Crisis communication resources to help you protect your revenue, reputation, and brand.
Effective crisis communications when “it” hits the fan.
Effective crisis communications when “it” hits the fan.
Our blog is filled with deep resources to help with your crisis communication needs. Whether you are writing a crisis communication plan, seeking the best media training tips, or digging for case studies on crisis situations, you’ll find it here. Our goal is to give you all of the public relations resources you need to protect your revenue, reputation, and brand.
For those of you who love DIY and taking on a challenge, we’ve worked really hard to give you a good road map to follow. However, sometimes the fastest option is to bring in a pro. If that’s the case, we’re fully vaccinated and we’re ready to meet your needs, anywhere and anytime.
If you need help with your crisis communications plan, we’re ready to help.
When you need media training for your spokespeople, give us a call.
Anytime your organization needs a great keynote for your conference, we’d value the opportunity to serve you.
We invite you to:
Whether you are in the field of public relations, media relations, crisis communications, or corporate communications, you no doubt have had to do your fair share of writing news releases and releasing statements to the media and your stakeholders. You may have even had to write a public statement specifically to release on social media. Read more
Complete a huge task in less than five days. Complete a daunting task in less than five days.
Traditionally, companies set up endless meetings and an inflated collaboration process. People will spend three months to two years talking about the “process” and never really create a usable set of crisis management tools. And during the drawn-out process, a crisis might hit and everyone is still unprepared. They have no tools in their toolbox; only notes from those endless meetings.
Does that sound familiar? If it does, let’s stop that vicious cycle and start sprinting through the crisis communications process.
Run. Don’t walk. Deadlines will always be there. Annual meetings will always be there. Let them lie.
Doing crisis communications effectively can take a long time; a really long time. Let’s stop doing that. Let’s do it faster. Let’s find a better way. Let’s sprint! What better time than Spring? It’s after the holidays and before the summer holidays, so your team should be more in tune.
A “sprint” is a process for solving big problems and tackling big tasks in five days or less. It’s about both efficiency and focus.
To simplify your goalsetting and ability to accomplish tasks, you have to break them down into smaller, faster, more achievable tasks. That’s why I created the Five Steps to Effective Crisis Communications.
What would take your company or organization months to complete, you can now complete in five days or less, with a crisis communications sprint. Here are all of the Five Steps to Effective Crisis Communications you can complete virtually or in person:
Crisis Vulnerability Assessment
Here is when you ask yourself and your team, “What is the worst thing that could happen?” Your roadmap to crisis communications begins as you imagine and evaluate all the situations that could go wrong. We are ready to partner with you to harvest insights from your team. Ask about our one-day Vulnerability Assessment Sprint to begin your crisis communications planning.
Ask yourself, as a situation unfolds, “Can my organization take control in the first few minutes?” The best crisis communications plan plots every step before, during, and after a crisis. If you fail to plan, plan to fail. Our “sprint” crisis communications system can put a plan in place in one day.
When you think about writing a public statement, do you get bogged down with second-guessing, word-smithing, and fighting with your legal team, team members, or boss over commas? Save time by using our library of pre-written statements for the media, employees, customers, and stakeholders. Ask about our pre-written statement sprint, which can be delivered in one day.
Crisis Spokesperson Media Training
One misplaced word can be costly. When revenue, reputation, and brand are on the line, there is no margin for error. We’ve seen companies lose hundreds of millions of dollars in a 12-second sound bite. Our crisis communications media training gets your spokespeople prepared to handle tough questions on your toughest day.
Do you routinely test your crisis management team, crisis communications plan, and spokespeople? Practice makes perfect. A crisis drill allows you to make mistakes in private so you never make those mistakes on the day of your crisis. Add a virtual crisis drill to your crisis communications sprint commitment.
We care about your reputation, revenue, and brand. We hope you do too.
Here is your sprint roadmap. Would you like us to sprint with you?
To set goals, talk about your needs, and formulate a budget, schedule a complimentary, confidential call with me https://calendly.com/braud/15min
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
More crisis communications articles:
Can You Handle a Crisis When it Hits by Winging It?
15 Questions to Ask Before You Use Facebook for Crisis Communications
Crisis Management Lessons from Hurricane Katrina vs. COVID19
Photo by Steven Lelham on Unsplash
Some professional communicators get it. They want to be prepared. They have statements ready for the public in a crisis. They are trained as spokespeople or have their team members ready to be on camera. They have a crisis communication plan on file that they can refer to quickly in a crisis. They have sought approval and funding from their executives on proper crisis communication planning.
In this video, we ask public relations professional for Coast Electric, Melissa Russo, “Should a PR person prepare for a crisis or should they wing it and rely on hope?” Of course, the answer sounds obvious, but you might be surprised to know that too many PR professionals still wing their response to a crisis.
Melissa explains how she plans for effective crisis communications in the video here:
Visit this link to enjoy a full replay of this Master Class sponsored by SituationHub.com.
Use this link to schedule a free, private call https://calendly.com/braud/15min
To schedule a free, confidential demo for the crisis communications software SituationHub, visit: https://www.situationhub.com/
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications: Master Class #1
The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications
4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson
It’s finally time to get the lighting right. It’s finally time to get the camera angle right. It’s time to set aside nerves and confusion and get it straight. This late in the game, you either think you have this all down pat (and you could be wrong), or you are still too nervous to get on camera. This is the straightforward, quick guide to doing a proper media interview in your home office or at your workplace. Read more
In this crisis communications podcast, CEO of the Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association Holly Alfano interviews me about the often overlooked piece of running a business: crisis communications and preparation.
How is a crisis defined? Ask, “Will this event affect our company’s revenue, reputation, and brand?” Stop thinking of only situations such as a fire, a pandemic, or a hurricane. Start thinking of the vulnerabilities of your specific business. Start thinking about your CEO taking a photo with the wrong person, at the wrong time. Start thinking about one of your employees saying the wrong thing on social media.
Start thinking about who should be your spokesperson in a crisis. It may not be who you would expect. Stop thinking a crisis won’t happen to you. Start thinking, if this happens to me, to our company, to our organization, do we have the crisis communication tools to respond and communicate quickly?
In case this sounds overwhelming or stressful, thankfully, there are five simple steps to manage a crisis effectively. Just five steps. And thankfully, there is an automated software that can help you communicate to your clients, customers, employees, and stakeholders in a crisis.
If these sound foreign to you, we take a deep dive into these five steps in the podcast.
To set goals, talk about your needs, and formulate a budget, schedule a complimentary, confidential call with me https://calendly.com/braud/15min
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
More crisis communications articles:
15 Questions to Ask Before You Use Facebook for Crisis Communications
Can You Handle a Crisis When it Hits by Winging It?
Crisis Management Lessons from Hurricane Katrina vs. COVID19
The year is almost over, and you may be asking yourself, what have I learned? What would I do differently? Have I prepared my organization for effective crisis communications?
Sure, it’s the busiest time of year. Thankfully, as you are wrapping presents, making Christmas cookies, and trimming the tree, you can pop in your Airpods and learn on the go. Although we hosted many crisis communications Master Classes this year, here are just three you can mark off your bucket list and not feel overwhelmed by the task or what you learned. Consider it our gift to you.
The world has changed and so must you.
The world doesn’t have time to read what you wrote. Yet, you need the world to comprehend your message. So, what’s the secret?
Use this link to access the replay.
You’ll learn 10 reasons why you should change how you write a crisis communications statement.
Minutes and seconds count in a crisis. Preparation is the key to fast crisis response. We dig deeper into the need for speed in your crisis communications and explore the tools you need to effectively communicate.
Use this link to access the content.
The Facebook crisis communications lessons are many. The explosive interview on 60 Minutes and the testimony before Congress from whistleblower Frances Haugen confirms and reinforces the crisis communication lessons we discussed in the SituationHub Master Class that originally aired live on March 11, 2021. The Master Class is called The Social Media Conundrum. You’ll want to watch that program, in which we zeroed in on why Facebook’s algorithms are built against you in a crisis.
Crisis communications and media training expert Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC is based in New Orleans. Organizations on five continents have relied on him to write their crisis communications plans and to train their spokespeople. He is the author of “Don’t Talk to the Media Until…”
Photo by Lore Schodts on Unsplash
For client questions & media interviews
985.624.9976
gerard@braudcommunications.com