JTR Strategies Featured in Politico Influence's Retrospective on Covid's Impact on Lobbying: "How do you put on your virtual fly in?"

Washington, DC - JTR Strategies was featured in Politico Influence's one year retrospective on the pandemic's impact to the lobbying industry. Influence featured JTR Strategies Founder Jenny Rosenberg and Senior Advisor Suzi Emmerling.

HOW DO YOU PUT ON A VIRTUAL FLY-IN?: When the world shut down a year ago this week due to the mushrooming coronavirus outbreak, K Street and many of the nation’s trade organizations were forced to make adjustments on the fly like every other industry, and that included making changes to a springtime Washington mainstay, the fly-in, which was forced from the halls of Congress onto Zoom (or Teams, or Webex). — A year later fly-ins are still taking place virtually, but K Street has learned from the growing pains of last spring. The demand for advice about putting on a successful virtual fly-in rose to the point that JTR Strategies along with Liberty Plain Consulting, put together a one-sheeter for clients with tips for putting on a virtual fly-in without a hitch.

— “It's not rocket science,” said Suzi Emmerling, who helped compile the tipsheet along with JTR Strategies founder Jenny Rosenberg. “But it's also like, if everybody did it, it would be a better meeting.” Their tips include being organized and doing your homework ahead of meetings, as well as doing a test run of tech platforms and ensuring good sound quality and lighting. They also recommend having a back-up plan in place in case of tech failures, making the most of your time with succinct messaging and making presentations and meetings interactive and visually stimulating.

— “It's really important for our clients to be prepared with concise materials, concise messaging, so that they can get their point across virtually,” Rosenberg said in an interview this week, noting that although the lack of travel time from meeting to meeting allows lobbyists to fit more in, “you, unfortunately, have lost the face-to-face contact that is such an essential part of lobbying.”

— But while lobbyists are itching to get back to face-to-face meetings, with Rosenberg emphasizing the importance of fly-ins to industries hit hard by the pandemic, Barnes, who said that there are a record number of participants signed up for her trade group’s fly-in later this month, noted that one upside to the shift online is that it’s created opportunities for trade associations with smaller budgets.

Influence can be found here: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2021/03/11/how-do-you-put-on-a-virtual-fly-in-793940
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