You’re gathered around the water cooler and you’re talking politics. You go back to your office to get on the phone. You’ve got strong emotions, strong feelings about who should win, especially in an election year like the one we’re in. You’ve got those strong emotions, and you get on the phone with an investor who has views different than yours. What exactly do you do? What stance are you going to take? Let’s talk about that.
Those who know me know that I am a golf fanatic. I love it. My kids play golf; they’re in tournaments. Really, I’m mostly a caddy at this point, but I love it. So when I ran across this quote from the great golfer, Justin Thomas, I thought I would share it with you. He said, “It doesn’t matter what my political views are, who I like or who I dislike, if a president ever asks me to do anything, I’m gonna say yes.” And that is exactly the political view that you should have for a public face.
Now, I’ve seen time and time again, people posting on LinkedIn, Facebook, or something like that, their strong political views. While strong political views definitely have a place, you have to remember you’re in the job of sales many times when you’re doing syndications or investment funds. You want people to invest with you. People are very, very emotional about politics. I don’t need to tell you that even outside of an election year. About 50% of Americans, according to a Gallup poll, said that they care deeply about politics and follow it closely. That means one out of every other person that you talk to, that you’re pitching, follows politics and probably has strong political views.
Now, it doesn’t matter really what their political views are, unless it matters greatly to you that you’re putting together a fund of like-minded investors to do a thing. Then great, that’s your thing. But in general, you’re looking for a wide market with a lot of investors. What I would recommend to you is: do not talk about politics. Politics is the death knell. If somebody came up to you and said, “well, I’ve got these views of XYZ,” and you start arguing with them, do you think you’re going to be able to persuade them to invest in your fund? No.
These are people who are coming to you because they know you, they like you, they trust you. The most important thing is trust. If they can’t trust you with their political views and trust that you’re not going to be taking an opposite side, they’re not going to invest with you. They’ll go with someone else. The best way to avoid it is you just don’t talk about it. If it comes up, and trust me, for me, it comes up a fair amount, then you essentially adapt. I always listen to what they’re saying. I always acknowledge what they’re saying. And then I keep my own counsel when it comes to my political views.
Now, I have incredibly strong political views. All of my friends know it. They know what my political views are; they’re very strong. They may be one side or the other. I’m not going to disclose that here. Why? Because I want you to be my client. And that’s what you should be doing as well—not espousing it. If you’re posting on LinkedIn or Facebook all these views that you have, you’re taking away your potential client base.
Early in my career as a lawyer, I worked for Kamala Harris. Currently, she is the Vice President of the United States. People have very strong feelings one way or another about Kamala. I’m not going to talk about that other than the fact that I worked for Kamala Harris. She was my boss. I saw her frequently; I was in meetings with her. Does that make anything special about me as far as it relates to politics? No. I don’t think she’s going to call me up and appoint me as head of the SEC or get me appointed as a Supreme Court justice. It’s not likely. Does she know who I am? No. Would she recognize me? I doubt it seriously. It was a very short time, but she was my boss. Right? And that’s just kind of interesting.
Notice the way that I responded about it. You still have no idea how I feel about Kamala Harris. And that’s the way your clients should be too. They shouldn’t care about whether you care about her, Trump, Biden, or whoever. It doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, there is going to be an election in November, and one of the parties is going to win. The result of that is going to have some implications on taxes and how the securities industry is run and things like that. It will have some effect. Is Regulation D going away? Absolutely not, not under either party. Both parties want this system to continue. It brings money out of the pockets of people who want to invest and makes them more money, which makes them more entrenched in our society, which we like. Regulation D is going nowhere. From the strongest liberal to the strongest conservative, they both want Regulation D to exist.
I would wager that both the strongest liberal and the strongest conservative also don’t want grandma to get screwed out of all of her savings by somebody who’s acting unscrupulously. So there’s going to continue to be regulation regardless. It’s not going to be super heavy, maybe on one party versus another. Maybe it will be more. Maybe taxes will go up; maybe they will go down. But you know what? At the end of the day, the world keeps spinning, and we’re still here. And that’s the attitude you need to have. In your private life, talk politics all you want. In your public life, I would encourage you to not talk politics unless it is something that is absolutely important to the fund that you’re trying to do. If it serves your purpose, then great, do it. But do not go in with the mindset that espousing your political views for one party or another is going to get you more clients because you can’t.
Marketing gurus talk about, well, you should always be polarizing and things like this. Do not polarize around politics. It’s not going to help you. Polarize about your offer; throw stones at the other side. Those things are all good. But talking about politics—my word of advice is: don’t do it.
So this is Tilden Moschetti. I’m a syndication attorney and a devout—see, wasn’t going to tell you anyway. So if you think I can help you with your Regulation D offer, whether it’s under Rule 506(b) or 506(c), I’d be happy to help you. Whether you’re that strong liberal or that strong conservative, we don’t mind working with either, and we’re happy to help you work out the best deal for you. At the end of the day, I believe in America, I believe in our system of government, and I believe that you probably do too.