The term lobbyist will often conjure up an image of a shady character doing unscrupulous deals behind closed doors to generate more money for a cigar-smoking tyrant sitting on his island in the Bahamas.
Maybe there are some lobbyists that act in that way and surprisingly enough the Australian government felt it necessary to introduce a lobbying code of conduct in 2008 but the reality is that the vast majority of lobbying is conducted in accordance with public expectations of transparency, integrity and honesty.
The real question is how effective is lobbying? I see the role that myself and Council play in the act of lobbying businesses and government departments as very similar to the role of a salesperson in a business. The product we have to sell is the City of Dubbo. In Dubbo’s case, receiving a government grant or seeing a business grow or expand or move to Dubbo is the result we want. No matter how good a salesperson is, I have never seen a salesperson who sells a product to 100 per cent of the people they speak to. There are a variety of reasons for this – some potential clients are tyre-kickers; some are not quite ready to make the purchase; for some their finances don’t quite stack up; others decide they are comfortable with their current product and some choose a competitor’s product. Dubbo is no different; sometimes we miss out because a decision is made to go elsewhere but sometimes the decision is that no decision is made at this stage.
The really great salespeople that I have seen in action over the years don’t sit back and wait for opportunities to come to them. They go out and chase them. They are pro-active and sniff out any opportunity. They ensure they have the correct tools at their disposal to make the sales process easier for them. The balancing act is to ensure the opportunities that are chased are realistic and it is also important to note that a salesperson cannot make a sale just by making a sales call. They need a good product and a good support team and the client has to be ready to buy.
In Dubbo’s case, a few examples spring to mind that illustrate a pro-active approach to selling the City. Bernard Salt was in Dubbo this week to present his report on Dubbo’s population projections. Council was disappointed with the Department of Planning (DoP) projections that our population would only reach 45,500 by 2036. Given that Dubbo’s current population is 42,108, it would seem obvious that growth of only 3,392 people in the next 24 years seems just a touch conservative. We could have sat back and complained and whinged but we chose the proactive approach by engaging Australia’s premier demographer to produce a report that considered more than just the mathematics of population projections. Bernard’s report – although still conservative by his own admission – predicts Dubbo will have 51,550 residents by the year 2036; a growth of 9,442 people – almost three times the figure that the DoP arrived at. Not only does this now give us a definitive report that we can use in further discussions with the DoP but we have already produced more marketing information using this data to further advertise and sell Dubbo. These are the sorts of tools that pro-active salespeople need.
The wonderful announcement that fibre-optic cabling will be running through the streets of Dubbo from June next year as part of the NBN is another example of proactive lobbying paying dividends. I remember making my first pitch in relation to the NBN to RDA at a meeting in Bourke in April 2010. I then visited NBN Co. headquarters with then Mayor Allan Smith and Mark Riley on 18 August 2010. It was at this meeting that we were told no submissions had been received by any city as there was no submission process. We told them we would lodge a submission anyway – which they said would be the first by any city. We lodged the submission and then the lobbying continued at various levels by the former Mayor and myself over a two-year period. When the announcement was finally made it justified the efforts made over those two years but the reality is that it wasn’t JUST the lobbying efforts that will deliver the NBN to our residents – but they undoubtedly helped. The bottom-line is that I would rather live in a city where the civic leaders are trying their best to deliver results rather than just sitting back on their hands and waiting for a good result.
Just the same as not every sales call results in a sale, not every visit or delegation or phone call results in action. I have been pursuing direct flights for Dubbo to another major metro port for the last six months. Some airlines have been quite impressed to receive a visit from Dubbo City Council and, although impressed with what we have to offer, the economics still don’t stack up for them yet.
Luckily, all Dubbo residents can play a part in this. Marketing is not A thing you do. Marketing is EVERY thing you do and every Dubbo resident can help in the pro-active nature of our marketing efforts by talking Dubbo up at every opportunity. Let me know what you do to market Dubbo at mayor@dubbo.nsw.gov.au
Clr Mathew Dickerson
Mayor of the City of Dubbo