A Hard Lesson Learned....

Written by Diane Hughes


Are you like me? I like to handle things on my own so I don't even THINK about incorporating help with anything I am working on ... especially my business as a whole.

Well, I learned something new recently. It was a HORRIBLE experience that actually turned out forrepparttar better. Let me tell you my story:

I have a team of about 2000 associates. Since all my sites are hosted at Host4Profit except forrepparttar 104344 site that their websites are hosted on, I decided to transfer everything over. Well, I have transferred many sites before so I knew how it worked. I knew I would get access to Host4Profit before transferring with my registrar and that all I had to do was upload everything over torepparttar 104345 new host while my old host was still active. This would make a seamless transfer. No one would ever know anything happened ...

To make a long story short, it didn't turn out to be as seamless as I hoped and things were a little messed up for about a day. Needless to say, I received TONS of emails!

"What happened?!" "Where did you go?!" "Give me my money back!" "Hello? Are you there?"

Well, I couldn't ANSWER these emails because I was busy gettingrepparttar 104346 transfer problem fixed. This caused most of them to email me a SECOND time, therefore doublingrepparttar 104347 amount of emails sitting in my email box! Stress was building as I worked to getrepparttar 104348 problem fixed ....

Public Relations' 8 Fix Factors

Written by Robert A. Kelly


Please feel free to publish this article and resource box in your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy would be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net. Word count is 1115 including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly © 2004.

Public Relations’ 8 Fix Factors

I say to business, non-profit and association managers, a key part of your job description is – or should be – do everything you can to help your organization’s public relations effort as it strives to persuade important outside stakeholders to your way of thinking. Especially when it’s YOUR PR program that is tasked to move those stakeholders to behaviors that lead torepparttar success of YOUR department or division.

Which is why I suggest that business, non-profit and association managers embrace what I call PR’s 8 fix factors, those steps necessary to prepare their public relations operation forrepparttar 104343 battles certain to lie ahead.

The fix factors are based on this fundamental premise: People act on their own perception ofrepparttar 104344 facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-actionrepparttar 104345 very people whose behaviors affectrepparttar 104346 organizationrepparttar 104347 most, repparttar 104348 public relations mission is accomplished.

Fix Factor 1

For starters, I caution Mr/Ms Manager that you may find yourself data-challenged should you be unaware of just HOW most members of that key outside audience perceive your organization.

Has anyone sat down and listed those external audiences whose behaviors could hurt your unit badly? Then prioritized them according torepparttar 104349 impacts they have on your operation? A necessary first step in creatingrepparttar 104350 right public relations objective because, while behavior isrepparttar 104351 goal, and a host of communications tactics arerepparttar 104352 tools, our strategy isrepparttar 104353 leverage provided by key audience perception. Sometimes called public opinion.

Fix Factor 2

Lets take a look atrepparttar 104354 audience you place atrepparttar 104355 top of your prioritized target audience list. Because there could be negative perceptions out there, someone must interact with members of that audience and ask a number of questions. Do you know anything about our organization? Have you had any kind of contact with our people? Have you heard anything good or bad about us or our services and products? Watch respondents closely for hesitant or evasive answers. And stay alert for inaccuracies, rumors, untruths or misconceptions.

Fix Factor 3

Here, fortunately, you have a choice. You and your PR staff can interact with members of that target audience yourselves, which seems appropriate since your PR folks are already inrepparttar 104356 perception and behavior business. Or, if budget is available, you can hire professional survey counsel to dorepparttar 104357 work for you.

What are you hearing during your perception monitoring sessions? Misconceptions that need straightening out? Rumors that should not be allowed to fester? Inaccurate beliefs about your products or services that could drive people away from you? Do you notice other perceptions about your organization that need to be altered?

Fix Factor 4

The responses gathered by this kind of perception monitoring among members ofrepparttar 104358 target audience provides just what you need to establish your public relations goal –repparttar 104359 specific perception to be altered.

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