Never walk in and ask for the vote

You bet. You bet. My pleasure. Looking I've been looking forward to it since you contacted me.

Well, that could take forever, just the story that's there. But anyway, but I had an interest in politics very early. And back when I was in college and when I was in graduate school, I had always been interested in politics. My bachelor's degree is in political science. My master's degree is in public administration, and from what they tell me is if you have those two degrees. Then you are a political scientist. Well, let me say, do I look like a political scientist? No. But the fact remains, in answering your question, it's always been a passion of mine. I have a very strong belief in making sure that people have an opportunity to express their position, their viewpoint, how they feel about issues, be involved in the process that creates. the public policy for everyone in the community. you need law and order, and law and order is formed by public policy, by running legislation in the state house and setting the guidelines for everybody to work with. So I have been very passionate about that to make sure I could get as many people involved in that. as possible because there's too few. We don't have enough people involved in the process.

for sure. The Kyle Group is a political is a lobbying advocate firm that works with regulators, elected officials, legislators, and we allow People to have the opportunity to go ahead and get involved in that process. The process can be very complex. And for the most part, people are busy with their lives and their businesses. And it's tough for them to get involved. So that's why they join organizations like you know, associations. And through that they can participate. But even the organizations have a difficult time getting involved. And Anyway, I'm the bridge from the real world into the legislative world.

Well, there's a there's nuances in the relationships with the legislators. And really what I was saying in that particular quote, and I'm glad you brought that up, is that first of all, you gotta build a relationship with the elected official. So each one of you knows each other, you've got y you're on a first name basis, and so that you can go ahead and talk. But if you don't talk or don't get involved or don't build those relationships, it's tough just to walk into a legislator's office and say, I want you to vote this way. When they don't know you from Adam, they're gonna throw you out of the office. So it's all about relationships and working those and becoming a resource for people on the issues that you go ahead and get involved with.

Well, first of all, I tell people to get to know who your legislators are. I mean, we all live in in various areas, and let me use Colorado for an example. Colorado has a hundred legislators. there's thirty-five senators and there's sixty-five representatives. So there are sixty-five representative districts. And 35 senator districts, so that the people that live in those particular areas are represented by a senator and a representative. And my first my first recommendation would be to reach out to each one of them and have people introduce themselves and Talk to the legislator so that they know who you are. A lot of times people won't do that. They'll vote, but then after they've voted, they never reach out, they never discuss, they never go to town hall meetings that are held by their representative and senator. They just don't get involved. And that's that's not good.

Well, I'll it it's not it's not quite that that complex, but well, like for example, this morning I was at a I was a breakfast speaker for a rotary club here in metro area. And then now I'm doing a podcast. This is an unusual w week for me to have that opportunity to do both of those in the same week. But During the interim, it's, you know, I do a couple a month and do some training. I do a lot more training just prior to the legislative session getting started. And that starts in January. So after the election here in November, it'll be November and December that I'll be doing training just to get people ready for the legislative session. And so training will pick up. the podcasts and and and speaking, that'll probably go down a little bit. just because I'm focused on getting people ready to be active.

Well, first of all, you start out with the legislation and you look at that, and that's been created by a lot of other people. the group that I may represent may not have been involved in that initial drafting of that legislation. So when it first appears and we go ahead and research that piece of legislation, we find that it's got some we have some difficulty with it. And until I get an opportunity to go ahead and talk to the sponsor of the legislation. as well as those proponents of the legislation and get to a better understanding of what was their intent, you can learn more. So by having those discussions, sometimes you're able to find that, hey, this really wouldn't be so bad, but we got to change these particular sections in the legislation so that it benefits everybody, not just the select few. So, you know, it's it's a process. It it you starts from the printing of the bill all the way up through the final passage. So there's lots of opportunity to interact, amend, and change things. So long story short, I found out that, hey, if we put a pu couple of things in here, my group would be happy with it, their group would be happy with it, and That's that's how you make legislation. You gotta get the parties together to discuss it, work it out, and that's the way it goes.

Well, first of all, the whole the whole profession of lobbying is built upon trust and truthfulness. Because a good lobbyist is trustworthy, is truthful. when a mistake's made, they own up to it. they have strong relationships with the legislators, and that takes time. This takes time. I mean, I've been doing this for 45 years. And I'll tell you, I was at a time I was the poster boy for making mistakes. I've I've made so many during my career, it's unbelievable. But I've also learned from those mistakes, as well as just being so involved over such a long period of time, you gain a deep understanding of how to work with people, how to talk. How to write, how to interact. And there it's a nuance that you have to you learn over the years. it doesn't come immediately, it takes time. just like any other profession or or skill, practice makes perfect, and that's true. so If you want to do this, if this is the job that you want, just get in it, find yourself a mentor. That would be great. I mean, because then you can avoid some of the mistakes and limit those. And but be very, you know, you you learn quickly, more quickly if than if you're just off doing it yourself.

You're putting me on the spot, buddy. I gotta think about that for a minute. What mistakes have I Well, one very early in my career, I was all energetic and was ready to set the world on fire. And I did a couple of things that you weren't supposed to do procedurally. And as a result, as a result of that, I had the speaker of the house come looking for me because he was gonna have he was taking me to the woodshed to tell me. Here's how this process works, this is how you've got to work within it, this is how you treat people. And so yeah, that was an interesting one to say the least. That that'll do it. And then there's been others where you know, you miss a deadline on something and you go, my gosh, now how am I gonna fix that? And sometimes you give inac inaccurate information and that comes back to haunt you when you didn't do your research like you should, and you should always do your research to make sure that you're Your facts are accurate, they're truthful. made those kind of mistakes. That you know, those you live and learn. You gotta do it to learn it.

That's a great that Mick, that's a great question. Let me let me share this. Let me start from the beginning. When I started in the lobbying business, there were no mobile phones, there were no cell phones, there were no computers, there were typewriters, and the fax machine had just come on board. So the technology, there wasn't any. But with the development of what I mean, all of a sudden that the mobile phone came out. wow, this is cool. Now we can make calls immediately to our clients when a vote's taken or somebody wants to change something in the bill or so on. Yay, all right. We got a neat tool that helped with communication with the with the client, big time. Then we have the computer. my gosh. We got word processing, we can get reports out, we can get our testimony typed up real quick. Wow, that's that's absolutely, you know, wonderful. And then we started to get the internet. Holy jumping catfish, look what we get to do now. We can send things immediately from our phone to the client and so on. And then we get AI. Now you and I both know AI's only been around for about two years since it's been we've all been able to have access to it. And I find it the one of the most marvelous tools there is. It allows you to become so much more productive. It allows you to become your research reaches another level of expertise. It allows you to really put together your position papers, your your draft of legislation. I mean, putting a bill in AI and tell it, tell me in simple English. What this bill is doing. And bingo, it's right there. If you want to check a committee and all the committee members that are on it, you put those that information into AI for all those committee members, and you ask them here's the point of view I want you to look at. How will they support this piece of legislation and why? And so you get a whole psychological profile of those members of that committee that gives you an even better understanding of where they stand on the legislation that you're proposing, or the legislation that you're killing, or the legislation that you want to amend. Who's going to help you? Who isn't? Who's going to vote for you? Who isn't? But that that opportunity, I mean. If you did a a background research on a legislator before AI, I mean it would take you weeks to do all of that. And now I can do that in an hour. And it's probably going to get better. In twenty minutes I might be able to get that all done. But the productivity and the research and everything is just phenomenal.

It's still it's still discovery. I mean, we're still all learning just how to talk to it, how to work with it, how to make sure it understands really what you're asking, making sure you've got the right words and syntax and all that in there. But that comes with practice too, as you well know. And so the more you use it, the better you get you become. And it's a heck of an administrative assistant. That costs you twenty bucks a month. What more could you ask for?

it'd be worth it. Heck yeah.

Involvement would be the key word I would say. That's been a bucket list item of mine to do forever. And two years ago I finally sat down and wrote it. And from the reviews and everything that I've gotten from it, it it sounds like I was right on track because it's really a playbook for people. that want to become involved in the political process and it goes through everything. I oughta I oughta I'll be right back. I'm gonna show you the book.

So there's the book.

Who is that? Who is that masked man? That's funny. I I didn't realize it would be backwards. interesting.

but you can see it? okay. Yeah. It was, and I got that idea, Mick. I woke up with it popping into my head because I had this photo of me that was taken at a conference. And I don't know if you well, you have to look at it on Amazon or whatever, but one of my trademarks is a cigar. And I always have a cigar in my pictures, and so there's a cigar right there. And this book is twenty I should know this. is twenty nine chapters and it goes from soup to nuts and It's an enjoyable read. It's easy to read. It's understandable. It's entertaining. And so anyway, I people have enjoyed it that have read it.

Well, it goes back to, you know, why I would I got in the business was I wanted to be involved. If it if anything was going to happen to me, I needed to be involved and I wanted to say. And so I know a lot of people people don't like politics. People don't like to get involved with it. It's nasty. I mean voters don't even know who they voted for. And so it had always been a passion of mine to go ahead and put that all in one place and show people why it's so important for them to become involved, that it's not a a monumental task. You can your degree of involvement, you know, you can you can decide. But I just want you involved. Even if it just saying you pick up the phone and call the guy and say, Hi, here I am. I'm Corky Kyle, I'm an expert on lobbying. If you'd like to know how to work with lobbyists, give me a call. So they can read all about that stuff in my book. So that's why I did it was to get that education, that experience, all of that out to the to people that normally wouldn't have it. And so that was my motivation.

Not as much as I wished. Not as much as I hoped for, yeah. And but again I think that is because it's it's it's relatively new and my my sphere of influence, even though I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook and all that, and I and I talk about chapters in the book and so on and put that out there to just to get people to thinking.

it's been slow. I gotta be honest with you. It's been slow. But that's okay. That's you know, good things take time.

Well I will tell you this, Mick, is I'm gonna do another book. And it's gonna be Hardball Advocacy 2.0 and I am gonna incorporate the AI in it and show how to use it on all of the techniques. all the things that you have to do to be a responsible lobbyist, how to use it, how it can complement what you do, make you more resilient, make you more professional. So that's one of my goals. And my other goal is is to do more speaking and training. I am Looking at that to be a transition to go from active lobbying to teaching people how to lobby or how to get involved. I I really enjoy the the the training part. I did a I I spoke to a class at Denver University and there's forty kids in there and just had a ball with them. lots of questions and they were really interested in that. I really th that's that was very, very positive. But I like that. I like I I like to share whatever I've got with everybody. It doesn't matter who you are. I'm not I don't keep all my secrets and all that because I don't have that many. I no I'm just

I have a lot of knowledge and I'd like to share that with people.

I know. I know. That's why it was so exciting. I to be able like I said, you when you talk about something you love, it's easy.

I would I would sh say that whatever you do, find what your passion is and run with it. I didn't get involved in this until I was I didn't get involved in lobbying until I was thirty two. Prior to that time I managed associations and did that, but I didn't find this I didn't get this the opportunity to jump into this business, find my passion until I was later in life. I wish I knew what I knew now and I would have started earlier. particularly being out on my own and running my own business and being entrepreneurial. Again, that's something I learned as the more experienced. You know, life teaches you a lot of things. And hopefully you'll find I would encourage, you know, I hope everybody finds their passion, but I would encourage everybody that's listening, whatever it is, just find it. And run with it. You'll be it'll be great. And next thing you know, you'll you'll say, Where did all the time go?

That's very, very, very true.

Well, they can they can go ahead and see get the book right now on Amazon. And so that would be the best place for them to go ahead and do it. and I would encourage them go to Amazon, look at it, read a chapter out of it, and see if that's something that's gonna interest you. And if it is, please by all means buy it. but I encourage people to reach out to me always. I mean, I put my email in there. And if any of your listeners wanna contact me, hey, please do. One of the things I do when I speak at the conclusion of my presentation, I invite all of the listeners to come down to the Capitol when we're in session, and I'll give them a tour and I'll show them what's going on. So I always do that. again to create more interest and all.

Mick, it's a pleasure meeting you. I hope we can do this again. And just it was great. Thank you very much.