Eric Dezenhall is CEO of Dezenhall Resources, a specialized public relations firm based in the District.

Explain what your company does.

We are in the business of crisis management and marketplace defense. Our typical client is a large company that is under attack by motivated adversaries.

How do you help them?

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We are basically like a campaign manager. We help companies navigate these attacks on them in the public domain.

What’s the number one mistake made by people in crisis?

Believing that they are facing a communications problem, as opposed to a conflict.

Explain.

In crisis management and marketplace defense, you’re dealing with agenda-driven situations. It’s not a big misunderstanding. I mean, it’s not like if the Palestinians and Israelis just sat down and communicated more clearly, the Palestinian Authority would say, “Oh, now I get it. You mean that West Bank.”

So it’s more about addressing the underlying conflict as opposed to the message?

I do media commentary all the time and I’ve been asked, “Oh, what can President Bush do to better sell the war?” Well, the answer is very simple: Win. When you win, you get good PR; when you lose, you don’t.

Then how can you help clients whose problems stem from something deeper than communications?

We can tell them the facts of life. ... You know, if you are a petrochemical company, you are never going to get people to like you. Ever. Years ago, I had the CEO of a major petrochemical concern say to me, “Can you do for me what you did for a cosmetics company that you helped?” When I said no, he asked why. And I said: “You’re an oil company, everybody hates you. We’re starting with that baseline. Now, what we can do is make improvements in how you do things and communicate this to key audiences in a way that causes them not to want to attack you as much.”