Did you know there are four stages of the conflict cycle?

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Welcome to the world of public relations! Just what is public relations? Is it advertising? Is it marketing? Is it community activities or crisis management? What do public relations professionals do? Has anyone known a PR professional? Exposure to this individual will reveal a flurry of unending energy and enthusiasm. One of the most important skills of this individual is the ability to develop relationships and contacts with every kind of person. A PR professional can call a CEO and have his or her phone call returned! In addition, a PR professional must possess superior writing skills as well as verbal communication skills. Could this be why Ashford faculty members hold high, rigorous standards for writing? According to the Public Relations Society of America, public relations professionals communicate with the external publics of an organization. Is this the same as marketing or sales? No! According to Cameron, Wilcox, Reber, and Shin (2008), sales is a function of marketing. Sales is focused on an organizations customers and selling the products of the organization. The objective of sales is to increase market share and profitability. Ogden & Ogden discuss three differences between public relations and advertising: since the organization does not pay for PR, it cannot control the message; PR may not always be positive; and the third difference is the public tends to believe the information from PR is from a trusted and reliable resource (Ogden & Ogden, 2014). Public relations is focused on building relationships and implementing communications strategies that will build goodwill for the organization. Public relations is what we see when organizations are working on Habitat for Humanity or the Salvation Army bell ringer or the Toys for Tots campaigns. Public relations only focus is to build a positive relationship and create goodwill with its publics. PR never thinks of sales or market share or profitability. One important function of the public relations professional is to be the liaison between its publics and the organization in times of an emergency, conflict or crisis. Did you know there are four stages of the conflict cycle? Many organizations in our current economic downturn are experiencing layoffs, job cuts, and wage reductions. It is the PR professionals job to “spin” what is typically viewed as a negative into something positive.