●Think creatively to find a way to pluck some business out of the few issues — such as gun-control legislation — that are a near certainty. Though “fairly limited in terms of driving activity, it will take up a reasonable amount of congressional time and could take the oxygen out of the room as well,” says O’Brien of the OB-C Group, whose firm is lobbying for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the coalition led by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I). Ditto for certain critical infrastructure spending — on highways and harbors, for example — whose funding mechanisms are sorely in need of updating, explains the Smith-Free Group’s Jim Free. “There’s a role for the lobbyist in all this, to make sure the right projects get prioritized. You do that through Congress, since the authorization and approps committees still make decisions on how these things are funded.”

●Remind your clients of two things: that a lobbyist’s institutional memory is increasingly important in a Congress where there are fewer and fewer members who have served for any great length of time, and that they will need your help getting to know all these recently elected members. “If I’m XYZ Company and I have any desire to effect public policy, I sure can’t rely on my own knowing these people,” says Free, a member of the Jimmy Carter White House who’s been lobbying for three decades. “And to make sure my point of view is known to this enormity of new members — there’s business there to be had.”

●Bear in mind one of the few truisms of the influence business: For the most part, lobbying is the very rich fighting the very wealthy. For lobbyists in town, the good news is that a few crumbs from that table can go a very long way.

Goldman is a freelance writer.