1901 North Moore Street, Suite 600

Arlington, VA 22209 USA

Phone: (703) 522-0086 Fax: (703) 522-0548
feinstein@hpba.org
www.hpba.org

A Guide to Conducting a Successful Plant Tour

A visit by legislators to your companys facilities is one effective way to build relationships with
legislators and their staff. Plant tours illustrate, first-hand, who is affected by legislation and how.
Tours not only showcase your facilities environmental, health, and safety standards, they also give
your Congressman an opportunity to meet your employees and hear their concerns, as constituents.

This guide provides you with information on how to:

Invite a Member of Congress to your plant
Plan the tour
Conduct the tour
And what follow-up to do afterwards

How to Invite a Member of Congress to Your Plant

Contact your Representatives and Senators closest district offices

Find the contact information for the closest district offices.

o To contact your Representative
Go to house.gov and search for your Representative by zip code for each of your
facilities you would like him or her to visit. Click on the link to your Representatives
website and look for contact information for the closest district office. Do this for each of
your facilities if you have more than one.
o To contact your Senators
Go to Senate.gov and search for your Senators by state. If you have facilities in more
than one state, be sure to do this search for those states as well. Click on the link to
each Senators website and look for contact information for the closest district office.

Who to ask for when you call the district office

When you call the district office, ask for the Chief of Staff or for the office manager. Explain
that you are a manufacturer of solid fuel and/or gas-fueled hearth products and would like to
invite the Congressman or available staff to visit your plant and meet with your employees the
next time they are in the district. If you are asked for an official written tour request, a sample
letter can be found at the end of this guide.
The below script can be used on this call:

Hello, my name is _________________ with [NAME OF YOUR COMPANY], headquartered in [NAME OF

CITY, STATE], with operations in [APPROPRIATE CITY, STATE] where we have ________ employees. We
manufacture solid fuel -burning products/gas-fueled products (chose one or insert and between the
two), such as wood stoves [and/or gas fireplaces] and would like to invite Senator/Representative
______________________ or available staff to visit our facility in [appropriate city, state] during the
next recess.

The purpose of the visit is the acquaint Senator/Representative ____________ with our facility in
his/her district. The visit would include a tour of the facility and meeting our employees. The visit to a
hearth product manufacturer would be especially timely in light of some recently-proposed regulations
that affect our industry and potentially impact the number of people we will be able to employ in the
future.

We would be more than happy to arrange for media to be present if the Senator/Representative would
like to be featured in a news outlet.

If possible, weve set aside [date] for the visit and hope you might be able to accommodate.

At the end of the call, be sure to:

DETERMINE NEXT STEPS

ASK FOR ADVICE OR RECOMMENDATIONS

LEAVE NAME AND PHONE NUMBER

GET FOLLOW-UP DATE COMMITMENT

Planning the Tour
Now that the visit is set, the following guidelines will help you plan a successful plant tour.

Decide what issues you want to discuss and how best to link the
Determine the issues visually with plant operations. Find out if the legislator
objectives for the visit has particular interests.

Once the tour is confirmed, promote it through the company by

Announce the
distributing a brief biography of the legislator and information
legislators visit to all
about the legislators importance.
employees

Invite your companys You may want to consider inviting a few top community leaders
government relations staff and industry association executives. However, be careful to
to participate in the tour avoid having too large a tour group.

Work closely with the legislators press aide on publicity and

Arrange for photographs news coverage.
during the tour

You may want to pay for or coordinate transportation to your

Offer to provide or facility for the legislator (Check with your companys
arrange transportation government relations or legal staff to see if there are policy or
legal restrictions before doing this).

Make preparations to Be sure to have sandwiches, snacks, etc available. Or, if you
have lunch or other make a grill of any kind, now is the time to put it to use. By
refreshments available including lunch or refreshments, you will have more time to talk
and make more of an impression on the legislator.

Provide the legislator with

For example, include the total number of employees, the products
information on your your company manufactures, and your sales numbers.
company prior to the visit

The guide should be articulate, knowledgeable about plant

Choose the tour guide operations as well as issues that concern the company, and know
with care by name everyone the legislator is likely to meet.

Develop a tour schedule and route that illustrates the objectives you
Map out the tour
set for the visit. Know when the legislator has to leave, and allow for
extra time if the legislator wants to remain longer in one location.

Prepare key Ensure that equipment is operating to provide action interest.

equipment & safety Provide safety gear to participants when necessary.
gear ahead of time
Conducting the Tour
A plant tour is an appropriate and useful way to introduce our industry to legislators and help increase
the comfort of grassroots participants. Although a plant tour may be a familiar activity, the following
tips will assist you in conducting a tour to meet your objectives.

Begin the visit in your office

Provide the legislator with an overview of important facts about your companys facilities and
the tour, including environmental and energy problems and outlays, standards and advances
in health and safety, and new products and equipment.

Talk in quiet areas along the way

Provide the legislator with an economic profile, including number of employees and amount of
payroll, taxes and local expenditures for materials and services. Be careful to avoid
overwhelming the legislator with more technical or economic data than an interested layperson
can absorb.

Be sure to introduce the legislator and employees to each other during the
tour
Remember, you and your employees are the legislators constituents. Your legislator wants to
speak with constituents who vote in the district to learn their concerns and what they need from
Congress.

Arrange for photographs during the tour

Work closely with the legislators press aide on publicity and news coverage.

Conclude the tour with lunch or refreshments

Now is the time for the legislator and his/her staff to speak with your employees, have any
questions answered, and for you to reemphasize key messages and legislative issues in detail.
Be sure to thank the legislator and his/her staff for their time. Ask them to contact HPBA staff if
they have any questions about federal issues or legislation.

Follow-up after the Tour

Suggestions for follow-up activities to build on the relationship established by the tour:

Send a thank you note to the legislator and a thank you note to the staff that helped you
organize the tour

Always thank the legislator in writing. Reiterate the points discussed on the tour. Your second
thank you note to staff strengthens the relationship with the legislators team and signifies your
appreciation.

Forward to staff black-and-white prints of photos that were taken during the tour for the
legislator to use in his or her own newsletters.
 Sample Invitation Letter to Member of CongressTour

[Date]

[Your first and last name]

[Title]
[Company Name]
[Address 1]
[City, State, Zip Code]

Honorable _________
U.S. Representative/Senator
Washington, DC 20515/20510

Dear Representative/Senator:

My name is [your first and last name] and I am the [your title] at [your company name], which is
headquartered in [city, state]. I am writing to invite you to tour our facility in [city, state where facility is
located] where have [total number of employees at location] of which [number of full time employees]
are full-time employees.

[Insert information describing your company/industry issues you want to address in 3-4 sentences]
The purpose of the tour is to acquaint you with our operations and to give you the opportunity to meet
our employees, your constituents.

The visit will include a tour of our facility and an open discussion (including question and comment
period) with our employees, light refreshments, and photo opportunities. Refreshments, of course, will
be [choose one: catered/prepared on one of our stellar grills]. A representative from [list any local
media outlets you will be inviting] will also be invited. We are also more than happy to reach out to
any preferred news organization on your behalf. We expect the entire event to last no more than [time
limit] hours/minutes.

We understand that you already have a very busy schedule. Please let me know if any of the
following dates work with your itinerary:

[Insert Day, Month, Datesuggested time frame]

[Insert Day, Month, Datesuggested time frame]
[Insert Day, Month, Datesuggested time frame]

We sincerely hope that you are able to accept our invitation to tour our facility and meet some of your
constituents. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
[Your first and last name]
[Your title]
 Sample Press AdvisoryPlant Tour

NEWS ALERT [Insert company logo]

[Alert Number] NEWS CONTACTS:

[Company Contact] (000) 555-5555-[extension]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE [HPBA CONTACT] (703) 522-6778

Press Advisory

[NAME OF COMPANY] PLANT TO HOST [NAME OF LAWMAKER]

[DATE]

When: [Name of company and city, state] will host [name of lawmaker] for a plant tour tomorrow
morning as part of an effort to make legislators more aware of both the benefits hearth manufacturers
bring to communities and the unprecedented challenges now facing Americas manufacturing sector.

The Member of Congress will observe the facilitys production of [give a brief description of what the
lawmaker will see while on the plant tour] and offer brief remarks to a gathering of employees.

[Company name] is a member company of the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, the
international trade association first established in 1980 to represent and promote the interests of the
hearth products industry in North America. The association includes manufacturers, distributors and
retailers of hearth, patio, and barbecue products.

Who: [Name and title of lawmaker]

Where: [Company name]

[Plant address]
[City, State, Zip]

When: [Date and time]

[Insert company address and Web site, if applicable]