Well, for starters, because good public relations can alter individual perception and lead to changed behaviors among your key outside audiences. And that can help business,non-profit and association managers like you achieve your managerial objectives.

But remember to let the PR tacticians handle the special events, brochures and press releases. As a professionalmanager with public relations reporting to you, you havemore important things to do.

Like, for instance, planning to do something positive about the behaviors of those key external audiences of yours thatmost affect your operation. Especially when you persuadethose important outside people to your way of thinking,then help move them to take actions that allow yourdepartment, group, division or subsidiary to succeed.

Here's a path you might follow as you put your public relations action plan in play: people act on their ownperception of the facts before them, which leads topredictable behaviors about which something can bedone. When we create, change or reinforce that opinionby reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-actionthe very people whose behaviors affect the organizationthe most, the public relations mission is usuallyaccomplished.

What an approach along those lines can do, is help youavoid an over-concentration on those tactical brochures,press releases and special events, and focus your resourcesinstead on those key, all-important, outside groups ofpeople.

And what might you expect in return? Among otherresults, customers making repeat purchases; newapproaches by capital givers and specifying sources;positive bounces in show room visits; rising membershipapplications; community leaders beginning to seek youout; prospects starting to do business with you; freshproposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures; notto mention politicians and legislators viewing you as akey member of the business, non-profit or associationcommunities.

Just who will do the work this implies, should be an earlyconcern. Specialists from a public relations agency?People assigned to your operation? Your own publicrelations staff? However, regardless of where theycome from, they need to be committed to you andyour PR plan beginning with key audience perceptionmonitoring.

During early conversations with PR staff, you need to becertain that those assigned to you are clear on why it's vitalto know how your most important outside audiencesperceive your operations, products or services. Hopefully,they've already accepted the reality that perceptionsalmost always lead to behaviors that can help or hurt youroperation.

The sooner you go over with them how you plan to proceed,the better, especially how you will monitor and gatherperceptions by questioning members of your most importantoutside audiences. For instance, how much do you knowabout our chief executive? Have you had prior contact withus and were you pleased with the interchange? How muchdo you know about our services or products and employees?Have you experienced problems with our people or procedures?

If money is in the budget, don't hesitate to use professionalsurvey firms in the perception monitoring phases of yourprogram. And always remember that your PR people arealso in the perception and behavior business and can pursuethe same objective: identify untruths, false assumptions,unfounded rumors, inaccuracies, misconceptions and anyother negative perception that might translate into hurtfulbehaviors.

Your new PR goal will address the worst distortionsdiscovered during your key audience perception monitoring,and probably call for straightening out that dangerousmisconception, or correcting that gross inaccuracy, orstopping that potentially troublesome rumor.

But identifying the right strategy is the real key. This refersto a strategy that tells you how to get to where you wantto be, and there are just three strategic options availableto you when it comes to handling a perception or opinionchallenge: create perception where there may be none,change the perception, or reinforce it. Since the wrongstrategy pick will taste like banana-mango ketchup onyour canteloupe, be certain the new strategy fitscomfortably with your new public relations goal. Youdon't want to select "change" when the facts dictate a"reinforce" strategy.

Because crafting action-forcing language to persuade anaudience to your way of thinking really IS hard work, youneed your first-string varsity writer to create some veryspecial, corrective language and aim it at members of yourtarget audience. Words that are not only compelling,persuasive and believable, but clear and factual if they areto correct something and shift perception/opinion towardsyour point of view leading to the behaviors you are targeting.

The job now is to select the communications tactics mostlikely to carry your message to the attention of your targetaudience. This can be done after the draft is reviewed by yourPR folks for impact and persuasiveness. There are dozens oftactics available to you. From speeches, facility tours, emailsand brochures to consumer briefings, media interviews,newsletters, personal meetings and many others. But be surethat the tactics you pick are known to reach folks just like youraudience members.

For better or worse, a message's believability can rest on thecredibility of the vehicle used to deliver it. So, you may decideto introduce it before smaller meetings and presentations ratherthan using higher-profile news releases.

Calls for progress reports are an early warning for you that it's time for a second perception monitoring session withmembers of your external audience. Actually, most of thequestions used in the first benchmark session can be usedagain. But this time, you will be watching carefully for signsthat the problem perception is being altered in your direction. And that's real progress!

But, of course, you can lose momentum. Should this occur,you can always speed up the program by adding morecommunications tactics, and increasing their frequencies.

Why public relations? An easy question for the professionalmanager. Because it's crucial that you achieve your managerial objectives, you must alter individual perception in a way that leads to changed behaviors among your key outside audiences,thus insuring the success of your operation.

Please feel free to publish this article and resource boxin your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website.A copy would be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net.Word count is 1495 including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly © 2005.

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit andassociation managers about using the fundamental premise of publicrelations to achieve their operating objectives. He has been DPR,Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR,Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communi- cations, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant presssecretary, The White House. He holds a bachelor of science degreefrom Columbia University, major in public relations.mailto:bobkelly@TNI.net Visit:http://www.prcommentary.com