Turning Vilification into Victory

I AM 17 jobs old! Now those you out there searching for a life partner or those of you who have finally found your soul-mate will understand that true love takes time. It works just the same in your profession. While some of us are blessed with love at first sight, others settle for the safe bet, whereas a few like me are willing to wait to find that one love that will last a lifetime! In my career, I have had the luxury of working on a variety of disciplines from finance to fashion, from production to animation and from ad sales to advertising. After casually dating each of these jobs for a fair amount of time somehow the relationship never stuck. They say you find love in the weirdest places, and for me this holds true. I like most others too had made a check list of all that I wanted out of my career - good money, boast-worthy position, meeting exciting new people, work-life balance, corner office etc. What job I wanted to do to get all of this, well that, I still had no idea of. So I did what most people looking out do, I sent out messages to family and friends and basically let the word out that I was still looking. Interestingly some people have this amazing match-making ability. Renu Basu was one of them. The head of Global Sales for the Taj Group, she had known me most of my life and when the opening for the head of Public Relations for the flagship hotel cropped up, she thought of me. In my limited understanding of Public Relations, it meant sitting behind a desk and sending out a press release. So I went through my check list and there too nothing seemed to match! Still I thought, why not try this one more blind date and now 7 years later Public Relations and I are very much still together! The courtship period is all about the image. Amplify your positives and down play your shortcomings. It's the same in the PR world too as we highlight the strengths of a brand and try to negate the negatives. But as your relationship evolves it gets more and more important to start building a strong foundation. This is where the fun starts, thinking up ideas to keep things fresh, developing a group of loyal friends, being seen in the right places and of course with the right people. Every serious relationship goes through a rocky road and the way you handle these adversities becomes the defining factor of your union. In Public Relations language this is termed as Crisis Management. A good partnership makes you stronger. Public relations has given me the power to empower. I can turn vilification into victory, criticism into conquest and an unknown entity into a global influencer. With Public Relations by my side I now have the ability to turn up the volume of a whisper and transform it into a worldwide crescendo. So the next time you question the power of Public relations, take a second glance at your chai-wala, with a good publicist he too could be the next Prime Minister. The author is CEO - Katalyst Reputation Management.