There’s more to a successful campaign than raising as much money as possible, giving speeches and walking in parades.
Too often, campaigns overlook the need for rock-solid, ground-level organization. It’s something that all the campaign money in the world can’t buy, particularly as the whirlwind of a campaign gradually increases in intensity.
The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.
--Sun Tzu
If you are running for office, on just about any level, you need a field director – someone who is building relationships with the decision-makers and the volunteers who will help you get elected.
And, when the time comes, the field director will be handling your distribution of collateral, your door-knockers, your parade walkers, your envelope-stuffers, your call banks, and all the other things that a candidate and a campaign manager cannot possibly take care of on their own.
Many campaigns make field hires at the last minute, or not at all. Sometimes, it is a question of finding exactly the right person. Other times, the candidate just doesn’t see the need for it.
Putting that decision off will undoubtedly hurt the campaign down the road. Indecision leads to paralysis. That is positively deadly to political campaigns, which require planning and constant forward movement to survive.
And rest assured, having a good field director with an organized ground game is money very well spent - and one less thing for the candidate to worry about.
A good field director is:
- Assertive
- Endlessly energetic
- Highly organized
- Skilled at making fast friends and positively influencing people
Field directors will work closely with your volunteers, who are called that for a reason. Volunteers believe in you and want to see you get elected, but they aren’t getting paid. They have lives beyond your campaign.
Volunteers need to be handled with great care. A good field director will make the volunteers feel as though they are the most valuable part of your campaign – which, in a very real sense, they are.
A good field director also needs a solid plan in place, which should be assembled before the hire is made. At what point will volunteer coordinators be needed? When do signatures need to be collected for ballot access? How many pieces of lit and yard signs will be distributed? When are local party gatherings coming up that require a strong campaign presence? That just skims the surface. Targets must be set that the field director is then expected to hit.
A field director, no matter how skilled, runs the risk of failure if targets are constantly moving. Create a plan, and stick to it. That doesn’t mean that adjustments cannot be made - but any campaign should have a solid grasp in advance of what will be needed on the ground to win.
This article was written by Chris, one of our campaign managers available on an hourly basis. If you are interested in speaking to Chris, please contact us.