Beware the Ides of March: Wisdom for Crisis Communications & Public Relations

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The phrase, “Beware the Ides of March,” has always been a favorite chant of mine.

Beware the Ides of March

Billy or B-Shakes, to his friends, also known formally as William Shakespeare, penned the line for his play Julius Caesar. A soothsayer warns Caesar, “Beware the Ides of March,” forewarning that Julius would be killed on… you guessed it, March 15th, the Ides of March. Twenty-three stab wounds right there in the Roman Senate sent Caesar to his grave, as he looked at his lead assassin and one-time friend, Brutus, and said, “Et tu, Brute?” which translates into, “And You Too, Brutus?”

Why should you care? What should this inspire et tu to do?

Like the soothsayer, I’m soothing to you that today and every year, March 15 is a great day to evaluate what might go wrong – fatally or not – within your organization.

In the world of Crisis Communications, we call it a Vulnerability Assessment. Today is a great day to conduct a Vulnerability Assessment.

A Vulnerability Assessment is the first step you should take before sitting down to write your Crisis Communications Plan. Your plan needs to anticipate all that might go wrong, so that you can have a pre-written communications template in your Crisis Communications Plan that addresses each vulnerability.

Hence, if your vulnerability assessment identifies 95 likely vulnerabilities, you’ll want to write 95 templates, which will sit in the addendum of your plan. That way, if and when that event actually happens, you can communicate quickly to the media, employees and other key stakeholders, because you’ll be simply filling in the blanks on your template, rather than staring at a blank computer screen and writing from scratch while under pressure, with, of course, people looking over your shoulder while you write. Best of all, these templates can be pre-approved by your executives and Crisis Management Team. This will eliminate that exhausting exercise in which non-writers try to wordsmith and re-write your communiqué, when you are under pressure to beat the clock.

As you assess your vulnerabilities, remember that you must consider the smoldering issues as well as the sudden issue. The smoldering issues will include things like executive misbehavior, internal theft. Penn State’s scandal is a perfect example of a smoldering crisis, which eventually reached a flash point. The sudden crises are the ones most people can name quickly, such as a fire, explosion or shooting at your facility.

I’m here to tell you, as your official soothsayer, that something is going to go wrong where you work and if you’re in PR, you’ll need to communicate to the media, your employees and other stakeholders. Heck, the Mayan’s are even forecasting the end of the world. Shouldn’t that be reason enough to make this Ides of March your day to prepare?

For details on how to conduct a successful Vulnerability Assessment, give me a call at 985-624-9976.

If you’d like to write a complete Communications Plan in just 2 days, I hold the secret that will allow you to complete a year’s worth of work using your team and working their fingers to the bone for 2 days.

Media Training Tip: What to do Before the End of the World

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The Mayan calendar ends in December 2012 and many have wondered if this signals the end of the world. One colleague jokingly asked me if her company could forgo Media Training and writing a Crisis Communications Plan in 2012, because the world may end. She has been putting off these tasks for two years. Each quarter she reminds me it is still on her to-do list, but that she neither has the time nor budget. I laugh and remind her that her company spends more time and money preparing for their company picnic than they would spend writing their Crisis Communications Plan.communications planning photo

So I asked, “If the world were to end in 2012, do you think your company might face a series of cascading crises leading up to the end of the world?”

I’m not proclaiming the end is here, yet I’m not saying it might not happen. So I asked, “If we are headed to a gradual end rather than a single catastrophic day, might your company experience an earthquake in February, an explosion in March, civil unrest in April, financial troubles in May and so on?”

The colleague responded with a look of doom and said, “Hum, I haven’t thought of that.”

The fact is, whether you believe the end is coming or a series of events may happen leading up to the end, or whether you just use common sense, the reality is you are always better to be safe than sorry. If you fail to plan, then plan to fail. Just look at my 2011 Top 10 List of Mishandled Crises and you’ll see that most of these could happen to any organization. The list proves how unprepared big name organizations are when it comes to a crisis. It also proves how quickly millions of dollars can be lost in a single, poorly handled crisis. Reputations and careers can vanish quickly in a crisis.

As a supporter of always being opportunistic, I suggested to the colleague that she use “the end of the world” premise as a reason to revisit the plea with her boss to make 2012 the year they finally write a Crisis Communications Plan and put their executive team through comprehensive Media Training. Plus, I suggested starting the year with a good comprehensive writing retreat for her entire communications staff, so they can begin the calendar year with a great library of key messages to use in both good times and in bad.

If you are thinking about making 2012 a great year, here are the programs I’d suggest.

Kick-Butt Key Message – A one day writing retreat for your entire communications team. I’ll teach you my exclusive Key Message Tree writing system. I promise it will change the way you write forever.

Media Training – I always suggest a strong one-day course for starters. For best results, I suggest a maximum class size of four people, which allows each person time for three strong rounds of on-camera role playing. If you have a large team of potential spokespeople, plan on adding an extra day or two.

Executive Team Vulnerability Assessment – A well facilitated 3 hour Vulnerability Assessment will usually scare the pants off of everyone in the room. They’ll quickly see how prone to a crisis your organization is and how a well written Crisis Communications Plan will be their ticket to surviving a crisis. Gather your entire leadership team together for a life changing day.

Crisis Communications Plan – In just 2 days you can have an entire Crisis Communications Plan written. My exclusive system lets you use the strength of your team to accomplish a year’s worth of work in 2 days. And there are 3 pricing options, so one is bound to fit your budget. All 3 pricing options cost less than the company picnic!

Crisis Communications Drill – Every Crisis Communications Plan needs to be tested at least once a year. An intense 4-hour drill, followed by an honest evaluation after the drill, moves you and your executives one step closer to being ready to tackle a real crisis. And remember, the presence of Social Media in your Crisis Drill makes it more realistic and complicated.

If discussing these options will benefit you, just give me a call at 985-624-9976. Managing a crisis is no picnic and preparing to deal with a crisis costs far less than any company picnic.

Media Training Tip: Don’t Leave The Audience Thinking “What Does That Mean?”

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What bugs the ever living daylights out of me is hearing people speak in mumble jumble that they think means something, but it means nothing at all. This mumble jumble is corporate speak, buzzwords, jargon and government acronyms.media training gerard braud

I’m fortunate enough that people pay me an honorarium to speak at numerous conferences, corporate meetings and association meetings every month. I always make a point of listening to what other speakers say so I can incorporate their lessons into my presentation.

But many of the speakers fill their presentations with so many buzz words, jargon and mumble jumble that I find myself sitting in the audience asking, “What does that mean?” The speaker thinks they have said something profound, but they’ve really said nothing at all.

I hear things such as, “If we work in a customer centric capacity to increase productivity and to create a win-win situation for our partners in a collaborative fashion, then we can achieve our goals for the betterment of our strategic partners in the hopes of benefiting those with whom we do business?

What does that mean?

Were you trying to say put customers first?

What is a win-win situation? (With all due respects to Steven Covey…)

What are examples of collaboration?

What are the goals?

Who are the strategic partners?

Please, spell it out. Please give me meaningful examples. Please give me tangible examples. Please give me anecdotes. Please communicate with real words. Please put some emotion into your communications. Please make the communications more visual by describing who and what you are talking about.

Would those words work at career day with a 6th grade class? A friend of mine uses this test: If you said it to your grandparents at Thanksgiving dinner, would they know what you mean?

Let’s touch on one other important point that I find in the politically correct world, especially among non-profit organizations. There is a propensity to say things in a way that will not offend the people that you serve. However, in the process of crafting your statement with sensitivity, you become so ambiguous that no one really knows what you are talking about, including… and sometimes most importantly, even the people they are trying to help. That’s right — the people you are trying to help don’t know what you mean, because the organization is being so sensitive and so politically correct.

If you keep changing the labels and the terminology out of sensitivity, the audience, the reporter and the people you serve will be left asking, “What does that mean?” This could lead to you accusing the reporter of taking you out of context and it affects your bottom line when you use terms that your audience cannot understand because of the politically correct ambiguity.

Consultants and trainers are also guilty of trying to coin clever phrases. A few years ago my wife, who works at a small private school, mailed out the class schedule for the fall semester. Her phone started ringing off the hook because after years of promoting the school’s top notch computer lab, computer classes were no longer listed on the class schedule. She told concerned parents she would check it out and get back to them. As it turns out, someone on the school staff had taken the term computer class off of the schedule and replaced it with the term “information literacy.” Yes, it seems someone had gone to a summer workshop in which the trainer/consultant preached that “it’s so much more than just knowing the mechanics of a computer, the internet and the programs – It’s really about ‘information literacy.’” What does that mean? It’s a dumb term. Call it what it is. It’s computer class.

If you’d like more examples from my “What Does that Mean?” file I have a great PDF that I’d be happy to share with you so you can share with the offenders. It is available as a download at www.braudcasting.com

Call or email me to talk about your media training and crisis communications training needs:

Direct: 985-624-9976

Email: Gerard@BraudCommunications.com

Media Coach Training Tip: Fight for your Reputation! How to Respond to Negative Media Attention

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I find it unbelievable that in the 21st century we still find executives who don’t want to take on a reporter or news outlet that has wrongly damaged their reputation.

The traditional way of responding to a media outlet that makes a factual error is to ask the management for a retraction. But sometimes the issue is not always factual but a difference in your point of view. If a newspaper does a hatchet job on you, the correct way to respond is to always write a letter to the editor. The letter should be short and to the point, with about 200-400 words. In some cases, you may want to ask 3rd party supporters to also write short letters on your behalf.

Yet, I still find executives who say, “We’re not going to respond. Just let it die. You can’t get in a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” That statement was wrong 50 years ago and it is even more wrong today.

In the past, a negative story may have run on TV or radio once or twice for 60-90 seconds, and then it was gone. In the past, a negative story appeared in the newspaper for just one day, and then the paper was thrown out, never to be seen again.Braud Communications Training web photo

But the internet has changed all of that. Today, those negative stories live on in archives on the internet forever. Additionally, media websites are among the highest ranked websites on the internet because their information is deep, the site is constantly updated, and it is perceived by search engines as highly credible. The media sites are so highly ranked that if your organization or name is mentioned in a news report, the media website could come up as a higher ranked site on the internet than your own site.

What this means is that if I do an internet search for your name, or that of your organization, I may see and read the negative things written about you on a media website before I read the positive stuff about you on your own web site.

So what do you do?

Well, just as always, if it is a newspaper that has damaged your reputation, you should write a letter to the editor as I’ve outlined above. That letter to the editor now becomes part of the online archive linked to the story. That way, in the future, when people stumble across the story they will immediately find your point of view as well.

In the case of radio and TV, you should place your comments on the media outlet’s blog on their website. Please be aware that other web users and opponents may verbally attack you and your comments once they are on the media outlet’s blog. You need to be ready to clearly state your case.

Additionally, you may wish to place a response on your own website and blog. Blogs are highly valued by search engines and will help counter the negative comments from the original story.

Finally, don’t take it personally. Your response is as important as a business decision. Hire professional PR writers to help if necessary. They will take the issue less personally and likely choose better words that may temper any anger you are feeling.

Media Coach Training Tip: Control the Interview Questions with Leading Answers

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I want you to think for a moment about the last interview you did with a reporter. The reporter asks you a question then you start talking. Think very carefully now – what were you wondering the entire time you were answering the question?

In most cases, my media training students will confess that the entire time they were talking, they were thinking, “I wonder what the reporter is going to ask me next.”

Well here’s a little confession – Most of the time while I was a reporter, the entire time people were answering my question I was wondering what I was going to ask them next.

This means that in most interviews, both people are distracted, wondering what the next question will be and therefore neither is really concentrating on what the current answer is.

Therein lies the biggest problem in most interviews and therefore the greatest opportunity.

Gerard Braud media trainingHere is what you need to know about reporters to fully understand how the interview will go down. In most cases, the reporter has no written, prepared questions before the interview. And chances are the reporter has not done an extensive amount of advanced research.

If you are dealing with an investigative reporter or a television network news magazine, you can expect the reporter has done more research and has some specific questions to ask. But in your average interview for your average story I would estimate that 80-90% of the time, the reporter is going to make up the questions on the spot when the interview begins.

The interview will start with “soft” questions, designed to help you relax and get into your comfort zone. As the interview progresses, the questions will become more direct and possibly more negative.

But here is the big secret – How you answer the current question will dictate what the next question is. Even more specifically, the words you use at the end of your answer will often be used by the reporter to craft the next question.

In other words, the reporter will mirror your language right back to you in a form of a question. For example, if my final words are, “…the challenges we’ll face next year will eclipse the challenges we face this year…” what do you think the next question will be?  The reporter will ask, “What are the challenges you expect to face next year?”

To test this theory, watch a TV news anchor talking to the reporter who is live on the scene of an event. The anchor will ask a question and the reporter will repeat part of the question back to the anchor as part of their answer.

Mary the Anchor: “Bob, it sure looks like a disaster zone out there…”

Bob the Reporter: “It sure is a disaster zone out here Mary…”

I’ve developed a system for crafting answers that foreshadows the things that I want to talk about in an interview, followed by a “cliff hanger” or a sentence that creates some suspense. The trick is to always stop short of giving all of the details about something and to make the reporter want to know more. You want to make the reporter ask you a logical follow up question.

Observe news anchors tossing questions to reporters on live locations and in your next interview try to create a few “cliff hangers” that will make the reporter ask you the logical follow up question that you want.

This technique makes life easy for the reporter because they never have to think very hard about their next question. You, therefore, are controlling the interview and the questions. The reporter is just following along.

Media Training of the Future for Your Emergency Operations Center, Emergency Manager, and Public Information Officer

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How to Improve Your Crisis Communication During a Disaster

It was a surprise to many Emergency Managers and Public Information Officers. After being in demand for telephone interviews during Tropical Storm Lee on September 3-5, 2011 near New Orleans, The Weather Channel opted to start taking live reports from a resident on the front porch of his home on Lake Pontchartrain in Mandeville, LA. In some instances, the live reports from this citizen were more compelling and ran higher in the broadcast than The Weather Channel’s own reporter in New Orleans.

That resident is Gerard Braud (Jared Bro). Yes, I’m that Gerard Braud — a former storm chaser and television reporter turned media trainer and crisis communications trainer.

So how and why did the Weather Channel select me. Well, I knew I was seeing something more compelling than anyone else was offering to the network and my journalistic instincts kicked in. I could show images of waves crashing out of Lake Pontchartrain, flooding streets and yards.

I was also able to use the newest technology to bring viewers across the nation directly into the rising floodwaters, while Emergency Managers and Public Information Offices were locked inside Emergency Operations Centers using old technology, otherwise known as the telephone.Braud Communications Plan Flood

Every Emergency Manger and Public Information Officer needs to recognize times are changing and they must change with those times. They must adopt a combination of new Media Training techniques that also teach how to use new technology such as iPhones, iPads and Skype software, in order to report live on the scene for the media.

If you would like to learn more, please download this article that explains how Emergency Managers, Emergency Operations Centers and Public Information Officers can master this new technology as part of their Crisis Communications Plan.

Social Media Revolutions & How to Write a Social Media Policy

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How to Write Your Social Media Policy
March 1st Webinar

Plus the Social Media Revolution – What You Can Learn from Global Events

The time is NOW. Social Media is changing nations. But are you watching from the sidelines or digging in and learning how this affects your communications where you work and with your audience. For all the benefits of Social Media, there is an ugly flip side most people won’t talk about, or fail to recognize, or turn a blind eye to. I’m ready to talk about it.

Join me March 1st for a powerful teleseminar that will cover 2 aspects of the dangers of Social Media. First, learn how to write a Social Media policy that is perfect for your company.  Then we discuss the impact of Social Media during a Crisis, what your leaders don’t understand about Social Media, and what you need to be aware of from this day forward.

Join us for this thought provoking webinar.

Just $79 for your entire team to listen and learn.

Register with this link

Top 3 Goals for Communicators in 2011

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When we look back at the last year and look ahead to this year, I see 3 things that every communicator should do in order to be successful.

The 3 things are:

1) Be strategic

2) Be opportunistic, and

3) Be Persistent

When communicators ask for advice, I often tell them to know the difference between your job and your purpose.

Why is this important? Because everything you do in your job each day should lead you in the direction of your strategic purpose. If it doesn’t lead to your strategic purpose, you shouldn’t be doing it.

One of the best corporate communications departments I’ve ever seen was at Best Buy. For a short time I stepped in as a Vice President and got to see the machine at work.

Each year the team built its strategic communications plans around the company’s strategies for customer service, employee relations, and corporate growth. Hence, all communications was built toward those goals.

Inevitably, during the year, people would rush in asking us to crank out a news release for something they thought was special. My sarcastic reply was, “ask them if they want a burger, fries and large drink with that news release.” In other words, we were not order takers, cranking out releases on demand. We were strategists who helped achieve corporate goals through communications.  We had a plan and we were sticking to it. We were not publicists.

So, #1 is, be strategic. Your job is not to take orders to write news releases. Your job is to know your strategic purpose and communicate toward that purpose.

# 2 is to be opportunistic.  Every year communicators want advice on “how to get a seat at the corporate table.” The answer is to always be opportunistic. So when something big happens in the news, that is the time to contact your leaders and ask for a meeting to discuss how a crisis might affect your company and what strategic communications tools need to be in place.

You’ll be shocked when you read this month’s article about a survey I conducted with IABC following the BP Oil Spill in 2010. It shows just how un-opportunistic communicators are.

For example, there was no better opportunity to get the time or money to write your crisis communications plan or to run your executives through media training, or to conduct a crisis drill, than during and after the BP oil spill. Yet, as you’ll see in the survey, most communicators missed the chance to be opportunistic and get a seat at the table to review long term crisis strategies, strategies that should be part of your annual communications plan.

Most people fail to realize that the crisis communications plan you wrote last year is obsolete or out of date if you don’t update it this year. And your spokespeople will perform as poorly as Tony Hayward if they don’t strategically set aside time in their schedule for media training, at least once a year.

Many communicators think some day they will be magically invited to take a seat at the corporate table. Don’t hold your breath. The only way to get a seat at the table is to be opportunistic and take it. Take the opportunity to show your leader you are looking out for them. Take the opportunity to let them see your face, hear your thoughts and realize you are a strategic thinker and not just an order taker. There are more tips in the article.

And #3 is to be persistent. Because of the recession, many people have had their budgets cut. But just because you are told “no” at the beginning of your calendar year or at the beginning of your budget year, doesn’t mean you can’t go back and ask for funds again later in the year, provided you have a good reason.  For example, if you are told at the beginning of your year that you can’t have funds for media training or a crisis communications plan or drill, go back and ask again while a big crisis is in the news. You see… this ties back to being strategic… and being opportunistic. Wise communicators who do this tell me their bosses almost always free up special funds for special training. Likewise, many CEOs have told me “no” doesn’t mean “no” forever. It only means “no” for right now, under the current conditions with the current reasons.

If you have questions about implementing these strategies, just give me a call at 985-624-9976 and we can talk further.

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Gerard Braud is a Sound Bit Stud – Coming Monday

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Media Training in New Orleans Lesson coming this Monday. Don’t miss the one-in-a-million quote.

Crisis Communications 2010 and the Tiger Woods Scandal

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By Gerard Braud

It’s hard to believe that in 2010, people can still screw up public relations, crisis communications, crisis management and media relations, as much as Tiger Woods and his handlers.

Friday’s statement by Woods was old school. It was bad. It was too little. It was too late.

The Gerard Braud school of crisis communications says you should issue a public comment within one hour or less of the onset of a crisis going public. That means a statement should have been issued the day of the accident.

It’s 2010 and we have YouTube.com. I would have had Woods post a short YouTube video the morning after the accident. Nothing fancy; a simple point and shoot video camera with Tiger on camera saying, “Hi, this is Tiger Woods. Last night I did something really stupid and embarrassing. While backing out my driveway I hit a fire hydrant. I over reacted, pulled forward and hit a tree. You can imagine how embarrassing this must be for me. I’m okay. I’m not injured. I appreciate the concern of my fans. At this time I simply need to repair my car and my ego.”

When you say nothing, you open the door to speculation. When Tiger said nothing, he opened the door to all of his affairs. Had he issued a statement, there is a good chance none of this would have ever gone public and he could have dealt with his infidelity in private.

Waiting three months to make an appearance is unacceptable in 2010. Also unacceptable is the idea that Woods had to do the statement live, reading from a script, and taking no questions from reporters.

Here are my observations: Read more