Most members are not paying for the coaching. They are paying to make sure their competitor never gets it. The Character Branding system, the 14-year arc, and the live case study are included. The lockout is the product.
Winning a mayoral race is not a knowledge problem. It is a trust problem. And trust is built through something no political science textbook has ever covered: Character Branding.
Your competitor knows how city council works. So does everyone else. What they don't know is how to make 20,000 voters feel like they've known you for years.
The candidate who shows up six months before an election and calls it a campaign loses to the person who has been showing up for eight years.
Political consultants run campaigns. They can't build the kind of deep, personal trust that a neighborhood association president tells 400 members about over dinner.
By the time you run your winning campaign, the election is already half over. Your competitor is just getting started. That gap is not closeable with money.
Membership is annual. One seat per city. Pricing is determined by the population tier of your city — we have six tiers, from small towns under 10,000 residents to major cities over one million. We do not publish pricing publicly because every seat is evaluated individually before it is offered.
If you are serious about your city's seat, we want to hear from you. Pricing is shared privately after we confirm your city is still available and verify that you meet the basic qualifications for membership.
Complete the application below. We review every submission personally and respond within 24 hours. There is no commitment required to inquire — only the seriousness to ask.
Apply to Check Your City's Availability →Everything below is included in your annual membership. The combined market value exceeds your membership fee at every single tier before you account for the city lockout.
The full 100+ page How To Become Mayor manual. Character Branding applied to civic leadership. The 14-year arc. The 5 issues. The campaign strategy. Delivered on day one.
Market value: $500+
You answer a short questionnaire. We build both sites within 2–3 weeks.
Site 1 — Your Personal Name Site
YourName.com — personal brand, My Why page, about, contact. Your civic identity online.
Site 2 — Your Mayor Project Site
YourCityMayor.com — your 14-year civic project, your 5 issues, your timeline, your blog. Modeled on FortLauderdaleMayor.org.
Market value: $10,000–$16,000
Live group calls with Jim Blackburn every month. Real-time updates from the Fort Lauderdale case study. Strategy, accountability, and Q&A. Each call covers what is happening right now — not a recording from six months ago.
Market value: $3,000–$6,000
Access to the national How To Become Mayor community — one future mayor per city, every major city in America.
The Leaderboard tracks your weekly progress:
✓ Commission meeting attended
✓ Content published
✓ Coaching call attended
✓ Civic connection made
✓ Neighborhood meeting attended
✓ Course module completed
Weekly shoutouts. Monthly featured member. Annual summit awards drawn from a full year of leaderboard data.
Market value: $1,200+
One ticket to the annual How To Become Mayor Summit in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 1,900 future mayors. 2.5 days. The awards ceremony. The room that changes everything.
Travel and accommodation are the member's responsibility. The ticket — valued at $997 — is included in your annual membership.
Market value: $997
One seat. Your city. Locked for 12 months. Every other serious mayoral candidate in your city is permanently excluded from this program while you hold your seat.
This is not a feature. It is the reason the program exists. Everything else has value. This has no price — because what it costs your competitor to be locked out of it is incalculable.
Market value: Incalculable.
| Deliverable | Market Value |
|---|---|
| Complete Course Guide | $500 |
| Personal Name Website (done-for-you) | $5,000–$8,000 |
| Mayor Project Website (done-for-you) | $5,000–$8,000 |
| 12 Monthly Coaching Calls with Jim Blackburn | $3,000–$6,000 |
| Community Access + Live Leaderboard | $1,200 |
| Annual Summit Ticket — Fort Lauderdale | $997 |
| Exclusive City Seat Lock | Incalculable |
| Total Market Value | $15,697–$24,697+ |
| Your Annual Membership | Inquire for your city's tier → |
This is not a conference. It is a gathering of the most serious civic leaders in America — one per city, from every corner of the country — assembled for one weekend to celebrate their progress, recognize each other, and remind themselves why they started.
"You cannot be in that room — surrounded by 1,900 people from every city in America who are on the same journey, cheering for each other, watching each other receive awards on stage — and go home thinking about canceling your seat."
The summit does not sell the community. The community earns the summit. And once you have been there — once you have stood in that room and felt what it means to be part of something this serious — the monthly membership fee becomes the easiest check you write all year.
Before you evaluate the annual membership fee, consider what you are comparing it to.
Membership pricing is based on the population tier of your city and is shared privately after your application is reviewed. What we can tell you is this: the total investment over 10 years is a fraction of what a single competitive mayoral campaign costs — and unlike a campaign, this investment compounds every year regardless of the election outcome. Apply below to learn the pricing for your specific city.
"A losing campaign in a major city costs more than 10 years of membership. The difference is that a campaign buys you one shot. The membership builds the credibility that makes every shot count."
The question is not whether you can afford 10 years of membership. The question is whether you can afford to run without it.
No rolling admissions. No joining mid-year. Every member in every city activates on the same day, builds together for 11 months, and celebrates together in Fort Lauderdale. The calendar is designed so that by the time you walk into your first summit, you have already earned something worth celebrating.
Important: Joining the waitlist does not grant access to any content, community, or coaching until April 1. This is intentional. The anticipation is part of the experience. Every member in every city enters together, starts together, and builds together — so that 11 months later, they celebrate together.
Enter your information below. If your city's seat is open, we will contact you within 24 hours. If it is taken, you go on the official waitlist — and the moment that member drops, you get the first call.
You will receive an email within 24 hours confirming your city's availability and your pricing tier. No credit card required to join the waitlist. One submission per city.
These are the questions serious candidates ask before they find this program. We answer them honestly — because the truth is more compelling than the spin.
Yes — and in many cities, the outsider with no political experience has a structural advantage over career politicians. Voters are exhausted by insiders. What they want is someone they genuinely trust. Political experience does not build that trust. Consistent, visible, years-long civic engagement does. The entire How To Become Mayor system is built for someone starting from zero.
If you are starting from zero — no civic involvement, no name recognition, no political relationships — the honest answer is 10 to 14 years. That is not a discouraging number. It is a strategic one. The candidate who spends 14 years building genuine trust with their community will almost always beat the candidate who spends 14 months running a campaign. The 14-year arc is the shortcut — because it is the only path that actually works.
The first step is not announcing a campaign. It is not hiring a consultant. It is not filing paperwork. The first step is showing up to your city commission meeting and sitting in the audience. That act — being physically present in the room where decisions are made — begins the process of becoming someone your city knows. Everything else builds from there. Show up before anyone is watching. That is step one.
In almost every case, yes. A city commission or council seat does four things a civic résumé cannot: it proves you can win elections, it gives you a vote on real decisions, it expands your name recognition from your immediate network to an entire district, and it builds relationships with city staff and officials who will be essential in a citywide race. Most successful mayors served as commissioners first. The commission seat is not a detour — it is the most direct route.
Credibility in local politics is built through one mechanism and one mechanism only: consistent, visible, long-term presence in your community. Attending meetings before anyone asks you to. Publishing what you are learning about your city's issues every week. Building genuine relationships with neighborhood leaders, business owners, and civic organizers — not because you need their vote, but because you genuinely care about the community you want to lead. That kind of credibility cannot be bought and cannot be faked. It can only be earned, and it compounds every year you show up.
A competitive mayoral campaign in a mid-size American city of 150,000 to 500,000 people typically costs between $200,000 and $800,000. In major cities above 500,000, campaigns regularly exceed $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 or more. A losing campaign costs the same as a winning one — sometimes more. This is why the 14-year approach changes the math entirely. A candidate who has built genuine citywide trust over a decade enters their campaign with an existing coalition, established name recognition, and earned endorsements that a first-time candidate would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to manufacture.
Not what most candidates think. Voters in local elections are not primarily evaluating policy platforms or party affiliations. They are asking one question about every candidate: do I trust this person? Trust is built through familiarity — knowing someone's name, face, and track record before they ask for your vote. It is built through consistency — showing up when there is no campaign and nothing to gain. And it is built through genuine care — the sense that a candidate understands your daily reality and actually wants to improve it. Policy matters. But trust closes the deal.
Until now, no. Political science programs teach government theory. Campaign schools teach campaign tactics. But there has never been a practical, step-by-step system specifically designed to take an ordinary citizen — with zero political experience — through the complete journey from engaged resident to elected mayor. How To Become Mayor is that system. Built on 20 years of Character Branding research, applied to the highest-stakes personal brand challenge that exists. One exclusive seat per city. One community of serious candidates across every city in America. One proven path.
Enter your name, your email, and your city. We will tell you if the seat is open. That is the only decision on this page.