No matter the side of the political fence senior managers with companies in the New River Valley and southwest Virginia find themselves, we should all agree, elections have consequences.

Recently, The Washington Post reported on one of its blogs—and yes, blog journalism is emerging as one of the first portals for political information in this country—that the Obama administration is issuing executive memos at a “feverish” pace. Although presidential memos fall short of the import of “Executive Orders” and certainly legislation, the directives still carry a lot of heft in the myriad of federal regulations that affect your businesses.

The simple question, is your company knowledgeable and prepared to deal with the shift in regulatory oversight that came with November 2010?

This is not a criticism of the Obama administration. As a candidate, Barack Obama made it quite clear that he carried an activist vision on the relationship between government and business. Certainly, as President, Obama has initiated a wide variety of regulatory reforms that touch just about every sector of our economy in Virginia including health care, industrial manufacturing, technology development, and even the small businesses that dot our landscape.

What’s surprising is that companies here are not taking the same activist approach toward their government. It’s almost a shrug of the shoulders, which, in any business model is ?short-sighted.

Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago, an emerging company based at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center wanted my feedback. This company is going to make it big in its sector. But, it’s not there yet and has shifted its strategic objective to include federal research grants and appropriations. Almost as an aside, the company tasked a well-meaning and otherwise accomplished manager to find the money and they wanted it ASAP. That left me with only one, not-so-elegant response: “You are behind the 8 ball.”

If there’s one lesson that should be crystal clear as you consider government relations—especially in a hyper activist regulatory and legislative environment—is that the strategy should not be an afterthought. Developing, devising and implementing a government relations approach is a long-term investment.

And it starts, at minimum, with relationship building at the federal and state level. I mean, if your CEO is referring to the Governor of Virginia as “McDonald” instead of “McDonnell,” there’s a disconnect there that in the long run, does not serve your company—especially if the proverbial stuff hits the fan one day and you need relationships quickly.

Here are some guidelines to building a government relations strategy to protect your brand and its business:

1.  Know your lawmakers. That doesn’t necessarily translate into political donations. And it just doesn’t mean only Virginia’s two federal senators. One high-profile executive in the New River Valley wanted to change a local policy not too long ago but couldn’t name one county administrator to help get the task done. Guess what? He didn’t get it done. Invest in the long-term strategy of relationship building with elected officials, their staffs, and the way business is done in Washington, Richmond, and city hall.

??2.  Understand the process. Take Congressional appropriations for instance. Sure, they have become the third rail in politics. The “Bridge to Nowhere” tinged the process. But, it is a legitimate role of government to provide funding to valuable projects. The problem is that many companies simply don’t have the knowledge base to engage on that playing field. You wouldn’t allow a U.S. Senator to walk into your lab and start mixing whatever chemicals are nearby. Why walk into their offices with a corresponding lack of knowledge?

3. Track legislative and regulatory changes. Depending on your industry, there are directives being handed down from government every day that could impact everything from your human resources to quality control. At a loss as to how to follow all that mess on Capitol Hill? I am not big on quality work from our bureaucracy, but  http://www.thomas.gov is one of the best resources to track our lawmakers at work and the impact on our companies.

4. Commit to government relations and public policy in your operating budget. If your company has a public relations manager, put the function with that domain. Encourage the manager to visit Washington and Richmond to build relationships, learn the process, and be prepared if and when an issue arises that needs immediate reaction from the company. If you don’t have a public relations manager or your PR manager isn’t comfortable with the task; hire an advisor to handle this task for your company and/or to work alongside your PR manager.

The bottom line—and we are all about that—is if you discover that tomorrow a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate is holding a hearing adversely impacting your industry, “today” is a little too late to pick up the phone. And, if you need help from a government that is increasingly active in your industry, but don’t know your member of Congress, well, that’s just plain short-sighted.

Integrating 27 years of legislative policy and public communication, David D. Snepp is the founder of LegisStrat, LLC, a firm specializing in assisting companies and organizations in developing and implementing public affairs strategies. With expertise including years as a senior staff member in the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, Capitol Hill correspondent and corporate public relations, Snepp extends an organization’s legislative and regulatory program into its internal and external communications initiatives.