Just think about it.

If I come to believe that you really didn't dump those chemicals in the river, I'll probably stop picketing your business.

Or, if I now believe you actually care about me as an employee, I may stay with the company.

And if I become convinced that you provide quality service at a fair price, I'll probably do business with you.

All of which means that what I think about you - what perceptions of you I hold in my mind - can change my behavior in a way that you prefer, or hate.

So, since my behavior is affected by my perception of the facts, it suggests that those perceptions might even be created from scratch, or changed, or existing behavior reinforced through a well-planned public relations effort.

Fact is, they can be, and that should interest you. Imagine being able to affect the behaviors of members of your key target audience! What would THAT do to your bottom line?

Happily, it's not that difficult to do.

Start this way. The foundation on which successful public relations outreach is built is, in reality, YOUR outreach. So become a willing participant in the public business life in your marketing area. That means activities such as sponsoring special events, making speeches before local business and fraternal audiences, and sitting for newspaper and radio interviews. That builds the good will you may need in troubled times.

A good starting point is staying in touch with those folks whose actions either help or hurt your operations. When you interact with them, ask them what they believe about your products, your organization and you. Remain alert for looming problems. You can call this the information gathering phase.

Now it's time to list your key audiences. At the beginning, concentrate on those actions that REALLY concern you and start your interactions with members of that audience. They can include stakeholders like customers, employees, prospects, media, community residents, local government agencies and many others.

When you discover a troubling perception, do something about it as soon as you can. Working with your public relations advisor, establish your public relations goal. Examples: neutralize that negative rumor that you hire illegals; prove that your process does not pollute a nearby lake; or restore the faith of that group of former customers.

If you fail to attend to them, any one can hurt your business.

So, with your goal set, you must now decide what your strategy will be in dealing with the perception problem.

We know there are just three choices available to you in dealing with such opinion problems. Create new opinion, change existing opinion, or reinforce it.

Work closely with your public relations advisor in deciding which it is. Then, proceed by preparing persuasive messages carefully and creditably designed to counter the misconception you have uncovered. Run the messages by outsiders so you can gauge just how persuasive they really are.

Here, it's time to select the communications tactics needed to carry your persuasive message to the attention of that very important target audience. Fortunately, there are dozens of communications tactics available to you such as print and broadcast media interviews, awards ceremonies, emails, promotions, press releases, newsletters, personal meetings, speeches and open houses.

But your work is still not done. You need to continue monitoring members of your target audience to measure not only how aware they are of your message, but how well they received it.

Depending on the responses you receive, it may be necessary to adjust both your message content and your mix of communications tactics.

Until something better comes along, we have little choice but to continually track perceptions among key audiences by interacting with them and by monitoring other sources such as media reports, speeches by local influentials and emails from other interested parties. Then, create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action those people whose behaviors effect the organization.

Using this approach, you will find it easier to accept and act upon the notion that what people believe really can bring you success.

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.

Robert A. Kelly 2003