Why Most Public Relations Training Misses the Mark (And What Actually Works)

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Here's something that'll make your head spin: 73% of Australian businesses think they're nailing their public relations, but can't explain why their last media release got zero pickup. I've been watching companies fumble PR for nearly two decades now, and honestly, it's like watching someone try to parallel park a road train in the city.

The problem isn't that people don't understand PR. The problem is they think they understand it.

Most public relations training programs are built like university courses from 1987. Theory heavy, real-world light, and about as useful as a chocolate teapot when you're facing an actual crisis at 3pm on a Friday. I should know - I sat through enough of them in my early consulting days, nodding along whilst mentally planning my grocery list.

But here's where it gets interesting. The best PR professionals I know didn't learn their craft in a classroom. They learned it in the trenches, usually after spectacular failures that taught them more in one afternoon than months of theoretical frameworks ever could.

Take crisis management, for instance. Every training course will teach you the textbook response: acknowledge, investigate, communicate. Sounds neat, doesn't it?

Reality check: when Channel 7 calls because one of your delivery drivers allegedly threw a package over a fence and broke someone's garden gnome, you've got about 17 minutes to figure out your response before it becomes the lead story. No time for investigating frameworks or stakeholder mapping exercises.

The Real Skills Nobody Talks About

What they don't teach you in most public relations training is that 60% of the job is actually understanding humans, not media. And I don't mean understanding them in some clinical, demographic-analysis way. I mean really getting what makes people tick, what pisses them off, and what makes them share your content with their mates.

The managing difficult conversations skills are absolutely crucial here. Because guess what? Half your job involves talking to journalists who are having a bad day, customers who feel ignored, and executives who think PR is just "making things sound fancy."

I learned this the hard way when I was working with a mining company in Western Australia. Beautiful operation, genuinely good environmental practices, but their community relations were about as popular as a dingo in a petting zoo. The CEO kept insisting we needed more "technical accuracy" in our communications.

Wrong. Dead wrong.

What we needed was someone who could translate "sustainable extraction methodologies with minimal environmental impact" into "we're not going to stuff up your local creek." Same information, completely different impact.

The Social Media Minefield

Here's an unpopular opinion that'll probably ruffle some feathers: most businesses should do less social media, not more. I'm not anti-digital - far from it. But this obsession with posting daily content is turning genuine brand communication into white noise.

Everyone's so busy trying to "engage their audience" with cute graphics and inspirational quotes that they've forgotten the fundamental purpose of public relations: building genuine relationships with people who matter to your business.

And please, for the love of all that's holy, stop using ChatGPT to write your media releases. I can spot AI-generated copy from orbit, and so can every journalist worth their salt. It's lazy, it's obvious, and it's exactly the opposite of what good PR should be.

The Melbourne Incident (And What It Taught Me)

Three years ago, I was working with a fantastic catering company in Melbourne. Really exceptional food, amazing staff, the works. They got slammed in a Google review that was completely unfair - customer complained about cold food when they'd actually ordered from a completely different restaurant. Case of mistaken identity.

Their first instinct? Write a lengthy response explaining the mistake, defending their food quality, providing evidence they'd never catered that particular event.

I stopped them.

Sometimes the best public relations response is the simplest one: "Thanks for the feedback. We'd love the chance to make this right - please give us a call." Three weeks later, the original reviewer figured out their mistake and posted an apology. The catering company gained six new corporate clients who saw how gracefully they handled criticism.

Building Real Relationships (Not Just "Networks")

The emotional intelligence for managers training becomes absolutely essential when you're dealing with media relationships. Journalists aren't content-generating machines - they're people with deadlines, editors breathing down their necks, and about forty-seven other stories they're trying to juggle.

Building genuine relationships means understanding their pressures, not just your own objectives.

I remember calling a business journalist at The Australian about a story pitch. Before I could launch into my perfectly crafted elevator pitch, she mentioned she was drowning in tech startup stories and really needed something different. So I switched gears entirely, told her about a 70-year-old family business that was using innovative supply chain solutions to compete with Amazon.

Story ran two weeks later. Front page of the business section.

The Training That Actually Works

Real public relations training should be 20% theory, 80% practice. Role-playing difficult scenarios. Media interview practice with actual pressure. Writing exercises where you have to explain complex ideas to your grandmother.

Most importantly, it should teach you to think strategically, not just tactically. Anyone can write a media release. Not everyone can understand when NOT to write one.

Sometimes the best PR strategy is staying quiet. I've saved clients hundreds of thousands of dollars by convincing them that responding to every criticism isn't actually defending their reputation - it's amplifying problems that would have disappeared on their own.

What Companies Get Wrong

Here's another controversial take: most companies invest in PR training at exactly the wrong level. They send their marketing coordinators and communications officers to courses, then expect them to handle situations that should really be managed by senior leadership.

Public relations isn't just about communications - it's about business strategy. When you're facing a genuine crisis, you need people making decisions who understand the commercial implications, not just the messaging implications.

The best PR professionals I know understand finance, operations, legal implications, and human psychology. They can read a P&L statement and connect it to a communications strategy. They know when a legal response is necessary and when it'll make things worse.

The Future (Which Is Already Here)

The landscape's changing faster than most training programs can keep up with. Influencer relations, podcast strategies, community management - these weren't even categories when I started in this business.

But here's what hasn't changed: good public relations is still about authentic communication between humans. All the digital tools and fancy platforms in the world won't help if your fundamental message is weak or your relationships are superficial.

The best investment any business can make isn't in the latest social media management platform or AI-powered sentiment analysis tool. It's in training their people to communicate clearly, think strategically, and build genuine relationships with the communities they serve.

The rest is just noise.

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Looking to develop your team's PR capabilities? Consider exploring stress management training alongside traditional PR skills - managing public pressure is half the battle in this business.