Who Works for Whom?An Open Letter to Political Consultants Paying the Vendor Babysitting Tax

Here’s a blunt message for political campaigns and consultants shopping for a texting platform: sometimes a bargain price comes with a hidden cost, and that’s staff time spent babysitting the vendor. An open letter to political consultants who may be getting bit by that hidden cost:

Dear Friends,

You know me. I’ve been in this industry long enough to watch every new platform promise to make political texting faster, cheaper, and easier.

Sometimes it does.

Sometimes it simply moves the work from the vendor’s payroll to yours.

Most of the time it costs you – and big – just not in the ways you’re probably thinking.

Your account manager cleans the list, uploads the files, fixes the formatting, chases the registration, requests another test, and opens a support ticket to follow up on the first support ticket. Don’t get me started on requesting a simple and accurate invoice. 

Then the client makes one “tiny change” at 9:47 p.m.—and your team gets to do it all again.

At some point, it’s fair to ask:

Who works for whom?

So before I continue, if you’re not interested with wrangling texting frustrations in, don’t bother reading the rest of this letter…

You hired the texting vendor to make your team’s life easier. Your team should not end up doing the vendor’s job.

But that’s exactly what happens when “low cost” means “do it yourself.”

You thought you were buying cheap texts. What you got was the Vendor Babysitting Tax.

It doesn’t appear on the invoice. It shows up in payroll, missed deals, frustrated employees, and hours your best people aren’t spending serving clients or growing your firm.

In politics, getting more for less is usually called winning.

But when the lowest-priced text creates more work for your team, you didn’t save money.

You just moved the bill.

The cheapest text becomes surprisingly expensive when it requires a salaried employee to make it work.

We’re called Texting for Less, so obviously we believe price matters. But “less” should mean:

Less work.
Less waiting.
Less chasing.
Less complexity.

Not less service.

Our team handles the sending. We OWN registrations and carrier issues. When something becomes urgent, you can reach an actual person who knows your account and solves the problem.

When your message matters, you shouldn’t have to open a ticket.

Now, we’re not for everyone.

If the only thing you want is the lowest possible price on a spreadsheet, take the one-cent platform.

Seriously. Go for it. No hard feelings.

We want to work with consultants who are building something – firms that want to serve more clients, grow revenue, and scale without hiring another employee just to manage their vendors.

Those firms understand that saving half a cent on the front end doesn’t mean much if it creates hours of work on the back end.

That isn’t scale. That’s adding complexity and calling it savings.

The consultants we work best with still care about price. Of course they do. But they also ask better questions:

How much time will this save my team?

How quickly can we move?

Can this partner support us when we double?

And when something goes sideways, who owns the problem?

Those are the consultants we partner with.

Those are the firms we want to grow alongside.

So, if the cheapest text is the goal, take the penny…but don’t forget this letter when things hit the fan.

However, if your goal is building a bigger, more profitable firm without adding more chaos, we should talk.

Send me one recent project or invoice. We’ll show you how that same project would run smoother with us.

No generic demo. No 47-slide presentation. Just an honest, side-by-side look at the work.

Then let us handle one project and hopefully earn the next one.

Text me at (401) 585-5130.

Yes, I appreciate the irony.

Worst case, we trade vendor horror stories.

Best case, we give your team a few hundred hours back this election cycle.

If you’re happy with the penny platform, go for it.

Just don’t be surprised when the penny comes with a tax and your vendor comes with a job description for your employees.

Sincerely, 

Spencer Sullivan
Chief Growth Officer
Texting for Less

Spencer Sullivan is Chief Growth Officer at Texting for Less, where he focuses on helping political firms grow by removing operational friction, simplifying vendor management, and building systems that scale without adding unnecessary headcount.