Stay up to date on pivotal moments in the process of our democracy as they could impact your client’s vision.

5. Maximize Organization
Streamline your workflow and collaborate with colleagues by tracking relevant topics, bills, and rules that matter to your clients. Receive on-platform alerts for follow-up task assignments, past due items, and changes in Priority/Stance of the bills tracked in the Legislative and Regulatory Compass. Personalize your inbox intake by selecting the newsletters, roundup emails, and email alerts to meet your needs. Create customized Saved Search lists to get digest emails on new bills matching your topics.

Regardless of industry, POLITICO Pro provides a complete package for consultants to organize their work, present information, and make recommendations to clients in an easy to digest manner. Schedule a demo to see how Pro can help you work faster and smarter.