Being Prepared For A Crisis with Mark Williams

The recent CrowdStrike outage drew millions of businesses into a crisis, forcing many companies to enact their crisis plans. This event underscores how swiftly situations can arise that demand strong leadership in the face of a crisis. Today, we’re joined by PR expert Mark Williams from Hughes PR to discuss how we can prepare our businesses to handle these unexpected challenges and protect their reputations.

Key Topics Discussed:

1. Understanding Public Relations:

• Definition and importance of PR in business.
• How PR differs from marketing and advertising.

2. Building a Strong PR Strategy:

• Steps to create a compelling PR strategy.
• Importance of storytelling and crafting your brand narrative.

3. Crisis Management:

• Techniques for handling PR crises effectively.
• Real-world examples of successful crisis management, including the recent CrowdStrike outage.
• Importance of having a crisis management plan in place.

4. Media Relations:

• How to build and maintain relationships with the media.
• Tips for pitching stories to journalists and media outlets.

5. The Role of Social Media in PR:

• Leveraging social media for PR campaigns.
• Managing your online reputation.

6. Measuring PR Success:

• Key metrics to track PR performance.
• Tools and methods for evaluating the impact of PR efforts.

Guest Bio:

Mark Williams is a seasoned Public Relations professional with over 20 years of experience in the industry. He has worked with a diverse range of clients, from startups to Fortune 500 companies, helping them to build their brands and manage public perception. Mark is known for his strategic approach and his ability to turn potential PR disasters into opportunities for growth.

Transcript

Brenton Gowland: 0:00

In the last week, millions of businesses have been affected by the CrowdStrike outage and whether we've liked it or not. In some capacity, our businesses have been drawn into this crisis, whether it's our suppliers have been unable to trade our banks have been shut down, or our business itself has not been able to transact. So we've had to close the doors or delay customers significantly, and it's cost us a lot of money. But this is a crisis we've all been drawn into. And so today, we're going to be talking with our special guests, Mark Williams, from Hughes ber about crisis communication, and how to handle ourselves in a crisis to make sure that we stay on top of it. So, welcome to the Business Builders Podcast. I'm one of your hosts Brenton Gowland,

Ron Tomlian: 0:50

And I'm Ron Tomlian.

Brenton Gowland: 0:51

And this is Mark Williams from cspr. Hello, Mark, it's great to have you here.

Mark Williams: 0:55

Thank you very much for inviting me.

Ron Tomlian: 0:57

So Mark, tell us briefly about your experience in PR, and your involvement with crisis communications for your clients over the years.

Mark Williams: 1:06

Yeah thanks, Ron. So just a bit about my background. I started as a journalist at the news newspaper back when I was 17 years old, showing you exactly. From there progressed into sort of the public relations side of things, and I was a media advisor for both state and federal government. So I was in Premier Olsen's office and then premier Karen. And then from there moved into federal government working for Trish Werth who was Parliamentary Secretary for Health and then Robert hill when he was defense minister, so and then after that have joined us PR have been here for 18 years. That's a significant amount of time. Yeah. Well, I'd like the job security of not worrying about when the next cabinet reshuffle or election was. Yeah, that certainly has helped. But over the years, certainly working in government, you deal with a lot of issues and crises, Soviet built up experience over I've been in doing the media geek for more than 35 years now. So yeah, it's actually my comfort zone is helping customers with when things go slightly wrong.

Brenton Gowland: 2:14

So can you give us a bit of an overview of this crowdsite strike situation? And, and what we can learn from it? Because everyone's been affected by this in some way. Right?

Mark Williams: 2:23

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was that was huge. So look, I'll give you my personal experience, if that's okay, because, you know, we wouldn't hadn't know this happened, it was about two o'clock on a Friday afternoon. And my biggest client is Adelaide airport. And of course, they were very much caught up in this from two points of view, one there, they lost their computers. But also then the systems that they rely on, like the check in and baggage and all that sort of thing that are managed by external parties, they are also affected. What's important in a crisis is, is your preparation for whatever can go wrong and when it can go wrong. And I'm going to give my client kudos for that is they have a very well structured, very properly organized crisis management plan. So within literally 15 minutes of getting the call that something had gone wrong, everybody's on a crisis communications call, or sorry, a crisis management team call. From there, we we had calls, probably every sort of three quarters of an hour to an hour to get updates, we were able to get statements out to media about how the airport was being impacted, within sort of 20 minutes, half an hour of the first problems appearing. And it's just so well managed, you know, and it just points to the importance of having a plan in place, and also practicing those plans. And knowing what everybody's role is so that, you know, when things go wrong, there's contingencies built in if somebody's not there, somebody else steps in. And so I'd say from the airport point of view, it was managed very well, because we were keeping our customers and other business partners informed about what was happening.

Brenton Gowland: 4:12

So they stayed on top of it, interrupted you in the afternoon, I'm assuming. Isn't that how most processes work?

Mark Williams: 4:19

But that's that's the, you know, it's weirdly one of the things I love about issues and crisis management is you absolutely have no idea when the next crisis is coming. And, you know, two o'clock on the Friday on a Friday afternoon is when not when you expect to get a text saying jump on a crisis management team call in 15 minutes, we've got a problem. But again, the importance is that's the process that they have in place so you can react very quickly. And I mean, we might cover this later, but the speed at which you have to be able to react is important. You can't plan for a crisis. Once the crisis has already kicked off. It's too late. damage is already done. Because You know, the media are ringing you within minutes. If something happens, it's quite common that I might be on a call to a client. And they've said, Oh, we've got this issue or this crisis is developing. And while I'm on the call to, you know, the managing director or the operations manager, I'm already getting the first call through from a journalist, the advertiser or channel seven, whoever it is, they're already on it. And you have to respond very quickly. Because if you leave a vacuum, the media will fill it with whatever else they can find. So you want to be in control of the message that is coming out from your client.

Ron Tomlian: 5:35

So we've talked about an ITX crisis. For a lot of people who aren't used to this, what does a crisis what entails a crisis for an organization?

Mark Williams: 5:48

Well, it's, it's something that just has an immediate and profound impact on your business. So let's I suppose this from running through examples, some of them would be pretty obvious, like if you had a fire, a flood, natural disaster, workplace injury, death, is invariably going to end up in media. It depends on the industry you work in. So if I was to say aged care, for example, you will be, you know, a government sanction for you doing something wrong. And that information is made public and the media pick up on those sorts of things. If you if you're a food producer, it's a product recall. And you know, for a company that has to recall products from supermarkets, shelves, that's a crisis because that they, you know, not only do the media find out about those things, but you have to proactively report and enact a recall of your product. So, and then, of course, someone we've talked about the software glitch, but the other side of that, which is what everyone feared at the start of CrowdStrike. Was, was it a cyber attack? Or was it a cyber incident? And again, that can do a lot of damage to a company in a very big hurry?

Ron Tomlian: 6:58

Obviously, the media is a consideration a big consideration, as is, but is it only stuff that the media are going to be interested in?

Mark Williams: 7:06

No, it's you have to be cognizant of your customers, your staff, you know, suppliers clients, you know, you need to be ready to inform them what's going on, particularly with you that's going to impact delivery of your services or products to their market, they have to be made informed, your staff and massively important, you have to have your internal communications channels in place to be able to push something out to all of your staff, because if they're not all in the one place, they're scattered around the state, you have to be able to get that message out. And the other thing to remember the staff is it comes back to media, what a media do they if they don't know which number to ring during reception. So the very first person they talk to, is the person who answers your phones, you have to make sure that person knows exactly how to respond to that initial phone call from media. And it's, it sounds simple, but it's literally thank you for your call, can I grab your details, I'll make sure somebody gets back to you. That's eating its essence. But if that person doesn't know how to react, or just starts chatting to the journal about our or you heard about that digit, you know, it can all go wrong very quickly.

Brenton Gowland: 8:18

So this is all part of a crisis plan. I'm assuming because we've mentioned that already. Can you talk us through really in depth? How does a business set up a crisis plan? And then put that in place?

Mark Williams: 8:33

Yeah. So there's two parts one, I think any good business will have a crisis response plan. So let's just park the communication site. Straight up, they should have a crisis response plan. What does everybody in the business have to do when something goes wrong? You know, if you've got a workplace incident, you know an injury or death on the workplace, you have to know that you have to inform the relevant regulatory bodies such as Safe Work SAE, you have to know emergency services and might not be a triple o call they however, you have to manage that. And you have to know how you're talking to your stakeholders, your your clients and your suppliers. So that's step one. And then within that would say that communications plan, which is okay, so how are we communicating that to our clients, our suppliers, our staff, and you know, the media as well. So you need those plans in place. So you should have a crisis response plan. And either alongside that, or within that, a crisis communications plan that everybody is familiar with. And they know exactly what to do at that minute that a crisis kicks off.

Brenton Gowland: 9:41

So do you workshop what kind of crises could occur as part of that or do you? You don't just put them all into one bucket.

Unknown: 9:49

No, no we'll, so we can, we will tailor a crisis communications plan for the business because clearly an aged care business is different from a food producer is different from an airport as to what sort of crises they might encounter and how they have to manage it. So you can tailor it. And that's a lot to do with, you know, what's the message we want to get out at a particular time. But still, that the structure of it doesn't change much, which is about being very clear and concise about what everybody's roles are, and how they have to react. You know, some of the simple things like, if there's a workplace incident, who's rigging the family? You know, there's that that's not, that's not the communications plan that should be in your crisis response plan, what's your, what's your process for notifying the relevant people?

Ron Tomlian: 10:42

So you've got a script in the communications plan, or the communications plan provides you with a series of actions that everyone knows they should be taking. But very rarely, during crisis, I can imagine, does everything go to script? So what is the role of leadership in a crisis? And what does the how does the leader what are the important things for the leader to think about to maintain trust with all the stakeholders,

Unknown: 11:14

But it's the same with business, at any stage leadership is critical. But I'd also point out the leadership, it doesn't have to be the managing director or the CEO, often in a crisis, if it's an operational issue, it might be the operational manager who's leading it with the support of the managing director, and other people within the business. So you might have more than it sounds weird, but you might have more than one leader, dealing with a crisis, as long as everybody knows what their roles are and what their job is. And again, I point to the CrowdStrike, that with Adelaide airport, that people who rang in, so we had the operations manager, we had the Managing Director, we had the IT guys, we had the the customer service people, it's you have to cover all points of the business and all those touch points that were they have to communicate with their stakeholders so that everybody knows their role.

Brenton Gowland: 12:11

And how do you reckon that, from your point of view that the CrowdStrike team handled this crisis?

Mark Williams: 12:18

You mean CrowdStrike? itself? Yes, yeah, that's an interesting one. So I, you know, before this, I had a bit of a look online, just as evil pet. What did people think about how they handled it? Now? I thought, initially, what you can see now what helped was that they had a fix out in the market within sort of like, I think it was an hour or two. So that obviously helped. So within a couple of hours, businesses were able to start recovering their systems that that was point 1.2. Yes, they they had a statement out to the market to say, yep, we recognize this as an issue. The the managing director or the CEO made himself available for media. Again, very important to be in the three key words, I always use, open, honest, transparent. Stick to the facts. And don't don't think you can hide anything because the media will find out your stakeholders will find it your competitors will find out and that's really when you've got millions of businesses. Yeah, that's right. So look, they've you know, they've copped a bit of criticism, since for examples that they didn't say, sorry, straight off the bat. But I mean, at that precise moment, when that's kicking off, the very first thing you need to be doing is giving your clients the information they need to fix the problem. That's step one. And then since then, they have come out and apologized. And, you know, they've acknowledged that there's going to be compensation around this that....

Brenton Gowland: 13:44

Well they haven't acknowledged. There's going to be compensation. There will be conversations about compensation. Yes, sorry.

Unknown: 13:51

But yeah, and so what's at its absolute Ross form? What's the thing? What's a telltale sign about how well a business has handled it? If it's a publicly listed company has their share price? Yeah. So I'm happy to talk about another example of and this was well documented, because I'm four corners did a story on was when cuantas lost an engine over, I think it was our head landing at Singapore, and they lost an engine over I think, an Indonesian island. And this was back in the very early days of social media. And it was perfectly understandable. They thought, right, the planes, okay, we're gonna be able to land safely at Singapore Airlines, sorry, at Singapore. And then we'll be able to respond. Well, they didn't count on was bits of this engine that blew up landing on an island in the middle of nowhere. And then people taking photos and sharing on social media. So by the time the plane landed, there were media reporting that a Qantas plane had crashed, and this talks to the speed of how fast these things deliver. And Alan Joyce has acknowledged he said the first we realized something wasn't quite right was one our share price started to crash based On reports that a Qantas plane had crashed. Well hadn't. And that's been a that speaks to the speed and how fast you have to be able to react, particularly nowadays with social media, everything happens fast.

Brenton Gowland: 15:13

Yeah wow, that that really speaks to the business itself needs to be listening.

Mark Williams: 15:18

Yeah, yeah. Again, they can be criticized at the time for what happened. But the simple fact is, they just didn't see they just all the scenario planning pictures of, you know, engine parts on an island, probably wasn't part of this scenario planning.

Brenton Gowland: 15:35

Yeah. Wow, that's really interesting.

Ron Tomlian: 15:37

So and that that then plays into what communication channels do you need to think about? And so for a person or for business, that is dealing with a crisis, one of the most effective communication channels? Or what are the the communication channels, you need to think about as a leader? Handling a crisis? Yeah, so I suppose it's both new and old. So, of course, social media can play a big role in getting your message across. And from a PR perspective, media are absolutely watching company's social media feeds. So if they hear something's going on, they'll, they'll ring us. But they'll also go online to say, is the company saying anything on Facebook or Twitter or whatever. And that can be a very quick way to get your message out to your customers. But by default, also, although also the media, of course, that's not the only way, you know, you would have a media statement out to media as quickly as possible. But you would still be wanting to contact your staff, your stakeholders, I mean, that's as simple as emails, phone calls. Again, this comes back to everybody having a defined role about what they should be doing internal communications channels, Yammer, whatever, whatever you've got set up internally, get a message out to your staff, make sure that people in public facing roles know what's going on, because they get asked questions by people, so they need to know how to respond. And then again, depending on the industry, so say you've got a food recall you, one thing we would consider would be to set up a one 800 hotline. And there are companies that will set that up for you within, you know, half an hour, have a number ready that you can then push out to your customers. And it gives them a way to respond to you. And all of this talks to him. And as Brendan said, this is about listening as much as telling people what's going on. So that's what your customers your stakeholders want to know is that you're listening to them in a crisis as much as you're getting the message out to them. So keeping yourself informed, while you're also keeping them informed. You say yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Brenton Gowland: 17:54

And the other part to that is, there's a lot of moving parts that you've just mentioned, do you do, I guess, dry runs, like you do with a evacuation of a building on any of these kinds of plans? Yeah. So it'll depend on the company, um, how, how much of a public facing role they have. But you know, you major organizations in Adelaide airport, absolutely. We do dry runs of communications. And we look at it from two perspectives. One is, you know, we will do things like media training and crisis comms planning with the managing director or operations manager who might actually front media, but we do training as well for their public facing staff, their customer service teams, or whatever. And it's the how to respond to that very first inquiry from the customer or, you know, the media just rock up with the the cameras rolling and say, can you tell us what's going on? So it's just simple things like that to say, to stay calm, be able to tell them what you can tell them, but also referring them to the right people who can give them the right information. Okay, so you also said that sometimes you'll have multiple leaders in a situation, just how important is leadership in a crisis? And how do you lead a crisis?

Unknown: 19:11

Yeah, well, leadership's vitally important, but leadership is as much as the plans you have in place as well as the people who are enacting those plans. That's, you know, that's leadership is having everything ready. In case something goes wrong. One of our sayings is prepare for the worst hope for the best. And that's exactly what happens. So the managing director might be the person you put on camera, and they are ready to go with the lines. They know what to say. The or it could be the operations manager who has also been trained and ready to talk to media, if required. So it's a judgment call based on the crisis and how it's unfolding. Um, But as long as you know, what are people looking for, they're looking to see that somebody is in control. So, you know, the crises that go off the rails are the ones where nobody's quite sure who's in charge. The ones that are well handled, which you may not even hear about, you know, they might be in the headlines for a day or two. And then the world moves on

Brenton Gowland: 20:20

where we were speaking beforehand. And you said that really the goal is to stay out of the media. Yeah?

Unknown: 20:25

Yeah, but it's, but it's pretty much impossible in a crisis, depending on who it is. Yeah, you might get lucky. But in all honesty, view, again, workplace injury or workplace death on a worksite. You know, if you're a major corporation, or you know, you have a 1000s and 1000s of customers, it's going to get out. So you're better off confronting that head on and being ready to respond.

Ron Tomlian: 20:53

You've talked about media. And we've talked about media a lot. And I think that's one of the big fears of people in business is that they're going to get crucified by the media, or they're going to wrong foot themselves, in terms of the media. So how do you handle that situation? How do you handle it when the journalists turn up? Where the camera starts rolling? And what's what's the some of the mistakes that you've seen people make in terms of handling the media? Yep, mistakes are being too slow to respond.

Unknown: 21:30

You know, I'm not gonna name names, but there was a very high profile one recently, where a company was criticized for being too slow to respond. And then when they did respond, they they went on one radio station to respond. And remember, yeah, and that is just so dumb, because the only thing that the media hate more than you not telling them what's going on is you tell him, what are their competitors, what's going on, and not them. And believe me, they will then redouble their efforts to make your life as hard as possible. So in a crisis, you don't play favorites with media, your interest you, you should just be open and honest. And upfront, if you're doing it, if you have to talk to media, you talk to everybody who wants to talk to you. So it doesn't have to be just an all in media conference, you might do one on one interviews, but as long as they all know that they're going to get an interview, or somebody's going to speak to them. They're okay, because again, we're talking about a vacuum and the media, they are not hearing from you. They're chasing your customers, your competitors, your, your suppliers.

Brenton Gowland: 22:34

So this is really a perception. Focus, making sure that the perception that people have is correct.

Unknown: 22:42

Perception is reality, in in everything you do, particularly in media. So, again, I've been I'm going to use an example, we work with the builder of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the consortium as a joint venture. And so they sadly had a couple of deaths during construction. But again, they did have they had the plans in place for how to manage that. And I remember the the first one where, you know, all you can do is acknowledge that it's happened, that there will be investigations, but right now, we're putting our arms around our people, because this is a terrible tragedy that's just taken place. And remember the CEOs, and it was actually with the head of the Union, side by side, just standing in front of the cameras and just going, we just like to make a statement. We don't want to go into details today. But you know, we want to express our condolences, and we're deeply affected by this tragedy. And you know, what the media do in that first instance that they go, thank you. Thank you for fronting. You know, the recriminations can start tomorrow, but that very first flush is just acknowledging that something's happened. And importantly, all the media all find out at the same time, what's going on? So it's a, you know, they're horrible, very difficult times for companies to deal with.

Brenton Gowland: 24:08

What do they do? There's a company called a press conference, or do

Mark Williams: 24:12

well. You don't even have to call the press office, because all the media are standing outside the front gate waiting for you, right?

Brenton Gowland: 24:17

So you basically walk outside.

Mark Williams: 24:19

You walk outside.

Ron Tomlian: 24:20

In a crisis that's handling the situation. And that is handling the media that we just talked about. And sometimes in doing both. I can imagine you don't have all the information. And when you asked a question, and you don't know the answer to it, I think there's a temptation to sort of make it up.

Unknown: 24:39

Yeah, never make it up. It's so you know that the key steps in a crisis, acting quickly, being open, honest, transparent, being factual, stick to the facts. If you as you said, if you make it up, somebody will find out that you've made that up. provide updates as you can. Getting back to the rest And quickly thing we recommend in a crisis communications plan is just literally having the template media statement ready to roll, which says, we are aware that this incident is happening, we are investigating, we will provide you an update as we know more. And you send that out to all media and they know that you're talking to them. So they, they, it takes the pressure off the medium, believe it or not, to not then think they have to run around finding the find out what's going on.

Brenton Gowland: 25:25

It's very interesting that you're talking. What I'm hearing is that the relationship with the media is supremely important and respecting them.

Unknown: 25:35

Respect giving them time of day, respecting what they do for a job, I mean that they are just doing their job. If there is a major incident, that is their job to report on that. You need to respect that you need to provide them what they need to do their job within the limits of what you're able to say or not say about an incident. But if you talk to them, they'll appreciate that you've taken the opportunity to update them, if you don't talk to them, they'll keep chasing you.

Brenton Gowland: 26:06

We've seen examples of that, shall we say, I want to say crucifixions, with some someone has hit someone in the media. We won't name any names, push someone over or refuse to tell someone something. And then they chase like there's no tomorrow.

Unknown: 26:24

Yeah, I mean, again, the best thing you can do is just front up and say, This is what's happened. This is what we're doing to fix it. But the other thing I always like to highlight in particularly with clients is if you've got a problem, always have a solution. So when you front the meter, you say, when we acknowledge this has happened, and this is what we're doing to fix it. And these are the investigations that will take place to fix it.

Brenton Gowland: 26:50

So for a lot of businesses who've never had anything to do with the media, obviously a crisis is going to be extremely stressful. Perhaps I know that we do media training and different things with businesses, but how important is it for them to get comfortable? Let's say let's pick an example a smaller business, we've got nursing homes, we've got small IT providers or businesses of 1012 people when they never think they're going to be in front of the media. How do you get them ready? I know, I know, the answer is going to be media training. But what does that involve? Because let's face it standing in front of a camera for the first time, is, particularly when there's a heightened pressure. None of us really like it. I mean, we're doing this podcast today, we're all talking about the fact we're on camera, man, I'm not usually on camera. But when you've got cameras shoved in your face, and people asking questions, that is a new level, how do you get people ready for that? Well, I'm gonna go back to preparation, which is you hope that you don't just work and walk in cold or a situation like that. I mean, we're always there to help we we absolutely get calls from clients saying or new business saying we've got this problem. This story is literally going to break today, what do we do sort of thing, and they haven't had a plan. They haven't had a plan in place. So I mean, all we can do is walk them through the steps of an exactly as I've already said, it's like, okay, what you should be doing is being Yes, you should comment. Yes, you should be open and honest about what has happened provide a solution. You need to act quickly, because the media will report on it very quickly. But you know, just trying to counsel them to stay calm. Understand that the media is just doing their job. They're not out to get you they're out there to represent on news. That is someone who's not prepared. How do you take a business if a business came to you and said, I don't want to be caught unawares? I want to get a plan in place. How do I prepare myself and get myself ready for this kind of a situation?

Unknown: 28:59

Yeah. Well, I am gonna say media draining. I'm gonna say, have a crisis response plan, have a crisis communications plan, and practice it and know it. You know, it's the simplest things like in a crisis, oh, what number do I ring? You know, do we have a crisis management team call? Who am I ringing? Who set this call up? Just and we can walk them through the steps. You know, this is how it happens. And again, as I've said it, it's it's also to get them to understand that in across as the media aren't the bad guys. They're there to do their job. And if you give them what they need just to be able to do that job. Then often they'll move on, depending on how quickly the the issue was resolved. Again, yeah. CrowdStrike was a classic example that for the most part by, you know, late that Friday afternoon, things were coming back online. Of course, the media reported about the cleaned up and everything like that. But yeah, it was there's still, of course, residual stories on it. But it was a 48 hour story where the problem was fixed. People said how they fixed it, and what they're going to do to stop it happening again. And then, you know, the media, okay, well, we're going to sort of debrief on it about, you know, what happened, what went wrong, what went right. And then and then you move on. I mean, again, you consider the scale of that issue, that, you know, we're not still obscure, it's still not front page of the paper, because the problem was fixed and people are moving on.

Ron Tomlian: 30:38

Tell us about a time when you've seen the opposite happened, where it was a containable situation, people could have done more to prepare and inform, but because they didn't, because they kept things secret, or because they didn't communicate. There was a long tail, and maybe a damaging tail to the situation, can you think of one?

Unknown: 31:04

Try to think of one off the top of my head? Again, but one that was very well documented at the time was the dream world accident. And, yeah, it had a long tail. And it was, you know, there were bad, I'm not going to get into the whys and wherefores of of what happened and how they handled it. But you know, there were things I could have done better. And there were, you know, the the journalists, you know, that you talked about the gotcha moments where the journalist is sort of ready to catch you off guard. And I can't remember what the meeting was, but they had all of their people up on stage. And the CEO, whoever was saying all union, we've reached out to, you know, the families affected. And the journalists in the front row goes, well, no, actually, I've got this family here. It says they haven't heard from you yet.

Ron Tomlian: 32:01

And it's just such a don't get back to what we were talking about before where we're talking about don't lie. Yeah, don't Yeah, tell them it's true.

Unknown: 32:11

And they're probably not lying, they just don't have the right information, which also speaks to make sure you're completely informed about what's happening and how it's happened. You have all the information at your disposal, and you should teamwork, the right members of your team should be telling you exactly what's played out. And what happens next.

Ron Tomlian: 32:34

What are the the, I suppose rules of thumb that I've always observed is that in the absence of information, people will fill that vacuum, because usually with negative information, the worst possible interpretation, so the more information you can put into a situation, and factual information, the less likely that people are going to go digging for negative information. And so there's a benefit to being ready to give that information.

Unknown: 33:07

So actually, I'll give you a really good example of a client we worked with, we were sort of like helping their local media, and they had a national PR firm working with us. And we worked in tandem. And they had to announce that they were doing a bit of a restructure that would help them build their business, but they were going to be some job losses. So they came to the PR teams and said, right, this is what we need to do. Tell us how will you manage it. And the plan was just perfectly drawn out. Right down to So what happens if media turned up on the doorstep sort of scenario, because they found out and so they had a meeting of staff to let them know what was going on. And two hours later, CHANNEL SEVEN was on their doorsteps. But because it was planned. Everybody knew what to do. The operations manager who was ready and media trained or whatever, was able to walk out the front said, Yep, I'm available for interview, what would you like to know? Yep. Well, we're undergoing this restructure. It's unfortunate that this has happened. But this is part of building a bigger business, because this is what we're going to be doing from here on in and they were ready for it. So it wasn't a crisis. It was managing an issue.

Ron Tomlian: 34:15

A better way to do it.

Unknown: 34:17

Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, one of the questions we sort of raised before we came on was, well, what's an example of a crisis handled well, and the funny thing is, you're actually thinking of trying to come up with an example because a crisis handled well is one that lasts only a day or two and you forgotten about it, and it doesn't end like it doesn't look like it looks like a crisis at that very moment. But it looks like they're right across it, but that looks like they were in control and could move on. Yeah.

Brenton Gowland: 34:47

So what I'm kind of hearing is the key to crisis really is being prepared to communicate effectively and show that you're handling a situation.

Mark Williams: 34:56

Yep, correct. Yeah, and I keep using the word control but you You need to appear to be in control. You need to acknowledge the facts around what's happened. be talking to all the stakeholders you need to talk to. And as long as you are putting out that messages of putting out those messages to your stakeholders, and customers and media and staff, it reduces the chances of one of those stakeholders filling the gap by, you know, speculating themselves on what's happened.

Brenton Gowland: 35:31

Okay. So as we wrap up, what would you say to businesses, clearly, if you can go and use a PR agency to help you with a crisis plan, but what would you be saying to businesses who don't have a plan, and those who have part of a plan as your advice to them about how to really be on top of everything?

Unknown: 35:53

Yeah. One way I like to look at it is what is a crisis response crisis communications plan, it's an insurance policy. That's great. And as an example, if you're trying to take out for insurance, when there's already smoke, it's too late. Now, that's, that's, that's it. So it is an insurance policy, you hope you never need to use your crisis response plan. But you just never know when you need it. And, you know, it's one of those business costs, that should be a necessity that you should be ready to respond even happens. And it's like everybody who takes out insurance, you hope you never have to make an insurance claim. But inevitably you do. So it's that again, we keep coming back to preparation. Everybody understanding their roles, and knowing what to do at that precise moment that something goes wrong.

Brenton Gowland: 36:47

Great. Any any last words you have for our listeners, before we wrap it up today?

Unknown: 36:52

No, not think of, like for our business use public relations. We've been around for 30 years. And we're very happy to talk to anybody who wants to who wants to know more?

Brenton Gowland: 37:02

If you're in South Australia. Yep. Shoes is a great place to go. Are you national or?

Unknown: 37:07

Yeah. Well, I mean, clearly, we're most of our clients are South Australian base, but we absolutely have national clients as well. So very happy to help.

Brenton Gowland: 37:14

So to those people who are listening, we've got a bunch of listeners from overseas, it's quite amazing, really. But to those of to those of our listeners who are overseas, what would you say to them? How do you? How do you find a good PR agency?

Unknown: 37:29

What everybody does these days, Google it. But you also talk to your Yeah, your own stakeholders, people you do business with? So what do you guys do? You know, massive amount of our workers by referral. I said, Google's, but most of our business is people finding out about us from somebody else that we've worked with.

Brenton Gowland: 37:53

So tap into your network.

Mark Williams: 37:54

Tap into your network.

Brenton Gowland: 37:56

Yeah, that's great. Any any last words from you?

Ron Tomlian: 37:58

Know, I mean, to me, if I was putting together a little course in crisis communications, you've covered it all, Mike. And I've, unfortunately, or fortunately, been lucky enough to be involved in crises over the years. And all the things you talked about today, we're just the sort of things that I either saw unfold, rightly or wrongly. And the preparation is the key. And having having someone who knows what they're doing really makes a huge difference. Yep. So my strong suggestion is applied for all PR agencies is make sure you have someone on tap that you've worked with to develop your plans, so that if it goes or starts to go awry, you've got someone who knows what they're doing to help you get back on track. Because the ramifications of getting it wrong, or too great to allow to happen.

Unknown: 38:57

Yeah, yeah, you. You can damage the company's reputation in the time it takes for somebody to put up a tweet. You know, that's, that's how fast that happens. I brought up one of my favorite quotes, just to close is, and it's attributed to Mark Twain, but that might not even be true. So you got to remember this is we're talking 19th century. And it says, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. And if you're not out there providing the truth to the market, somebody else will be making up a lie and damaging your business.

Ron Tomlian: 39:28

Exactly what I was talking about before and it does sound like something might coincide. So let's keep it there.

Brenton Gowland: 39:34

So we hope that's good food for thought. For all of you who are listening. Make sure that you're ready for a crisis. Take out that insurance policy. Protect your businesses. Anyway, that's all from us for this week. We will see you in another fortnight's time for the next episode of the Business Builders podcast.