Brian, how did Balsam Mountain Consulting Come About?
Well, in 2004, I took a lot of time off work to volunteer for the John Edwards campaign. I was so fed up with George W Bush– I had been watching a lot of “Democracy Now” on TV– that I would have done jus about anything to help defeat him that November. Living in North Carolina and being a populist, for me, Edwards was the best bet.
So, I banged on doors in minus seventeen degree weather, made incessant phone calls, crashed in the floor of the downtown Des Moines YMCA and woke up to ice cold showers, in order to help the guy out.
Was it all a pain?
Well, I did enjoy meeting the people in Madison County Iowa. You see, on caucus night, we were all assigned to different caucus precincts to be available and just sort of watch– we couldn’t take part. It was sort of like a church picnic: one of the caucus members brough some deer sausages, another brought potato salad and the like. Because I have long hair and a beard and am from the coal mines of Eastern Kentucky, I had to browbeat the “management” of the campaign to make the obvious choice and put me into a rural area. This brings up the point: the whole Edwards campaign in Iowa was run by a bunch of kids and geared towards middle-class suburban voters. My point was, if Edwards was a Populist, then by golly, his campaign needs to look like a reflection of the whole spectrum and not just a bunh of college kids. Sam Myers, his media advisor actually got the message and steered me into various TV visuals so that could be brought home to the TV viewer.
This brings up the point, though, most of the campaign was repetitive phone calls and “pep rallys” and that wasn’t, to me, an efficient of effective way to run a campaign. Some of those people had been called, literally, dozens of times and some in the campaign believed that a caller could effectively “argue” or convince someone into voting for Edwards.
We carried Madison County, and came in number 2 in the state, but lost to John Kerry, and eventually George Bush. All the Democrats of a certain age group seemed to want another John Kennedy and Kerry played on that and tried to look as much as possible like JFK. It worked for that generation of Democrats and he got the party nomination– but that was all. Most of those older Democrats hadn’t read their history and forgot that JFK probably would not have been re-elected in 1964. Until he got shot, JFK wasn’t all that popular with most people.
Because of watching how haphazard and disorganized the whole thing was run, I decided to go ahead and set up Balsam Mountain Consulting at the beginning of the 2006 campaign. I mean even something as simple as what was covered in “The Selling of The President 1968” and “1972” had apparently been forgotten.
Well, anyway, I set up this consulting firm and ended up helping out a local candidate defeat a very long-term incumbent.
What was your firm’s selling points? What they call “value proposition?”
Evidently not much, since no one ever paid us anything or even offered. Their whole attitude was “thanks for all your help, now go F++ yourself…”
Our argument was that people voted on the basis of unconscious perceptions and rationalized their votes on the basis of “issues.” Those unconscious perceptions could be manipulated through various psychological triggers, causing the individual to vote for the candidate. The voter would then claim that they voted for the candidate because of such and such policy position.
Did it work?
Like a silver bullet!!
Did you get paid?
No.
So what advice would you have for young entrepreneurs?
First. Don’t give up your day job. Some people make enough money to live on right out the gate; almost no one does. For the first few years, all you can use a business enterprise for is to reflect losses on your taxable income. In that way, you get financial benefit from the enterprise, even though you are not drawing “cash” out of the business. Don’t expect to pay the bills, just expect to take home more in your paycheck than otherwise. That’;s the benefit for the first few years and that’s why the IRS doesn’t expect a startup to generate a profit for the first five years. I mean they’re happy to tax any profits before that; they just aren’t surprised when there aren’t any– it doesn’t raise any eyebrows. After about 5 years it becomes a bit more problematic.
Thanks Brian.
Thank you Patrick.
