Imagine your board room during a crucial business meeting and visualize who is in attendance. Your attorney, financial advisor and c-suite executives are likely present. Is someone from your PR or communication team seated at the table?

When you make decisions that impact your business it is crucial that your PR team be included throughout the entire decision-making process – not necessarily to shape the decision but to help shape how you roll it out. Here are a few reasons why:

It’s why you employ us

The role of your PR team is to maintain the positive reputation of your business. While we react to crises as they arise, we prefer to strategize and prepare for opposition in advance. Why force your PR people to respond spur of the moment when you can loop them in from the start and have better results? If you include PR people in your decision-making process, we can help you roll out the information in a way that is more appealing to your audience.

Your PR team is more in-touch with your audience than anyone

We monitor your Facebook comments, respond to internet reviews and study your website analytics. Arguably, your PR team is more in-touch with your audience than anyone in the company. Our job requires that we listen to our audiences, which gives us the ability to anticipate reactions. Having your PR team at the table when decisions are being made can reveal valuable information about your audience and how changes will impact them and their preferences.

PR professionals study industry trends

It is vital to our job that we understand what our competitors are doing in terms of business operations and communications. We study changes, mistakes and successes made by our competitors to give our company an edge. Your PR team may be able to provide industry examples to support decisions or steer you away from impending disaster.

We’re experts at preparation

If you want an announcement to go over smoothly, give your PR team ample time to prepare. A well-executed announcement requires research, planning, tactical execution, careful revision and final rollout. When we’re engrained in the decision making process we can tactfully plan and execute a communication plan that sets the company up for success. So often changes are sprung on PR professionals with little time to plan and execute. We’re forced to cut corners simply to get the announcement out, removing key steps in the announcement process. If you spend six months making a business decision, your PR team needs that same amount of time to plan a stellar announcement.