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Crisis Communications Podcast: Be Prepared to Protect Your Revenue, Reputation, and Brand

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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.

  1. Vulnerability Assessment
  2. Crisis Communications Plan
  3. Library of Pre-written news releases (Use SituationHub.com)
  4. Spokesperson media training
  5. Crisis communications drill

If these sound foreign to you, we take a deep dive into these five steps in the podcast.

Listen to the podcast here.

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

Crisis Communications Master Class: The Golden Hour

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Last week’s crisis communications master class focused on the golden hour, a very critical time for those facing a crisis. If your company is facing a crisis, you must issue a statement to employees, the media, customers, and other stakeholders within one hour or less of the situation becoming known to the public. If you fail to communicate during the crisis communications golden hour, the narrative will get captured by others who may not know all of the facts.

What they post to social media will likely damage your revenue, reputation, and brand. The effects of that damage can be long-lasting. In this master class, we talk with Doug Levy, author of The Communications Golden Hour. Your host is SituationHub Founder and crisis communications expert Gerard Braud. The SituationHub crisis communications software platform can not only help you communicate effectively during the crisis communications golden hour, but SituationHub can actually write your first communications statement in 1-3 minutes. It turns the golden hour into the golden minutes.

Replay – Free Master Class – The Crisis Communications Golden Hour

Minutes and seconds count in a crisis. If you missed Thursday’s free Master class, the replay is now online.

Use this link to access the content.

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.

We discuss:

  • How to organize communications so that crucial information gets out fast
  • Why some messages work better than others
  • How to choose the right words
  • Skills to be an effective spokesperson
  • What you need to know about special populations or other unique factors in your audience

Your free registration for this Master Class is a gift from SituationHub.com. If your company has the potential to experience a crisis (and you know it does),

SituationHub is the fastest way to:

  • Gather the facts
  • Confirm the facts
  • Notify your crisis team
  • Write a statement for the media, your employees, and stakeholders.
  • …and do it all in a remarkable 3-10 minutes.

Be well; Be safe,

The SituationHub Team

SituationHub.com makes crisis communications move at the speed of social media. 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/#demo

CONNECT: https://twitter.com/situationhub

VISIT OUR SITE: https://www.situationhub.com/

Facebook Crisis Communication Lessons

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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.  

Essentially, Haugen confirmed how the algorithms focus on your bad news and get your crisis event in front of more eyeballs on Facebook, while your good news perishes. It’s why we strongly urge our clients NOT to use Facebook as part of their crisis communications strategy. A key takeaway line from social media marketing expert Jay Baer was his observation that you should never build your house on rented property, i.e. Facebook is rented property. You are better to build your house on your website.

We’ve often defined a crisis as any event that can damage an organization’s reputation, revenue, and brand. This week, Facebook is the poster child of crisis communication lessons.

  • A whistleblower calls out Facebook’s algorithms on 60 Minutes
  • Facebook’s stock value immediately takes a nosedive
  • Social media lights up with #DeleteFacebook
  • The whistleblower calls out Facebook’s algorithms before Congress
  • Facebook crashes
  • Facebook is slow to issue a crisis communications statement about its own crisis

Facebook’s response and behavior are very similar to how big tobacco and big chemical behaved in the 1970s. The chemical industry has made huge strides in their efforts to reduce chemical emissions, as well as in their crisis response. Big tobacco has seen their clientele disappear as it attempts to morph into a vaping business.

The Facebook crisis communications lessons will continue. Winston Churchill once said,

“Never waste a good crisis.”

To that extent, we believe that every crisis is a living classroom and worthy of your attention so you can learn from the success or failure of others in crisis. The lessons learned should serve as an incentive for you to engage in the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, so you can have the tools to communicate effectively should you face a crisis. 

The Facebook crisis is a treasure trove of how not to handle a crisis. We suspect things will get much worse in the days and weeks ahead.

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

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Crisis Communications Tip: Mind the Gap

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Today’s crisis communications tip is to Mind the Gap. There is a gap of time between the flashpoint of your crisis and the time in which your first crisis news release statement is released to the world. You need to communicate the truth. If you fail to do so, you create a Truth Gap.

If you’ve been to the London subway, you’ve seen signs that say, “Mind the Gap.” There is a gap between the subway station platform and the subway train door. If you don’t “mind the gap” you will step into a gap that will injure or kill you. In crisis communications, if you don’t mind the gap, you will injure or kill your revenue, reputation, and brand.

My challenge to you is to close the gap in your crisis communications process in order to release a statement to the media, your employees, and your other key stakeholders much faster than ever before.

In a previous blog, we talked about how the SituationHub.com crisis communications software application can transform the Crisis Communications Golden Hour into Golden Minutes.

Social media has made the gap in crisis communications worse because Twitter and Facebook Live are telling the story in the first minute, while most companies take three or more hours before they release a statement to the media, their employees, and other key stakeholders.

Close the Gap

The three best ways to close the gap include:

  1. Write a crisis communications plan that dictates speed.
  2. Use the SituationHub.com app to write news releases in 3-5 minutes or have a library of pre-written news release statements as Microsoft Word documents.
  3. Hold regular crisis communications drills to test your plan, your process, and your people.

Regarding #1, most crisis communications plans only outline a list of tasks to be done. Very few light a fire under anyone’s butt. Your plan needs to light that fire. Speed is king.

One secret to speed is for your plan to outline how you can release small bits of information a little at a time.

You don’t need to know everything before you say anything.

As long as you are accurate and you do not speculate, a little information is better than no information and it is better than waiting until you know everything. Simply close the statement by saying,

Members of our team are gathering additional information and we will share that information with you as soon as possible.

Regarding #2, most crisis communications plans have holding statements. I like a feature in the SituationHub app called “The First Critical Statement.” Depending upon the situation, the app will ask you 10 to 20 questions, then based on your answers it will automatically write your holding statement. It covers the basics that all reporters want to know, such as who, what, when, and where. To the delight of your lawyers, why and how are addressed in sentences that deflect speculation. And to add a cherry on top of your news release statement, lawyers and executives can pre-approve the language the day you subscribe to the app, rather than on the day of your crisis when seconds count.

At the time we are writing this, SituationHub offers 50 to 75 detailed news releases for a variety of companies, including electric companies, chemical companies, credit unions and banks, schools and universities, and general businesses. We’re told that the app will be adding government and healthcare options next.

Regarding #3, a crisis communications drill lets you make mistakes in private, so you don’t make mistakes in public. This allows you to test your plan to make sure it works as designed. You also get to test the ability of your people to follow directions and evaluate who goes “off script.” You get to test your ability to mind the gap and close the gap with pre-written news release statements. You also get to test your spokespeople in mock news conferences.

Oh, and regarding spokespeople and news conferences, the SituationHub crisis communications software also generates a written script for spokespeople to read at a news conference. The script pre-answers questions before they are asked by reporters, thereby reducing the number of questions asked during the news conference.

In conclusion, the gap is closing on you because of social media. Take steps today to mind the gap by putting tools in place on a clear sunny day, in order to be your best on your darkest day.

Here are some resources to help you on your crisis communications journey:

  • There are several good videos on the SituationHub page that show the app in action
  • Visit the BraudCast Channel on YouTube for tons of content
  • Dig through our blog for decades of content

The Crisis Communications Golden Hour

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The crisis communications golden hour is all about the emphasis for companies in crisis to take bold, decisive steps in the first hour, in order to manage both the crisis and the public’s perception of the crisis.

But the crisis communications golden hour really needs to be reduced to the crisis communications golden minutes.

Have you heard about SituationHub.com? It is a new crisis communications software application that allows a company to quickly gather information about a crisis and generate a news release or crisis statement in 3 to 5 minutes.

SituationHub is a game-changer because it is the first time crisis communications can move at the speed of social media.

The flaw with the crisis communications golden hour concept is that Twitter and Facebook Live happen during the first minute of a crisis. SituationHub closes the gap because it automates the crisis communications process, and it automates the writing of a news release or crisis statement.

SituationHub has forced me to re-write my crisis communications plan template. For more than 25 years my crisis communications plans have evolved, but when one of my clients uses SituationHub, the first five chapters of my crisis communications plan becomes five sentences:

  • Log into SituationHub.com
  • Select your situation
  • Answer the questions
  • Alert your internal crisis team
  • Publish your statement for the media, employees, customers, and stakeholders

The One Hour Rule

Historically, we know that the longer it takes a company to issue a statement about a situation or crisis, the more damage that company is likely to experience to its revenue, reputation, and brand.

Historically, my crisis communications plans dictated that the user must issue a statement to the media, employees, and all stakeholders within one hour or less of the onset of the crisis going public.

That’s worked for me, but in the back of my mind I’ve been thinking, “That’s still 59 minutes after the first Tweet or Facebook post.”

The Three Hour Reality

I’ve studied crisis situations in my days as a television reporter and my second career in crisis communications. In most cases, more than three hours pass between the flashpoint of the situation and the release of the first statement. That is unacceptable!

Why is this?

  1. Most companies fail to write a proper crisis communications plan on a clear sunny day.
  2. Most companies fail to have a library of pre-written news releases for their crisis events. Hence, valuable time is lost writing a first draft statement, then having that statement marked up and edited by executives, then waiting for the second draft, then waiting for more edits, then releasing a final draft.

Hopefully, more organizations will discover SituationHub and turn the crisis communications golden hour into the crisis communications golden minutes.

Here are some resources to help you on your crisis communications journey:

How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan? Use Pre-Written News Releases

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

Two of the most popular crisis communication searches on Google are for these questions:

  • How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan?
  • Do I need a Crisis Communication Plan?

As I sit writing this, I also have an expert eye on the television, where a real crisis is playing out. A massive explosion at an industrial facility has rocked a community and there is no official statement from the company after more than four hours.

Yes, every company needs a crisis communications plan.

Take this quick test:

  • Could a workplace shooting happen where you work?
  • Could an executive be accused of sexual harassment?
  • Could someone be killed or injured in the workplace?
  • Could a natural disaster such as a tornado, hurricane, earthquake or snow storm affect your operations, your employees, and/or your customers?

If you answered yes to any one of the above questions, you need a crisis communication plan. Chances are, you answered yes to all four questions. You need a crisis communication plan.

This is part three or our New Year’s series. Today we look at the third step out of the five steps to effective crisis communications.

Step 3: Pre-Written News Releases

For every vulnerability discovered in your Vulnerability Assessment that we discussed in Step 1 two weeks ago, you should write a pre-written news release. When writing a crisis communication plan for my clients, each organization is given an immediate library of 100 pre-written news releases from my personal library of news releases.

Last week in Step 2: Write Your Crisis Communications Plan, we discussed the importance of being specific in your instructions. One of those should be that within one hour or less of the onset of a crisis going public, your organization should issue a statement to the media, your employees, and other key stakeholders. The secret to fast communications is to have a library of pre-written news releases.

Your Pain, Problem & Predicament

At most organizations, when a situation ignites into a crisis, these things consistently happen:

  • Everyone is consumed by the “fog of war.”
  • Someone sits at a computer, opens a blank Word Document, and they begin to write a news release or statement.
  • After 30 minutes to an hour, the writer presents the statement to a group of executives.
  • The executives fight over the language and debate commas. This often goes on for up to an hour.
  • The writer crafts draft two, based on the feedback.
  • A second review happens with more changes.
  • A final statement is drafted, approved, and released.
  • On average, three and a half hours have passed.
  • While the statement was being written, the media have been speculating, employees have been engaged in rumor sharing, social media has turned public opinion against your organization, and your organization’s revenue, reputation and brand have taken a hit.

Stop

Stop being a part of the same vicious cycle we have witnessed since the dawn of the industrial age.

Start

Start at the beginning of this year to formulate and execute a system that can sustain your organization for decades to come. Start implementing the five steps to effective crisis communications.

Begin now. Today could be the day you have a crisis.

Set dates on your calendar now for when you plan to implement each of the five steps of effective crisis communications.

Your goal should be to do the hard work on a clear, sunny day, so that you are not in a panic of indecision on your worst day.

When you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

When you fail, prepare to see damage to your organization’s revenue, reputation, and brand.

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:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash

How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan Part 2

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

As we enter the third full week of January, we’ll look at how to write a crisis communications plan. If you’ve followed these articles and videos since the beginning of the year, you know that you are being challenged to abandon news year’s resolutions in favor of consistency in behavior, not just for this year, but throughout the life of your organization.

Think of crisis communications expertise as a five step process, called the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications. Think of a crisis communications plan as number three of those five steps.

This week we look at the heart of your crisis communications plan. This is the written document that is the instruction book that one would follow to know exactly what to do, when to do it, to whom specific tasks are assigned, and how fast those tasks must be completed.

  • What to do.
  • When to do it.
  • Who does it.
  • How fast must it be done.

As for what to do, the crisis communications plan must outline how you gather information, confirm that information, and then disseminate that information.

  • Gather information.
  • Confirm information.
  • Disseminate information.

While those are the foundational elements, getting it perfect is difficult and time consuming. When writing my first plan, I put 9 months of work into the document. All these years later, that base document allows me to customize crisis communications plan for clients in five hours. But it was the outrageously hard to get the first plan written, so be patient. Forgive yourself on those days when you want to give up. Also, recognize that if you have other daily tasks to perform, finding the time will be a huge challenge.

Add two other goals to the process of writing your crisis communications plan. Aim to make the plan as thorough and detailed as possible, such that nothing falls through the cracks, yet make it so simple to follow that anyone who can read can execute it.

  • So thorough that nothing falls through the cracks.
  • So simple that anyone who can read can execute it.

Do not make the crisis communications plan simply a policy manual. Instead, make it a document that the lead communicator actually reads and follows in real time during a crisis. What does that mean?

Most crisis communications plans I’ve read are six page documents that say basic things such as, “Consider if you need to call a news conference.” Instead, list the conditions in which a news conference would be called, pre-determine multiple locations where it could be held, identify who your potential spokespeople will be, identify who will write the news release, outline the approval process, and outline the steps needed to prepare for the news conference.

  • News conference parameters.
  • Pre-determine locations.
  • Pre-determine potential spokespeople.
  • Pre-determine who will write the news release and press conference script.
  • Outline the approval process.
  • Outline the steps for a news conference rehearsal.

The fatal flaw with most crisis communications plans is that they are so vague, they require people in the organization to make too many decisions on the day of the crisis. This leads to arguments, debates, and delays.

The more specific your plan, the more terrific. For example, designate a timeline for completing each task. My plans state that a public statement needs to be released within one hour OR LESS, from the onset of the crisis going public. Most organizations take from three to four hours to release their first statement because 1) decisions have not been pre-made and 2) because news releases are not pre-written.

The secret to speedy communications involves relying on pre-written news releases. That is the third step in the five steps to effective crisis communications. We’ll tackle that next week.

In the meantime, take a look at your calendar and map out time for when you will tackle the task of writing your crisis communications plan. If you have questions, use this link to schedule a free 15-minute phone call with me to talk about your needs. If you wish to tackle this task on your own I’ll provide guidance and answer your questions. If you want me to carry the burden for you, in two days I can help you customize a plan and provide you with 100 pre-written news releases. The option is yours to decide which is best for you.

Which ever way you choose, make your crisis communications plan a priority. Aim to finish it in the first three months of the new year.

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:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

How to Get Crisis Communications Training on Your 2020 Calendar

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

December is filled with end of year meetings, budget reviews, and overall wrap up of your budget year. Not to mention your calendar is booked with office parties, gift-giving, and a to-do list the length of your arm.

That’s why January is the time to plan your crisis communications strategy for 2020. Before you just stroll in to the New Year and get back to the grind, let your C-suite, your executives, your public relations team, your communications staff know in DECEMBER that there will be crisis communication training and media training on the books EARLY in 2020. If you need help explaining this to your staff and team members, view this video:

Start by learning about the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications. Now is the time to encourage your team that they can spread the project out into manageable tasks over the four quarters of the year. A free 5-part video series is online here to get you started:

  • Quarter 1 is the time to conduct your Vulnerability Assessment, which is Step 1. Mid-Quarter 1 is the time to write your Crisis Communications Plan, which is Step 2.
  • Quarter 2 is the time to write Pre-written News Releases as Step 3, based on your Vulnerability Assessment.
  • Quarter 3 is when you should conduct Media Training as Step 4, based on the pre-written news releases you have written.
  • Quarter 4 is when you should conduct your Crisis Communications Drill, which is Step 5, based on completion of all of the previous steps.

Once you make the commitment to more effective crisis communications, I’m here to help you achieve your goals and I’m standing by to be your accountability buddy. When you sign up for the free 5-part video series, you’ll be given a chance to schedule a free 15-minute phone call with me to help you set your goals.

If you are the type to take the bull by the horns, and if you are ready to put things on the fast track, Steps 1, 2 and 3 can be completed in as few as two days with my fully customizable crisis communications plan system.

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:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

When is the Flash Point of a Crisis?

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC

In crisis communications, experts will tell you that speed is important. As a benchmark, in every crisis communications plan I write, the organization is expected to issue their first statement about their crisis within one hour or less of the crisis becoming known to the public. This can be considered your flash point.

In the world of fire and combustion, the flash point is that moment in which the heat rises to a level at which a flame is generated.

Apply this thinking to crisis communications. Think of there being two types of crises:
1. A Smoldering Crisis
2. A Sudden Crisis

A smoldering crisis can be compared to a bunch of oily rags in a hot garage. It takes a while for them to get hot. When they reach a certain temperature they start to smoke and smolder. As the temperature goes up further it all bursts into flames. We have a flash point.

A sudden crisis can be like a lightening bolt striking a house. The flash point is instantaneous. A sudden crisis can also be compared to striking a match. The flash point is instantaneous.

So in crisis communications, a smoldering crisis may be something such as an accusation of embezzlement or executive misbehavior. Internally a complaint may be filed or questionable practices may be uncovered and exposed. Certain internal decision makers know of this potential crisis, but the outside world does not.

In this type of smoldering crisis, the crisis communications team should receive a confidential briefing and they should immediately prepare a statement for all stakeholders. But initially, the organization is under no obligation to immediately issue a statement. The organization has time to decide their crisis management response, i.e. will the suspect employee be fired, suspended, etc.

The crisis management team also has a number of considerations.
• Whether this information can be kept private or if there is a high probability that the outside world will find out
• Sometimes, there is a legal obligation to tell the outside world
• Sometimes legal authorities are involved

In this type of smoldering crisis, the organization determines the flash point, defining it as the moment that they issue a statement to stakeholders, such as employees, the media, stockholders, customers, or any of the many variations of stakeholders.

If you fail to create your own flash point, your organization runs the risk of an outsider triggering the flash point, which immediately positions your organization in a defensive posture. Triggering the flash point yourself usually earns you more credibility with your stakeholders.

In a sudden crisis, the flash point is determined by the crisis. If your organization experiences an explosion, the flash point of the explosion is the flash point of your crisis and triggers your crisis communications clock. That clock is the mandate to issue a statement to the outside world within one hour or less of the onset of the crisis.

In the 5 Steps to Effective Communications, all 5 steps come into play regarding flash points.
1. During your Step 1 Vulnerability Assessment, you should identify the sudden crises and the smoldering crises.
2. In Step 2 as you write your Crisis Communications Plan, you must spell out your response behavior options based on whether you experience a sudden crisis or a smoldering crisis.
3. In Step 3 when you write your library of Pre-written Statements, the wording must consider the type of language used in a smoldering crisis versus the types of sentences you might use in a sudden crisis.
4. In Step 4, when you conduct Media Training, your spokespeople should be taught how to conduct a news conference and an employee meeting for both sudden and smoldering crises.
5. In Step 5, when you conduct your Crisis Drill or exercise, don’t fall into the trap of always holding an exercise that only deals with disasters and sudden crises. Mix in some smoldering issues as well.

Whether the flash point of your crisis is slow or the flash point of your crisis is sudden, effective crisis communications helps you put the bad news behind you so you can move on to recovery.

Should you need my assistance to accomplish any of the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications, you can register for the 5 video course on the right hand sidebar of this blog, or reach me at 985-624-9976.

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:

How to Use Social Media for Crisis Communications

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson

Photo

5-Day Crisis Communications Challenge Synopsis

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By Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC 

In January 2019, you were issued a dare to participate in the 5 Steps to Effective Crisis Communications Video Course. Some of you have taken the challenge and you’ve become expert communicators. Some of you kicked the can down the road. No worries can-kickers. You can become a crisis communications expert in the four remaining months of 2019.

Last week, we issued a 5-Day Crisis Communications Challenge. With only four months left in 2019, you are being challenged to focus on your crisis communications plan with crisis preparation, crisis practice, and ultimately, a focus on how you can be the expert who achieves crisis perfection. Just take one day, one step at a time, viewing these five brief videos and articles to help you get moving in the right direction.

On Monday, we discussed what a Vulnerability Assessment is, and why you need to start writing down every sort of situation that could become a crisis that would cause you to generate a possible crisis response for your organization.

Crisis Plans, Crisis Preparation, Crisis Practice & Crisis Perfections = Crisis Communications Expert

On Tuesday, we talked about how to begin managing your communications with a crisis communications plan, and the differences of those crisis plans that don’t work (think checklists), versus ones that really work.

How to Write a Crisis Communications Plan That Works?

On Wednesday, we discussed the importance of writing pre-written news releases and how to write the perfect news release to address every item listed on your Vulnerability Assessment.

How to Write News Releases for Your Crisis Communications Plan?

On Thursday, we discussed what happens when you do not send out a spokesperson to release a public statement within the first hour of a crisis, and media training tips for the spokesperson you select.

How to Media Train a Spokesperson for a Crisis?

Finally, on Friday we explained what a Crisis Communications Drill is and how to conduct a realistic, effective drill for your organization, in order to practice on a sunny day, what your organization might face on their darkest day.

How to Do a Crisis Simulation Exercise?

There they are. The steps you need to take to move in the RIGHT direction. The steps you need to be BOLD and start the conversation in your organization no one is willing to have. Watch the videos, share the videos, share the articles with your colleagues who could benefit from them.

Oh, and the dare to complete the 5-step video course still stands. I challenge you to take 10 minutes a day for five days to watch, learn, then implement the five steps. Register with this link.

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:

Please Pick Me to be Your Media Trainer

The Biggest Lie in Crisis Communications

4 Steps Every Company Needs to Take in Order to Avoid the Default Spokesperson