Public Relations Is Dead (And That's Exactly Why Your Team Needs Training)

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Nobody talks about this, but traditional PR died somewhere between the rise of social media and the moment everyone realised journalists were just as confused as the rest of us. Yet here we are in 2025, and I'm still getting calls from executives asking why their "media strategy" isn't working.

Let me be blunt: if you're still thinking about PR the way they taught it in business school twenty years ago, you're stuffed.

I've been running training programs across Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane for the better part of two decades now. Started in corporate communications back when press releases actually mattered and journalists had time to read them properly. These days? Half the "journalists" covering your industry are freelancers working from their kitchen table, and the other half are AI bots nobody bothered to tell you about.

The Problem Nobody Wants to Admit

Here's what drives me mental: companies spend thousands on PR agencies who promise the world, then wonder why their "thought leadership" pieces get buried faster than a politician's promises after election day. The issue isn't the agencies (well, not entirely). It's that nobody bothers training their internal teams to think like communications professionals.

I was working with a mid-sized manufacturing company in Adelaide last month. Good people, solid business, but their idea of public relations was sending the same generic press release to every journalist in the country. When I asked who was handling their crisis communications planning, they looked at me like I'd asked them to explain quantum physics in Mandarin.

Most businesses treat PR training like a nice-to-have rather than essential infrastructure. That's bonkers when you consider 87% of purchase decisions are influenced by what people read about you online (yes, I made that statistic up, but it feels about right, doesn't it?).

What Actually Works in Modern PR Training

Forget everything you think you know about media relations. The real game now is about building authentic relationships - not just with journalists, but with your entire ecosystem. Your customers, suppliers, that bloke who runs the cafe downstairs. Everyone's a potential spokesperson for your brand.

The training programs that actually move the needle focus on three core areas:

Strategic storytelling. Not the fluffy marketing speak that makes everyone's eyes glaze over, but real stories that matter to real people. I've seen CEOs transform from corporate robots into compelling communicators just by learning how to talk about their failures honestly.

Crisis communication. When the proverbial hits the fan (and it will), you need people who can respond quickly without making things worse. Most companies have emergency fire drills but no communication drills. Mental.

Digital relationship building. This isn't about posting motivational quotes on LinkedIn. It's about understanding how to build genuine connections in an increasingly digital world.

The companies getting this right - and I'm thinking of businesses like Atlassian and Canva here - don't treat communication as an afterthought. They embed it into everything they do.

The Australian Advantage (That We're Wasting)

We've got something most countries would kill for: people actually trust us. Australians are seen as straight-talking, no-nonsense, and generally decent. That's PR gold, and most businesses are throwing it away by trying to sound like American corporations.

I worked with a tech startup in Perth who insisted on using American spelling and corporate jargon in all their communications. "We want to sound professional," they said. Professional? You sound like you're trying to be something you're not.

The moment they started embracing their Australian identity - talking about "having a crack" instead of "leveraging opportunities" - their media coverage tripled. Their customer engagement went through the roof. Sometimes the best PR strategy is just being authentically yourself.

Why Traditional Training Falls Short

Most PR training courses are taught by people who haven't worked in a newsroom for fifteen years or academics who've never had to deal with a social media crisis at 2am on a Sunday. They're teaching theory while your business needs practical skills.

I remember sitting through a day-long workshop in Sydney where the facilitator spent three hours explaining the "traditional media landscape." Mate, half those publications don't exist anymore, and the ones that do have editorial teams smaller than most footy clubs.

The training that works focuses on real-world scenarios. Role-playing difficult media interviews. Practising social media responses under pressure. Learning how to handle office politics when internal communications break down.

What Your Team Actually Needs to Learn

Stop thinking about PR as something that happens "out there" in the media. Modern public relations starts with your internal culture. If your employees don't believe in what you're doing, no amount of external messaging will help.

Here's what effective PR training covers:

Message discipline. Everyone in your organisation should be able to explain what you do and why it matters in thirty seconds or less. Sounds simple? Try it. Most people can't do it without using industry jargon.

Stakeholder mapping. Who actually influences opinions about your business? It's probably not who you think it is. That customer who always leaves detailed Google reviews might have more impact than the business journalist you've been courting for months.

Content creation that doesn't suck. Teaching people to write and speak in ways that don't put their audience to sleep. This includes knowing when to break grammar rules for impact. Like this.

Crisis preparation. Not just what to say, but who says it, when, and through which channels. I've seen companies destroy themselves by having the wrong person speak at the wrong time.

The ROI Nobody Talks About

Here's the thing about PR training that finance directors love: it actually saves money. When your team knows how to communicate effectively, you spend less on external agencies. When they can handle minor crises internally, you don't need expensive consultants.

A manufacturing company in Brisbane calculated they saved $40,000 in their first year after implementing proper internal PR training. Not because they fired their agency, but because they knew when they actually needed external help versus when they could handle things themselves.

But the real value isn't financial - it's cultural. Teams that communicate well work better together. They're more resilient when things go wrong. They attract better talent because people want to work for organisations that know how to tell their story properly.

The Integration Challenge

The biggest mistake I see is treating PR training as a one-off event. You can't send someone to a two-day workshop and expect them to become a communications expert. It's like expecting someone to become a carpenter after watching a few YouTube videos.

Effective PR training needs to be integrated into your regular business operations. Monthly scenario planning sessions. Quarterly message testing. Annual crisis simulation exercises. It sounds like overkill until you need it.

I worked with a construction company who thought this was all unnecessary bureaucracy. Then they had a workplace accident that made the news. Their initial response was so poor it turned a manageable situation into a public relations disaster that took months to recover from.

The companies that get this right treat communication skills like any other professional competency. They measure it, track it, and continuously improve it.

Moving Forward

If you're serious about PR training (and you should be), start with an honest assessment of where you are now. Record your leadership team explaining what your company does. Listen back. If you cringe, imagine how your customers feel.

Focus on building internal capability before worrying about external messaging. Train your people to think like communicators, not just subject matter experts. Invest in stress management training because communications crises are stressful, and stressed people make poor decisions.

Most importantly, remember that good PR isn't about spin or manipulation. It's about building genuine relationships based on trust and transparency. In a world full of fake everything, authenticity is your competitive advantage.

The organisations thriving in 2025 aren't the ones with the slickest marketing campaigns or the biggest PR budgets. They're the ones whose people can communicate honestly, respond quickly, and build relationships that matter.

That's not something you can outsource. It's something you build from the inside out, one conversation at a time.