CINCINNATI, Oct. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Grassroots Political Influence Expert Analyst Amy Showalter, author of "The Underdog Edge" (http://www.ShowalterGroup.com) offers media outlets these quotes on the breaking news story of the Occupy Wall Street movement:

"Underdog teams can win, but they need cohesive team leaders, connected team members and convert spokespersons. Right now I don't see that within the Occupy Wall Street groups."

"If you want the advantage of the underdog mantle, you can't have a huge amount of resources. The presence of labor unions contradicts that rule of successful underdog persuasion."

"The Internet is great for getting the word out but it is not effective for getting people who disagree with you to change their mind. If you want to change someone's mind who is up the food chain from you, that always requires a face-to-face, live interaction."

Showalter arrived at her conclusions based on more than 1,000 interviews and several years of research based on talking to former members of Congress, business leaders and grass roots organizers from all political spectrums on the topic of persuasion techniques.

She offers these ideas for how political action groups can build a powerful pack of followers

• Find the right people (cohesive, connected, converted) rather than the "best" people for an effective underdog persuasive pack.
• Be or find a pack leader who is interested in the team winning, not in personal victory. Your pack leader must promote task cohesion.
• Find and engage the connected.
• Do a pre-test with your team members by giving them a small task or favor to ask of someone. See if they do the task.
• Find connected pack members who have credibility in the community and/or among those you want to influence.
• Make sure your converts have freely made the decision to convert. Converting to save their skin isn't convincing.
• Give your converts visibility. Can they serve as spokespersons?

These comments may be quoted in news stories.

Please attribute to Amy Showalter, Grassroots Political Influence Expert with http://www.ShowalterGroup.com and author of "The Underdog Edge: How Ordinary People Change the Minds of the Powerful - And Live to Tell About It." http://www.underdogedge.com

If you would like to book Amy Showalter on a TV show, radio talk show or media interview, call Amy Showalter at 513-762-76687 or send an email to amy@showaltergroup.com.

Amy Showalter has been quoted frequently in the media and has been a recent guest on the Wall Street story on radio talk shows with Leslie Marshall, Jim Bohannon and Lars Larsen.

About Amy Showalter

Over 150 organizations, including Southwester Airlines, The American Heart Association, and Pfizer have hired Amy Showalter to teach their employees and stakeholders how to become persuasive grassroots champions on issues that matter to them. In her 10 years as Founder of the Showalter Group, Inc. She has spoken in more than 35 states and Canada to more than 25,000 corporate executives, management teams, boards of directors and non-profit volunteer leaders about how to get powerful people on their side.

She is author of "105 Ways To Build Relationships With Your Elected Officials." Amy has authored or co-authored over five national research projects that explore the strategies of successful grassroots influence amount the nation's most powerful interest groups as well as the tactics that persuade powerful elected officials. In addition, she has surveyed thousands of everyday grassroots advocates who have shared their secrets for influencing up the food chain.

Her insights have been featured in the Washington Times, Roll Call, Politico.com, The Baltimore Sun, The Dallas Morning News and the Christian Science Journal.

For more information, go to http://www.ShowalterGroup.com.

Contact:
Amy Showalter
513-762-76687
amy@showaltergroup.com

SOURCE Amy Showalter

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