Crisis communication resources to help you protect your revenue, reputation, and brand.

Effective crisis communications when “it” hits the fan.

Welcome to Our Crisis Communication Blog

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.

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Crisis Plan Truths

May 7, 2014/0 Comments/in Crisis Communications /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

Many public relations people who need a Crisis Communications Plan search for the words “crisis plan.” This leads to problems.

Sometimes, as soon as you type the word “crisis,” your browser will auto fill with these options:

Crisis Plan Template

Crisis Plan Free Template

Crisis Management Plan

Crisis Communications Plan (with an “s”)

Crisis Communication Plan (with no “s”)

Crisis Expert

Crisis Communications Expert (with an “s”)

Crisis Communication Expert (with no “s”)

School Crisis Plan

Crisis Intervention Plan

The list goes on. Try it.

In public relations we face a problem with terminology. Did you know that people in the business continuity world, the emergency response world, and the public relations world all generically use the term Crisis Plan, yet each document is very different?

Likewise, there are many bad examples on the web of documents that serve no real purpose. This one has been at the top of the list for years.

I guess this is what most people think a Crisis Communications Plan is because they find it on the web and it is free. I think of this as only a list of standard operating procedures, yet it is far short of what I prescribe as a Crisis Communications Plan.

For a short time my website was #2, behind this site. However, I slipped in the SEO after a website server glitch.

Bottom line – if you are in PR, please call your document a Crisis Communications Plan. If you are in business continuity, please call your plan a “risk management plan” or a “business continuity plan.” If you are in emergency response, please call your plan either an “emergency operations plan, emergency management plan or an incident command plan.”

Every organization should have all three plans.

Do you have all three plans where you work?

GM Hires Crisis Communication Expert

April 8, 2014/0 Comments/in Crisis Communications, Media Relations /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

GM has hired a Crisis Communication Expert to help the company communicate their way out of a crisis surrounding their faulty ignition switches, according to headlines.

Why do companies hire crisis communications experts after a crisis?

Why don’t companies hire a crisis communications expert before they ever have a crisis?

Why don’t companies write crisis communications plans so that they can manage a crisis and the communications on their own?

The story of crisis communications is much like the movie Groundhog Day. I feel like Bill Murray’s character, living the same story daily. That is because every day, another company announces they are hiring a crisis communications expert to magically make everything better after corporate executives allowed a crisis to happen.

Here is an open letter about crisis communication to corporate leaders:

Dear Corporate Executives,

Many of you make bad decisions every day. You put profits before people and when you do, you have the recipe for a disaster. GM executives decided not to spend 57-cents per car, in order to replace faulty ignition switches, because they thought it would cost too much. If they had spent the money, then:

People would not have died
A crisis would not have happened
The company’s reputation would not have been damaged
The company would not be paying untold millions to fight or settle cases
The company would not be getting grilled by congress
The head of GM would not be the butt of jokes for every late night talk show

Corporate executives should hire a crisis communication expert before a crisis happens.

Corporate leaders should hire a crisis communication expert to make sure their company has a properly written crisis communications plan.

Corporate leaders should stop relying on someone with a spreadsheet to make decisions about revenue that will later damage the company’s reputation.

Corporate leaders should hire a crisis communications expert to be the cynic at the table. That way, spreadsheet decisions do not lead to revenue decisions that have short-term gains and eventually cause long-term damage to both reputation and revenue.

Corporate executives should commit to protecting their reputation and revenue by having a crisis communication plan that guides their decision making before a crisis happens, during a crisis, and after a crisis

Postpone Your Crisis: Crisis Communication Wisdom with a Twist

April 4, 2014/0 Comments/in Crisis Communications /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud Consider this: scheduling your crisis may be the wave of the future. Rather than being ambushed and surprised by a sudden crisis, which forces you into crisis communication, considerBy Gerard Braud

Consider this: scheduling your crisis may be the wave of the future. Rather than being ambushed and surprised by a sudden crisis, which forces you into crisis communication, consider the model used by many of your leaders who ignore my plea to plan for the worst.

Here is how it works. Many public relations people have e-mailed me to say that they cannot conduct media training or crisis communication training with their executives because the executives do not have time. Often these public relations people are asking for only a single day for media training. Sometimes they are asking for two days to write a crisis communications plan. Regardless of which communication training you ask for, there are always too many other projects more important than preparing to effectively communicate in a crisis. Hence, if an executive does not have time to schedule the training for the skills that would be mandatory in order to protect the profits and reputation of their company during a crisis, it only makes sense to declare that no crises should take place unless it is scheduled.

So next time you want to schedule media training or crisis communication training and you are told there is no time on the schedule because we have too many higher priority projects, just ask your executives when they would like to schedule their crisis?

Sure, it has been said that, “If you fail to plan, than plan to fail.” But under this new crisis communication model, we could simply say, “Plan to fail.”

If you’ve ever been told there is no time on the schedule for communication training, please share this article with the person who told you that, then send their reaction to me.

Rural Electric Cooperative Communications: The Times Are Changing

April 3, 2014/0 Comments/in Media Relations, Rural Electric Cooperatives /by gbraud

Click video to watch

Consider this: Just a few years ago rural electric cooperatives were not under pressure to communicate rapidly with the media, members or employees. Today, you have less than one hour to control the flow of accurate information.

There are three major reasons why this is changing and four things you can do to adjust to these changes. If you are not adjusting to these changes, you will be in big trouble.

To learn about the three major changes and four ways to adjust, read on…

To communicate effectively at a 2014 level, you need these four things:

1) Your co-op must have the most extensive crisis communications plan ever written.

2) Your crisis communications plan must have a library of at least 100 pre-written news releases.

3) Your CEO/manager, operations director, customer service director, and public relations director must agree to all train at least once a year for media interviews.

4) Your co-op must conduct a crisis communications drill at least once a year to test your crisis communications plan, your pre-written news releases, and the media interview skills of your spokespeople.

Why is this suddenly so critical in 2014? Here are the three reasons:

#1 Urban Sprawl

Time was, when city media seldom reported on rural electric co-op issues. Today, as cities like Houston, Atlanta, and others have turned pastures and forests into neighborhoods, the media aggressively covers stories in these areas. New residents in new houses represent a young, emerging audience with disposable income that appeals to advertisers, especially for television news. Those same new residents are likely to be the quickest to call a television news investigative reporter and they will be the first to comment online about a negative news report.

#2 The Rural Weekly Paper is Online

Time was, when rural news was only reported by the local weekly newspaper. Today, the internet has allowed the weekly paper to publish online 24/7. No longer can you take days to respond to a co-op controversy. The weekly paper may still print just one day a week, but they need an interview, facts and quotes from you just as fast as the big city media.

#3 Social Media

An angry member can quickly escalate any issue to the crisis level. They can escalate an issue into an online controversy and a mainstream media controversy. While many co-op managers and board members continue to wrangle with, question, and oppose a social media presence, members are creating their own anti-cooperative Facebook pages. Your extensive crisis communications plan must have a social media strategy.

Conclusion

Co-op communications is changing rapidly. If you, like so many cooperative communicators, find yourself with too many other tasks and too few people or hours in the day, please call me. I have fast, easy and affordable solutions to your communication challenges, including a world class crisis communications plan that can be customized in just two days.

Click here to LISTEN to what other cooperative communicators have to say about this fast, cost effective way to implement a crisis communications plan customized for your cooperative. You can also call me at 985-624-9976 to learn more.

Media Training in New Orleans, Baton Rouge & Louisiana

April 3, 2014/0 Comments/in Media Relations /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

Media training in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and other cities in Louisiana carry a special set of challenges. Usually the training is for spokesmen – as in all men. Seldom is the media training for spokespeople, representing both genders. The spokesmen generally work in the oil and chemical industry. Most are not trained public relations professionals. Most are managers and supervisors in a chemical plant or an oil refinery.

In Louisiana’s industrial corridor, the bulk of the media training is to prepare someone for crisis response. Often companies call asking for crisis communications training or crisis management training. Seldom do they ask for media training because many do not know what the training should be called.

At the risk of generalizing, many of these spokesmen grew up as I did. We were taught to tell it like it is. Telling it like it is usually starts with negative information, followed by a justification for the bad news or event. After the bad news and the justification, Louisiana men often tell you what they are going to do differently.

Analyzed, it looks like this:

Bad News – Repeat the negative

Good News

When I was a television reporter, I was often first on the scene when a chemical plant blew up between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Often the spokesperson would share too many negative details that should not have been shared. They might say something such as, “Well we’ve been having problems with the vessel in the hydrocarbon unit for the past month. We had one small fire that we put out last week. But we don’t know what caused the explosion today. But I promise you, safety is our top priority.”

To be an expert spokesman in media interviews, the fewer negatives you repeat, the better you will be. In media training, you need to learn to say positive news first and as little of the negative news as possible.

The statement above might have better been worded by saying, “Our goal is to always be protective of human health and the environment. What has happened here today will require us to investigate so we can find out what happened, how it happened, and how we can keep it from ever happening again.”

Are you up to the challenge for a media interview?

Expert Advice for Media Training Key Messages

April 2, 2014/0 Comments/in Media Relations /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

Can we have an intimate, professional conversation? The presumption is you are an expert in public relations and that the executives and leaders where you work need expert key messages for media training, to be an expert spokesperson. Here we go:

Good looking
Intelligent
Public relations professional
Mistakes of the past
Bullet points bad

Did we just have a conversation? I don’t think so.

Why?

Because I used bullet points and bullet points are not a conversation. Bullet points are phrases. Bullet points are not sentences.

So, should it then also be true that bullet points are not key messages?

Consider this: If you are training someone for a media interview, and you’ve given them nothing but bullet points, you have only given them an outline from which you now want them to ad lib.

Have you ever noticed that the most embarrassing interviews with reporters are the ones with bad ad-libs?

Have you ever noticed that the media crave a well-worded quote?

This is your call to action to stop believing that key messages should be bullet points. Key messages for media training should consist of well-worded, quotable sentences. Expert spokespeople speak in great, well-worded quotes and not in bullet points.

You are a good looking, intelligent, public relations professional who should stop repeating the mistakes of your public relations forefathers or foremothers, who believe bullet points are sufficient as key messages.

Crisis communication resources to help you protect your revenue, reputation, and brand.

Welcome to Our Crisis Communication Blog

Crisis Plan Truths

GM Hires Crisis Communication Expert

Postpone Your Crisis: Crisis Communication Wisdom with a Twist

Rural Electric Cooperative Communications: The Times Are Changing

Expert Advice for Media Training Key Messages

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