Training

Libertarian Communication Workshop

Ever Wondered: Why Isn't Everybody a Libertarian?

Is there something wrong with our ideas? No. It's how we present these ideas to the public, to our friends, families and neighbors.

The Advocates Libertarian Communication workshop will show you how to avoid the mistakes that turn people off to libertarian ideas. And it will teach you a wealth of easy, effective, powerful ways to make people eager to embrace our great message of peace, freedom, and personal responsibility.

Topics covered include:

• Communication skills essentials
• Persuading others of the value of these ideas
• The importance, construction, and effective use of sound bites
• Persuasively answering common objections and misconceptions about libertarian ideas
• The use of innovative and proven outreach tools to quickly identify and recruit large numbers of members, allies, and  sympathizers
• Insights from the Myers Briggs (MBTI) concepts of personality type and cognitive style and how to use those insights to reach far wider audiences than have been traditionally receptive to libertarian ideas
• How to win rapport with hostile questioners
• Listening skills
• Asking powerful questions
• Addressing the specific concerns of your listeners
• Word choice: how some words turn people off and others open minds
• And more...

We offer, in short, a treasure chest of effective libertarian communication skills, most of which will be new to the audience.

We believe liberty is the heart of the American experience. We believe libertarianism (and more generally the ideas of personal and economic liberty) can break through the stale “left-versus-right” paradigm that too often polarizes our society, too often prevents (even sometimes poisons) genuine and useful political communication between individuals.

We strongly believe that liberty, properly understood and positively communicated, can become a new public common ground where large numbers of those who currently think of themselves as rigidly “left” or “right” can gain new and deeper understanding of the essential values and benefits of a free society -- and, in doing so, come to enthusiastically embrace many or even all libertarian ideas, creating a broad-based support for liberty that can genuinely unite and transform America.

We want libertarians to speak to the left in language that helps them appreciate markets; we want libertarians to speak to the right in ways that enhances their appreciation of diversity and civil liberties. We want both left and right to appreciate that the great strength of America lies in its voluntary, innovative, and creative personal and economic private sectors.   

This vision informs our approach to communication. We are deeply interested in winning friends, allies, sympathizers, and a clearer understanding of the great ideas of liberty that are America’s common, and uniting, heritage. We emphasize this more than simply becoming effective in political combat and oppositional campaigns. We want to help libertarians open the minds and hearts of those who are currently not libertarians. We want activists who can persuade others of the values of liberty and help them see that they already share many of these values, then help them move forward to embrace more of them.

Our focus is on persuasion rather than just winning debates and arguments. We emphasize the importance of civility and respect in political discourse. We stress the importance of listening to others’ concerns and addressing them with language and solutions they understand and that resonate with them. We believe liberty produces the best outcomes for everyone, and we want to see a movement that is effective at sharing this good news.

Ultimately, this still boils down to effective communication techniques and nuts and bolts efficiency. And we teach these urgently needed skills. Liberty must be sold, and sold effectively with a salesman’s skills and a believer’s passion. But our goal is to educate libertarians to, when possible, present these ideas in a way that is positive and transformative.  

Each libertarian represents the entire libertarian movement when they talk about libertarianism. Those who participate in Advocates communication workshops will be able to be an invaluable ambassador for Liberty. By using the tools you will learn here, you will become a powerfully effective and immensely successful communicator of libertarian ideas.
 

If you would like to know when this workshop is available, or you would like us to conduct this workshop for your organization, please let us know by email or by calling toll-free 800-932-1776.