So how do you start to build a relationship with someone you actively oppose? First, you have to get out and about. Many sincere grassroots influencers want to remain comfortable. That’s a problem, because you can’t build the kind of relationships that powerful people require from behind your computer. They want to see you in person.

Bob Bonifas, an Aurora, Illinois, owner of an alarm and locksmith company, has been involved in politics for 20 years. As a member of the National Federation of Independent Business, he made friends with a member of Congress years before that person became the most powerful legislator in Washington, DC. It was an early friendship that paid dividends later.

Bonifas’s goal was to change the mind of a powerful member of Congress in 1996 when Congress passed the Telecommunications Act. The alarm industry wanted to include a five-year prohibition on phone companies going into the alarm business. Many interest groups had a stake in the bill, which took several years to pass.

“Think about what happens when families move into their new homes,” Bonifas says. “They get phone service, and then the phone people say, ‘Hey, what about alarm service?’ The telephone monopoly could easily be used to presell alarm services.”

A business behemoth, Ameritech, was lobbying against the prohibition. Bonifas says he and others representing alarm companies heard people whisper in the hallways about the hubris of the alarm company businesses owners who thought they could take on Ameritech.

So Bonifas decided to develop a relationship with the “gatekeeper,” the person who manages the access to the decision maker – in this case, Representative Dennis “Denny” Hastert, Bonifas’s member of Congress and a Republican. The gatekeeper was Scott Palmer, a prominent Hastert staffer. Bonifas visited Hastert’s aide often, flying to Washington, DC, as many as 20 times in one year, despite the fact that Palmer gave him little encouragement. “When I met with Scott, I usually got evasive answers,” Bonifas recalls. “Sure, he was always very nice, but told us there was ‘nothing more we could do.’”

Wisely, like many of our other underdogs, Bonifas knew when to persuade and when to keep silent. He met Palmer at local events, strictly social gatherings, and on those occasions did not talk about the issue. As he says, “You have to stay in front of people so they know who you are when it’s time to ask for help. You have to become known…earn a seat at the table. You just can’t come in when you have a problem.”

So what happened? The Telecommunications Act included a five-year prohibition on telephone companies being able to enter the alarm market, giving Bonifas and other alarm company owners time to address the situation.

About two years later Bonifas attended an event in Washington honoring Hastert, who had become Speaker of the House in 1999. He was approached by Ameritech’s vice president of government affairs, who said, “I know who you are. You’re from Aurora. We kept trying to get to Hastert, but they kept telling us they had this guy in the alarm business back home who kept educating them on this issue. So you are the one.”

That observation underscored this underdog’s victory. “At that point, I felt that I was really successful. The opposition had acknowledged my effectiveness,” Bonifas says.