Protecting Clients’ Reputations, and Yours, When They Are Their Own Worst Enemy

Public relations professionals are skilled at helping clients manage difficult situations, but what happens when the clients themselves are responsible for doing more damage and ignoring their counselors’ best advice? Is it possible to undo the damage your client has created without doing harm to your own reputation? How do long-term relationships factor into the solution? When do you walk away from a project that you feel is unethical or one that violates PRSA’s Code of Ethics? These two longtime public relations agency executives will discuss specific situations where clients acted in their own worst interests, and the results were predictably bad. By sharing their stories in an interview format, Ronele Dotson and Jo Ann LeSage Nelson will help you see that “the client isn’t always right.”

By the end of this session, participants will be able to: 
• Discern warning signs and know when to walk away from a project when it might harm their reputation or when it violates PRSA’s Code of Ethics.
• Leverage their relationships to repair a situation gone wrong.
• Employ best fixes for a bad situation and become a “superhero” to their client as a result.
• Trust their instincts when something seems “off.”