Don’t Think Keeping Up With Current Events Can Help YOU As An Entrepreneur? Think Again!
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On this edition of “The Raja Show”, Raja examines a pair of stories that dominated the headlines this week, and assesses the lessons that entrepreneurs and business owners can take away from each, in order to help their business grow and prosper.
-Earlier this week, the Pittsburgh Steelers signed a quarterback to backup their starting QB, Ben Roethlisberger, in order to replace the previous backup, who had been injured a few days prior. Normally in the National Football League, the collective reaction from a team’s fan base to a move like this would be a yawn….at best.
But what if the acquisition in question was one of the most talented, and polarizing, players in NFL history?
In the past eight years, Michael Vick’s frequent on-field brilliance has been overshadowed only by his controversial off-field behavior. That controversy has made him a lightning rod for scorn throughout the league’s fanbase, and the teams that HAVE taken a chance on him have experienced a stigma of “guilt by association”, as the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Jets, and now, Steelers are finding out.
But like any good company that is faced with a pending decision that it KNOWS may turn off a portion of its customer base (and judging by recent media polls that clearly indicate that fans are not happy), these teams did the research, weighted the pros and cons, and proceeded accordingly.
But as the saying goes, perception is reality, and for a company that anticipates a public backlash, an effective public relations strategy is a MUST. On this episode, Raja talks with Forbes Media Public Relations contributor Robert Wynne, one of the foremost public relations professionals in the country. The California-based PR expert will discuss what mindset a company must adopt when embarking on a decision it knows won’t be unilaterally welcome, and how to effectively plan for the backlash to come.
-One day later, the country bore witness….literally….to one of the most unbelievable and deplorable events in recent memory,the live-on-air murder of a Roanoke, VA news reporter and cameraman during an on-site interview.
With the subsequent reveal that the gunman was a disgruntled former reporter at that TV station, the issue of workplace violence came immediately to the forefront, as Federal Government statistics reveal that over 700 people, on average, are killed on the job every year in the U.S, in addition to the millions per year who are affected by workplace violence in some capacity.. While authorities and experts continue to dig in to the potential motives of the killer, many are also wondering what can be done to prevent this again.
On this episode, Raja talks with one such expert, clinical psychologist Dr. Joel Dvoskin of the California-based Threat Assessment Group, a consulting firm, specializing in the prevention of workplace violence, that consults with Fortune 100 companies,throughout the U.S., including Sony, 3M, Kraft, Facebook, Visa, and many more. Joel will discuss the causes and effects of workplace violence, as well as the signs that may be a prime indicator of a potential situation, the preventative measures that individuals in the organization, from the top-down, should take to prevent violence, and how to handle a situation in its aftermath.
