 I'm going to reintroduce ourselves because we are being told some new people are joining us online as well. So for those of you that came back to see us in person and for all of our new viewers joining us virtually, I'm Anya Kubecki. I own a public relations firm that does a lot of crisis communication work as well. And I'm here with Dr. Laura Witte who you just heard speak and Dr. Witte and I have been friends for a long time, but we also have a professional relationship where in Dr. Witte owned her float spa, I was her public relations agent. And because of that, I think it gives me a unique viewpoint into your world right here as float spa owners or as fans of this really not very new industry, but one that's more emerging into our mind space. And that's why crisis communication is really important at a time like that because bad things can happen and they can impact the whole industry. So we're going to talk about mitigating some of that. One of the things that people always ask me is like crisis communication, does it necessarily mean a media interview? Well, I try to organize this in a session today that will make sense for everyone. So let me tell you what we're going to cover. We're going to talk about a little bit of the introduction to crisis communication. I am going to cover what it is and how it's different from general PR. We're going to talk about things that people tend to forget. And we're going to talk about message development, which is really the meat of this particular presentation that I have for you today. We're going to talk about best practices for interviews in case you are put on the spot. And we're going to talk about Q&A with some simulation exercises and not stimulation, but they're very stimulating if you're done with crisis communication. I do think this is my older version of the presentation. So there are things that are going to be a little different on my screen, I think, that you may see over there. But let's get started. What is crisis communication, right? I think a lot of times people just picture this image in their head. But tying back to your slides on some of the bad things that can happen in the float spa, right, that's a lot of things can go wrong. So is crisis communications the same as PR or is that a piece of PR? Like what is PR and how does this fit into it before we kind of get into it and dive into it. Let's get the basic picture of what's happening here. Well, and I don't know how many of you come from this marketing background. A lot of times us in the field, when we walk the talk every single day, we forget that our world is really big and PR fits under marketing and fits under branding. And then there's crisis communication. So with media relations comes a lot of crisis communications. And crisis communication does fall under PR and a lot of times under media management as well. But it is very specific. So you want to hone in on how to communicate a message. Think of it in the way that as publicists, we work to get the spotlight shining on you. And in a crisis communication, it's shining all on its own. You're in the spotlight. It's going to be how do you properly deflect it or how do you leverage it to really showcase what's best about you in spite of a crisis that could be going on. You know, my kiddo, who is now senior in high school, but when he was little, somebody asked him, he said, what does your mom do? And he just stood there in his wisdom of the seven-year-old boy. He goes, mommy makes people famous. And I thought, what a great way to really put what I do into simple terms. But yeah, while we put you in a spotlight, I always say we keep people in the news and I also work hard to keep them out of the news when the news does not need to be covering you. And we're going to talk about some of those circumstances right now. So, you know, crisis can really strike in any time, right? And I want to talk about two kinds of crisis, because this is really important. Crisis is not just something that happens inside this tub right here or outside of the tub. I mean, people can slip and fall. They don't have to necessarily have a seizure inside the float spot for you to have a bad situation. It doesn't have to be something financially wrong where all of a sudden your float spot's under scrutiny of the IRS or something else breaking news or maybe an employee that had some sort of an unethical issue to deal with. It could be something that's going on around us in the big picture world too, like COVID. I mean, COVID has taught us so much about, this pandemic has taught us so much about crisis communication because all of a sudden everybody had to communicate something challenging to the rest of the world. And people would come and they would say, so hey Anya, you know, do we need to say something? Like, should we be saying something right now? So I'm gonna talk to you about how do you decide whether you should be saying something or not. You know, you're gonna be facing some tough decisions ahead basically, but in addition to regular media, in today's day in the world, the world's gotten so complicated because we have all of the social media on top of it and things are happening so fast. Reputations die at keystrokes of somebody who just tweets something or posts something. There's so much more to manage. And this is why having a crisis communication plan in place is so much more important and necessary now than it ever was. Not when I started PR about 20 years ago. You know, we used to say we're competing for editorial space. We all got our information from the same places. We all read the same newspapers and watched the same TV shows. Now we have no shortage of editorial space, but we have such shortage of mental space. So we're really competing for reaching the mental space of people. And yeah, so this could get pretty challenging. And the biggest question really is, so where and how do we start? Let's figure this out, help us out there. Exactly, well you're in the right place. We're gonna start right here because you need to start somewhere. And it starts a lot of times with just being prepared with acknowledging that crisis can happen. So again, two types of crisis, right? You can have one that's happening right there in your float spot, and one that's happening in the world around you, in your community. It could be the pandemic. It could be something like a natural disaster. You could be in a place that's been affected by fires. It's all about deciding the response and determining how you're going to move forward responding to it. I want you to go through this four question test to determine how you respond to a crisis, okay? And we're gonna go through this because this is your litmus test really on whether you have a crisis and whether you need to respond to it. The first question is, will those who matter to us expect us to say something? Now we just had a perfect example of this with this float spot conference when the timing was off. I mean it could be as simple as the timing off. It's a little bit of a crisis because people don't know what to do, right? That's what determines a crisis is it's an unusual situation. Things don't go as planned and people have questions. So you decide whether you need to respond by this first question. Will those who matter to us expect us to say something? So the conference quickly took action and they emailed everybody saying, hey, we've got a time issue difference here, we're gonna work this out. They definitely understood that yes, those who matter to them need to hear something. But they didn't blast this out to the rest of the world. There was no press release going on. So you need to understand your audiences and you need to really ask yourself this question about the particular situation. This first question is especially important when people are jumping on the bandwagon of global issues going on. For instance, you remember there's a lot of things, bad things going on around the world. Right now it's Afghanistan, right? A lot of people say, should we say something? Should we acknowledge the crisis and the situation? Should we express empathy towards people that are in the midst of the crisis? Well, ask yourself this first question. Do people who matter to you expect you to say something? It's that simple. If you're working with, for instance, a lot of people in the military, yeah, maybe you should. But if your audience has nothing to do with Afghanistan or the military, perhaps you can just deflate from needing to jump on the bandwagon and feel like you have to say something. The second question that you need to ask yourself in times of a crisis is, will silence be perceived as an affirmation of guilt or indifference? So, let's just go back to what we talked about in our earlier one where my first thought was just to say no comment about everything so that I don't say the wrong thing. Right. Is this what you're talking about right here? Yeah, so legal, thank you for bringing that up. Legal is very different than public image and brand management. And your legal team is gonna do everything to protect you. And many times that means keep your mouth shut, right? That's what your lawyer's gonna say. Don't say anything. But in my world of PR of visibility, it could be seen as like you're pleading the fifth. The no comment is you're hiding behind something. Meanwhile, you may just be trying to figure out can you possibly speak about somebody else's health? What are the legal implications of that if it relates a person or privacy laws, right? You may wanna try to figure that out in your head but if you say no comment to a person of the media, it's going to make you seem indifferent or guilty. And that's the one thing you really don't want to be doing because the third question, which you really should be asking yourself before you launch into a formal crisis communication plan is are others speaking about you right now? And are they shaping the perception about your brand? Now that is really important because again, going back to this whole new world that we have of social media, there's a lot of noise and if you are letting people shape the dialogue, you're losing control over it. So you need to then step back in charge, pull it back and say I need to speak up, I need to say something because there are other people that are actively shaping the perception of my brand or my industry. Now again, you guys, you're in an industry that has been around for a long time but that is suddenly gaining momentum. And partly because of that is because of all the social media and the access to information that we have. So you do need to stay on top of the management of the information because others will be shaping their opinion based on how one person may be responding to a crisis. And again, the fourth question that you need to ask yourself is if I wait, will I lose the ability to control the outcome? Now in a crisis, your messaging and timing, we'll talk about that a little later, are super important. So timing being critical, you need to ask yourself the question, can you put this off? Or do you need to ask right now, will you lose the ability to influence the outcome if you wait? So that's why we're gonna talk about structuring your crisis communication plan. And the first thing I wanna touch base on is like a really overlooked audience. Can you guess who these people could potentially be that we rarely think about? No idea. Okay. Well, here's the thing, guys. Many times when people think about crisis communication, they focus on the media and they focus on the reporters and they're like, oh, you just give me the talking points and the phone numbers to all the reporters and maybe some influencers that we can't just touch base with and they can't say something. No, guys, it starts with your employees. It starts with your team. A crisis communication plan needs to start with the people that are closest to you. Why? Because other people are gonna turn to them and they're gonna help to shape the, again, the perception of your brand, how the crisis is being managed. So hold on a second. So if I'm a float spot owner, it's not just me who needs to know about crisis communication. I need to educate my team as well. That's what you're saying right now, is that correct? Yeah, so I know you guys, you have meetings, you and your team will have meetings. And honestly, this is for every industry. It's for float spots, of course, but it doesn't matter if you manufacture them or if you have a team, they need to be in the loop on your crisis communication. Because again, the time to put a plan into place is not when the crisis is going on. So and it's kind of a fun exercise with your group too. It's doing like a little fire drill. I mean, why do they do those in school and before the fire? So everybody knows how to exit, right? So the story, you guys, the story that you tell about your brand in the first few minutes when a crisis happens is how people are gonna decide whether they trust you and whether they wanna do business with you and how they view your industry as a call. So it's really critical because you need to empower your employees to know what to do in case that reporter shows up and it's like, hey, we heard somebody had an incident in your float spot and what do you have to say about that? Don't say no comment on it. He said not to say no comment. Oh, I better call on you. What do I say? Well, and that's the thing, it's not the time. We as humans have this desire. We wanna be helpful. So when a reporter comes knocking on your door, typically your just normal person is gonna say, I wanna be helpful, I wanna help you. Yes, I wanna answer. I don't know what the right thing to do is. Empower your people, it's that simple. Tell them the protocols. And we're gonna go through how you create this plan. So don't worry, this is the first thing you're gonna do when you sit down with your team and you're gonna think of these fun crisis situations that are happening. You're gonna set up two roles. And those are really important because when we talk about crisis communication, it's all about the spokesperson. You are the spokesperson for your float spot, right? So it was like, well, everybody turns to Laura, right? She's just in charge. But there's one more role. And guys, I've seen huge PR teams fall apart if they don't have the second role straight. And that second role is really important. That's your traffic manager. So I want you to think about not just who your spokesperson is going to be when you're in a crisis communication, but who is the traffic manager? Now, what's a traffic manager driving to the float spot? What kind of traffic are we talking about? We're talking about workflow traffic. When you're in a crisis, your workload is going to triple, if not quadruple. So there's gonna be social media stuff that's gonna be happening. You're gonna have reporters calling you. You may have legal happening. One person that you really know and trust needs to be able to help you to field and also determine who gets to go first. The priorities, do you call this person first or that person? So it's more than just like an assistant role. Somebody you really trust who knows how to reach you who can help you prioritize who you are going to get back to first. Because as a spokesperson, you can only be in one place at one time. Is it kind of like the cruise director versus the driver of the ship? Like you're gonna have both. Yes, the public forward facing face. And yes, I'm the captain who's really sitting there just saying, this is the course. You need to call back channel five first because they're gonna be going on the 4 p.m. show versus the other stations going on the 7 p.m. show. Now that person's job would be to find out all those details and get them to you and prepare you how to prioritize. Because otherwise, you just, you won't be able to win. So I want you to consider these two roles, spokesperson and traffic manager. Now spokesperson is really important. And I want you to think about why so many companies have these spokespeople that seemingly have nothing to do with their business, right? So everybody knows Flow and everybody knows the world's most interesting man, right? And we have all these companies that confuse so many of us saying, well, are they the spokespeople? Well, they're the public facing entities, but a lot of times, and especially in a crisis, that's not when it's time to go to Flow for what she thinks about it. It's time to turn to the leadership. So we think about how do we really pick a good spokesperson? There are five things that I want you to think about is picking an insider. And this is, a lot of times my clients will call in and they'll be like, can you just go on TV instead of me and respond to it because you can structure the messages quickly? It's like, well, I could, but you don't want me to. Because again, you want to be transparent. In a crisis, the best thing you can do is step up and be the leader and take your responsibility, take your ownership. You want an insider. You don't want an outside person because it's going to seem like you don't care about the crisis so much. So you want an insider. You want someone with the right expertise. So if it's a mechanical issue, right? You wouldn't probably want you because you don't know anything mechanical, right? No, not much. But if it was a medical issue, you may be the best person for that, right? That would make sense. Exactly. Picking someone with the best expertise, picking someone with the right knowledge. So again, having somebody who is well-versed in your float spa, that's why also outside counsel is not going to be your best friend here because they won't know the culture of it. And picking someone with solid communication skills, right? Somebody who knows how to communicate, how to communicate well, and also has the right personality because a lot of times people tend to think, oh, this smiley person is going to be best, but in a time of a crisis, you want somebody who can stay calm and cool and collected and eloquent, not just happy, right? So think about what it is that's really going to take to lead you through this crisis. All right, let's talk about this planning in advance because I do want you to get this. And this is something that I think if you go back and try with your teams, you're going to find out a lot of great information that's going to help you have a more effective team altogether, right? I want you to think of how you're going to simulate a crisis. So think through scenarios. And this conference is so, and we've already learned so much. We talked to a couple of the vendors and one of the first things they brought up is the accidents that happened that we wouldn't have even thought about. Yeah. So I would say use this conference to talk to each other and find out what are some of the things that happened that you didn't anticipate. Again, that's kind of the crisis. It's the things we don't think about. And it could be something with employees. It could be something internal. That will help you prepare. Then decide who does what. And then you finally get to the how do we determine messaging? So now we're going to get to this meat of the presentation. How do we really do this, right? This is real life examples, guys. I just Googled it and I Googled this one. Laura told me and she's again one of my best friends and she said, hey, guess what? I'm going to open this float spot and then my publicist had on. I thought, I'm going to find out how many people died in the tank and what am I going to have to deal with. I didn't have those thoughts. Putting people in tanks and with slippery water and salt and darkness. Oh, it could possibly go wrong, right? Just like for the best. So we started doing some research into the unfortunate things. And this is not to make light of sad situations. But there are some unfortunate things that can happen. So you can simulate those scenarios. And again, crisis, if it's internal, I want you to go back to those four questions. Will those who matter to us expect us to say something? That's the first thing you need to really know about. Because by the time these articles hit in the news, it's too late to decide, right? So you need to decide in advance because you'll know if articles are going to be hitting the news. You'll know if you've already interviewed for something. So decide, will people need to hear from you in advance? If you don't say anything, again, will it be perceived as an affirmation of your guilt? Or are others going to be talking about this more? Are people going to be commenting under these articles and driving a perception of a whole industry that then you have at risk? And again, if you wait till these articles hit, will you lose the ability to influence the outcome? Right, Sue? I remember just in the last few months you were traveling and you had a crisis situation back in Phoenix and you had to fly back home to take care of that. I think that example might give a little bit of insight into what can actually happen and how to respond to that to tie this all together. Can you share a little bit about that, please? Sure. Thanks, that's a good example. It's hard to illustrate crisis because they're so different, right? So everything like this is specific to your industry and those are really bad things. It could be something a lot more simple like a bed review or something. We had, I have one of my clients who was back in Phoenix, we were in California at the time. Somebody got hurt right in their retail location and it came down to asking those questions and again, are we gonna have a new station out there with a microphone and what do we tell them and how do we say it? So we went through all of that and we decided let's figure out what is really happening, what the situation is and what is the desired outcome. We want people to feel safe and we actually used that situation to structure the messaging because here's actually this ties right into this next slide here. In a crisis, never diminish the crisis. It doesn't matter if it's small. In that particular case you were talking about, it was seemingly small. I mean, people get hurt all day long, right? So it'd be like we could easily just say, well this happens or you guys didn't read the things that say please don't step behind this line into our back storage. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if the customer was completely wrong. If they had a crisis in the court of law you may win, but in a court of public opinion you will lose and you will lose big because if you diminish the crisis you will seem like you don't care, right? So never ever blame others in a crisis. So one thing you really do not want to do and the one thing you want to do is you want to show you care. People make decisions within 45 minutes whether they trust the brand or not and that's being really generous, right? Because this actually gives people time to think and a lot of times they'll decide even sooner if they see something hit. So again, you're an industry that's shaping and that's being shaped and it's being shaped by a lot of experiences people have so think about it that way. Always show the opportunity, use the crisis. Again, we talked about that spotlight shining on you and you have a chance to deflect it in some way. Use it as an opportunity to show that you care about what? Well, that the crisis has happened, that somebody got hurt and that you're a good person providing a valuable service. Use it as an opportunity to demonstrate your values. So again, we talk about reputations being won and lost in a crisis. That's very true. I mean, there are brands that will never do business with brands that had to rename themselves after a crisis, think of airlines, right? I mean, they just, many just had to change their names because they cannot outlive the perception. And it really does come down to how you articulate your being able to deal with the crisis. So starting with your viewpoint in mind, which we talked about like, well, this is us and we wanna protect and defend ourselves and our legal is telling us that we don't have to say anything. Well, you've got a problem right then and there because you're starting with you in mind. You need to start with the other people in mind. So the other thing, if you forget everything else, guys, I really want you to remember this question because especially in times when we had this pandemic unfold, this was a question that I had every single one of my clients ask themselves, right? And the question is, what would reasonable people expect a responsible organization to do in this time? Reasonable people, not the people far on this side or on that side, but just reasonable people. And a responsible organization that cares because then you kind of go back to your own human seed somewhere there and you go, this is what I would want, a responsible organization to do it this time. And when you can ask that question, you are coming at a crisis from a completely different viewpoint. You're coming at this crisis in a way that will help you restore the trust in people. So and the people's trust back in your brand as well because I want you to know that the big thing is you wanna show you care. In any crisis, use it as an opportunity to show that you care. That's, I think that's really the biggest takeaway because if somebody gets hurt, I mean, as a doctor, wouldn't she wanna show you care or doesn't it work everywhere, every industry? Yeah, so I'm getting this. So instead of saying no comment, but being a little scared to say anything that would be problematic in the future, all we need to really do for a starting point is to show we care. I can do that. Well, it's what we're legally required to do. Again, it's very different than what society would expect us to do. What reasonable people would expect us to do. And your legal team may tell you something a little different and they're right as well. You have to take it into consideration to protect your business. But when you're forward facing the public, you have to just think about, am I coming across as a human that's caring, a human that's building trust for others? So, you wanna talk about trust and trust really is three things, right? It's promises fulfilled, expectations met, and values lived. So think about that as you, because you may have to work to restore a lot of the trust after a crisis. And you really wanna think about those expectations that are maybe weren't met and why. The only way to come back out of that is to show that you really care. And so we're gonna, this is exactly why this no comment business is just the worst. Because if a crisis has happened and you say no comment, it really does almost say I don't care. So no comment means no care, don't say it. Here's how we structure this message though. So let's talk about that a little bit. It's a fairly simple formula. And I'm gonna talk about, after I cover this, I'm gonna talk about this example that just happened today, right? You brought up, but the first thing you do is you acknowledge the crisis. Because a lot of times we'll say, well, where do I start? Acknowledge that the crisis has happened. Yeah, it sucks. But you have to start by acknowledging the facts. Here's the facts. You express the awareness that something bad took place. Then you show empathy, right? This is that I care moment, right? This is when you show that you care. Then you share your values, right? So this is your opportunity when you deflect that spotlight a little bit to demonstrate what's really important to you. And you're gonna talk about how you mitigate it. The next and final thing, how you wrap it up, is with the approach and the action and your commitment to what you're gonna do so that this doesn't happen again. And this happens all the time in every industry and in every situation. So again, it really is cross-industry today. Yeah, you've gotta show this. This is really good. Yeah, it was a perfect example. My son goes to a high school and the district send out a notice to parents saying, here's more information about the incident with the bus driver. And I'm thinking, I mean, he drives himself now, but I'm like, what happened? Bus, I've missed it, right? And they did exactly that. They said today, a bus driver, a bus was pulled over and a bus driver was indicted and taken into custody by the police department. So it's like, whoa, I didn't even know this, but they acknowledged that crisis had happened. They talked about how many students were on board and they talked about what's gonna happen next. They expressed their values by saying, we strive to always create a healthy and safe environment for our children. And then they talked about how they're gonna mitigate it. They said a new driver has been assigned to take the route and they didn't get into the details of what happened. I mean, you can quickly Google it and they're like, oh, there was a DUI and all this stuff. They just said, we're working with the police department to figure out the details of the issue. So they told us, number one, they acknowledged the crisis. They said, what happened? Then they told us that they expressed their values and that they care by telling us the environment that they strive to create for all the children on the school bus. And then they told us what they're gonna do about it. A new driver has been assigned to the route and there's probably gonna be more in terms of how they're gonna mitigate this from preventing it from happening further. That's a really easy to follow formula, guys. And when you see it in crisis responses, it's kind of what everybody does. But that's what makes a good sound bite message. So when you can talk about, here's what happened. In our float spa world, we really care about health. So use it as an opportunity to express what you care about and here's what we're gonna do moving forward. It's a great way to mitigate the crisis and you can practice these messages depending on what crisis scenario you're simulating. So maybe if it's related to cleanliness, you can practice it, regard cleanliness. You can always start if we strive for a great clean environment. Moving forward, we're going to change our cleaning procedures, right? What else things can happen like that in a float spa, right? For sure. Or maybe it's an employee situation. You guys may remember with Southwest Pilots, there was this whole thing with the cameras inside the restrooms. I mean, you're working with humans. Things are gonna go wrong. It's just a given. So you can think about all these different crises you need to mitigate and then you can move forward from that and think about how you're going to mitigate it and what action you're going to put into place, right? And it doesn't take very long to think about brands that have horribly mismanaged their crisis communication. And it's not just smaller businesses. You would think, oh, the only people that mismanaged crisis are small brands because they don't have the staff or they didn't have access to a high-paying PR council, right? No, like Volkswagen, when they had that crisis back in 2015, they chose to not come out straightforward to talk about what really happened. They chose to completely violate people's trust and as a result, they got completely, their brands suffered tremendous damage in terms of credibility. So wait, back up for a second on you. So if you can share exactly what happened in case anybody is not familiar with this. Because I, it was just so long ago, I had forgotten about it. I know, I think, it was just such a big PR disaster in terms of how it was managed. For me, it's just how things are managed, right? So this was an opportunity for them to come out and say, hey, here's what we did, here's what we did wrong. We really care about creating the environment and loving it and instead they chose to not do those things and their brand really suffered as a result of it. So, but I do, I wanna touch base on, it's not always just big brands, you know? I mean, we see people doing it too. One of the questions that I get asked a lot is, what if like our CEO does something stupid and we have nothing to, and not to pick on Elon Musk because I myself drive a Tesla and love the brand, but you know, we have a lot of CEOs with big personalities who do dumb things and then the brand suffers, right? So Elon Musk was, I don't know if you guys remember that Thai cave rescue situation where there were these kids stuck in the cave. Well, he chose to tweet about that. A lot of times, CEOs will take opportunities to speak on something, again, crisis that are not theirs, but they're speaking on behalf of something else. Well, guess what? That day, like Tesla, Tesla stock plummeted, I mean, the company lost about $2 billion all because somebody said something. So the point on that was, I want you to consider that crisis could be related to something that a person can say, something that could be a result of how your entire brand manages to move forward. There's a lot of ways crisis can happen, but the important thing is your response and if you show that you don't care, you're screwed, that's just the bottom line of it. So first and foremost, always show you care. I wanna talk about the key elements of your crisis communication plan before we go back to some of the real examples because there are like, I want you to remember these things because you're gonna go back, you're gonna have so much information from this whole conference. So I want you to talk about simulating a crisis with your team or think about the things, discuss the things that could potentially go wrong. I mean, I think that's always a good plan to think about what in your industry or in your flow spot can go wrong, think about it, don't dwell on it, but discuss it. One of the most common things, believe it or not, is people don't have their own logins for their social media and for their Google reviews. They don't know where those things are. So before a crisis hits and you need to mitigate that, create a nice little one-pager where everyone's contact information is. This, when a crisis hits, is not the time to try to figure out who your team is or how to reach them or how to log into places. The time to do that is at this fun little exercise when you're preparing your crisis communication plan. So get everything together for yourself. Your logins for all your social media platforms, your audiences, right? So are you dealing with current customer employees or always an audience to think about that? You always have to communicate with your employees. Do you have investors that you need to worry about? Do you have your vendors perhaps that you need to communicate with as well? And of course your customers and your communities and your publics at large. So I want you to think about all these different groups in advance because when it's time to communicate about a crisis, you're gonna not have the time to figure out everybody. You're gonna say, wow, I forgot to let my bank know. Well that banker and all those other vendors, people that you're doing business with should be included in a communication group. So you have, I communicate with, our employees need to know first. Then we need to look at the second group, our customers, our prospective customers and then your communities. So you've got your bankers, you've got the people that are making deliveries, people you're buying things from. You don't want them finding out through other sources. You want to control and mitigate the crisis by giving them as much information from your perspective as possible. The final thing is how are you going to distribute the information? This is another one that's really important because for your employees, perhaps you could just call everybody. You know them, you know their phone numbers and with smaller groups of audiences, you can definitely do that. But as you have bigger groups and especially remote groups, you may want to deploy email or for your customers. What did you use at the Float Spot to communicate with your customers? So we use MailChimp. Okay, so yeah, so you can just hop on your newsletter list and decide do you want to use that to communicate but then know your lists again because what if you send it out to people that aren't even your customers or who is on those lists? This is really a great time to also do that inventory of figuring out where your target audiences are and how you're communicating with them which is a really good practice. So let's talk about this message development. I like to also look at this message development as like problem, solution, action because that's really what you're gonna see in some of the best sound bites. People are gonna address the problem, they're gonna talk about a solution and they're gonna move over to the action they're gonna take. So again, this is a really easy way to remember structuring messaging. Short sweetened to the point, I like it. Yeah, exactly, nice and easy, right? And you're gonna state your position because everybody has a position on a crisis. It doesn't mean, when there's a crisis, it doesn't mean that you can't have a viewpoint on it and that you have to just say, oh, we care, we're sorry, it's not a project. You have to be able to take a stand but know your position, know how to justify it and it really all starts with acknowledging what it is that's happening and you're gonna end with a conclusion of some point typically as well. Again, I want you to practice this, problem, solution, action. So if you have a problem that's maybe related to your cleanliness of your flow, which people will put sometimes in those reviews, what could be a solution to that? So creating new protocols, how we're gonna move forward from here is the way that I would address something like that with my team. And then the action would be to take care of the immediate problem and then that would be a part one and then how to take care of that from happening in the future would be the second part of that. And I think that's, it really is simple. You just need to look at the crisis of what it is and then create your solution and what action you're gonna take. So people think that messaging needs to be really complicated and you need to have a publicist write things for you and create these sound bites. Not if you just follow a simple formula, you're gonna be totally fine with that. So let's talk about why people think you need to really always go to the publicist. And I think that is because people don't understand the media landscape. So as a PR person, many times, I mean, I work with reporters all day long and the number one reason people think that they're afraid of reporters is because of that very image of somebody coming up and saying, well, what do you have to say about that? And it's very adversarial, right? But it's not. And most reporters honestly don't work like that. So there's no reason to be intimidated or scared by reporters. But there's a big reason to feel empowered on working with the media. And I will tell you that the number one reason why people wanna become reporters or journalists is because they're curious human beings who care about their communities who like to study problems and report on solutions. So they're kind of on your side. And this is why in PR, you can really leverage that natural born curiosity to get a reporter to cover your story a lot better and explain your viewpoint. If you build relationships with reporters, again, time of a crisis is not the best time but how you respond could determine whether you're gonna become a trusted source to a reporter. The best way to burn bridges with reporters also, they're an audience as well. If you tell them no comment, right, they're gonna be like, well, this person gives me nothing. You bring no value. Now think about this, they have a job. Their job is to write a story. They may have no interest in a float pod industry, but they just get assigned to go cover a story on something bad that happened there. So you have to look at what do they need? They need information, they need facts, they may need an image or two. The more you can provide and work with them, the better you're gonna look and the easier it's gonna be for you to win with them later. So becoming a trusted source is huge with the media and we could go through a whole, this could be a whole workshop on its own is how do we really build those positive relationships with reporters and we'll touch base on that a little bit. But there are different needs for print versus digital versus TV, right? So Laura, I remember when we had, I think it was channel five came to your float spot early on when you first opened. So, okay, so do you recall that the reporter came in? What was like her first need that she wanted to show? Well, she wanted some footage so that it could be on the air of, well, she wanted to float herself and try it, but she was really concerned about her hair because it wasn't gonna look good afterwards because she had to go and do a TV, whatever, somewhere else. So she wouldn't get in the pod, even though she wanted to because of her hair situation. So we had my manager of the spa went and hopped in the pod for her. Again, anticipating the simple needs of reporters, right? TV is visual, they're gonna need something visual. And I'm not just talking about a crisis, but even in time of a crisis, you know that TV is gonna need something visual and they don't like just talking heads because that's really boring. So always have some footage prepared, especially if you're trying to tell a good story and if you're trying to demonstrate your commitment to health and wellness, have some really great footage you can share with reporters. And of course, you wanna use it in good times for good stories like another float spot opening or the benefits of floating, it will serve you well. But know that TV is gonna need footage and visual versus print, they're not gonna necessarily need any footage or they may not be worried about their hair, they may come in and float and it'll be a lot easier. But yeah, reporters have different needs and the more you can understand that and where they're coming from, the better off you're going to be in serving them and getting really good stories. What works and what doesn't for a good story is an interesting way to tie this all together because news is something that by nature of being newsworthy doesn't happen every day. And that's why crisis gets such a bad rap, right? Because crisis is something that jolts us out of our seats, is something unusual, it's something that is happening so we're all, all of our eyes are glued to this big bad thing happening. But you could also, that can also happen when you position something as story worthy that is not necessarily just bad, but that's also good. So we're gonna talk about your role as a spokesperson, I'm gonna give you some pre-interviewing basics and a couple of tips on what you should and shouldn't do. And then I want you guys to also feel free to ask any questions that you may have at the end of this as well because we're gonna be coming up on an ending here shortly. So start thinking of any questions you may have for me because I know we're covering a lot of ground and that goes for anybody online as well, you can chime in and ask us any questions. But if you are the spokesperson, whether it's in time of a crisis or whether it's just speaking when things are great and you're getting good media coverage, you have a responsibility to always show you care about your community, to always know the benefits of floating and keep in mind in today's day and age with social media being everywhere, you're continually a spokesperson for your brand because people will catch you saying things at all times. One of the things that can determine what you say is pre-interviewing basics. So before that reporter came over, Laura had a little interview brief and typically a good publicist would give that to their client and say, here's what you can expect from this reporter and here's what you need, but you don't need a publicist to find that out. But here's what you do, you call the reporter that's coming over and you try to find out exactly how they're gonna shape their story because they have an idea. So you can ask them in advance, what are you going to need to make the story better? What else can I give you to make the story a little better? Do you need images? Do you need footage? Would some research be helpful to you? Because most float spots have all of that and it will help the article be better. Good question on that, Aya. When you talk about having footage, is that something that we can just get on our iPhone or are you talking about fancy equipment? The gap is shrinking, guys. That's the good news, right? The bad news is that because the gap is shrinking, a lot of times you end up with non-professional looking footage on TV as well, something that's been captured on a phone. So while phones, the quality of footage and video files that you can grab on your phone are a lot better, some of the things you want to make sure is that if this was played on national television, you would be very proud to see it. So don't have things that are shaky. At least make sure that you have a nice steady focus and things aren't blurry and you don't have, the other thing, keep in mind, customer's privacy too. You can't just submit footage with people's pictures on it without their permission. So be mindful of some of the things you're submitting, make sure you have permission. And the next thing you want to really make sure that when you're interviewing is don't be led down hypothetical situations. Now this is especially important in terms of a crisis because a reporter's job is going to be find out as much as possible. So they can come up to you and they can say, so, but hypothetically speaking, would something bad have happened to this person if they didn't have a pacemaker? How can I answer that? It's hypothetical. Right, exactly. And that's your right as a person being interviewed, as a spokesperson to say, I don't know, I can't answer that question. And a lot of times we forget that because again, we're very helpful by nature people. We want to help everybody. So we tend to be led down these paths of trying to bring too many questions and answer too many questions. If you don't know, it's okay to say, I don't know, or I can get back to you with that information, but I have to do some research on it. That's totally okay to say. You do not have to be the expert on everything. And in fact, if you get led down these hypothetical situations, it could come back to bite you in a bad way. With television tips as well, always ask if this interview is going to be live or if it will be pre-taped because different roles apply. If a news station is coming in and they're doing a live interview, it's gonna be very structured because they only have a half hour of a news chunk to fill. So if you have 30 seconds, you may not have as much time to get in what you wanna get in to that particular segment. So think about how much time you're gonna be given. It's okay to ask, ask them, will this be live or will it be taped? How much time do you think I'm gonna be able to get from this interview? Is it 30 seconds or is it a minute and a half? So those are really big things that you wanna make sure that we found out in advance too. Can I have two spokespeople or is it just one? Because they may come equipped with two mics or just one mic and if you're thinking, I'm gonna also have this doctor here speaking with me and they don't have an extra mic. Well, there goes your whole plan, right? And pre-interview tips. Again, prepare, prepare, prepare. Ask the reporter, who else are going to be interviewing in the story? One of my favorite things to remember when I was a little wee publicist starting out on the mean streets of New York, I was so excited because my client got into the investor's business daily and I was like, this is such a score, it's a huge win. I failed to ask who else was going to be in the story and it was one of their arch nemesis and the client couldn't have been more furious to have been quoted side by side with their arch nemesis. Had I asked, simply asked the reporter, we could have declined the opportunity to be part of that article. But a lot of times when media calls us, we get so wrapped up in the excitement of being quoted somewhere and the bigger the paper, the more exciting it seems. But I want you to remember that the bigger the paper, the bigger the risk that you carry. So find out more. There's no harm in asking. Don't ever ask if you can read the story in advance though. That's like one of the biggest no-nos and reporters hate that because that's the difference between advertising and PR and they'll tell you, do you wanna read a story and write it? Buy an ad. But if you are participating in an editorial coverage, don't ask to read it in advance, especially the bigger the paper, the bigger of a no-no that is. That's why being prepared that really honestly works. I want you to practice something on camera for me and this is like, this is where your phone camera can just come in super handy because most of us have no idea how stupid we look when we videotape ourselves especially when we're trying to sound really eloquent. When we practice, Laura's like one of the most articulate people you can imagine but when asked the tough question, you'd be amazed what happens to our eye rolls or just like the little things as we work together with the ums that we need to cut off. I mean, you're really great at that because you're also a public speaker and you teach so you've got that down. It's still horrifying to it to record myself and watch it. It always seems terrible but it does help to practice that over time. It does and I think that's the key thing. Have your team members practice too. Have everybody practice. What would they say? How their key message sounds? The great thing is sometimes you may find like a little hidden talent, a little hidden gem within your team but someone's just naturally really good at responding to things and they sound great and they don't have weird gestures. I mean, we always catch people doing, holding their hair or checking their clothing, having all these little nervous ticks. You won't know that until you see yourself. So my ask for you is take time to practice. Honestly, spend like three minutes practicing your key messages, problem, solution, action, see how naturally that comes to you and judge yourself because people will judge you later so you might as well do it with your team and with your friends. Ask your friends like, hey, did that look all right? Like if that was on TV and that was my response, how did I come across? There's no harm in asking. Actually, it's the perfect time to ask. So this is really some of the questions are how do I follow up with media? What if the story doesn't come out as planned? I want to cut it. The story not coming out as planned is huge, right? Let your article, which is how we ended up being at this conference, how did that work out for you? Oh my goodness. First of all, they changed the title. They didn't talk to me about any of this. They changed my title completely. I didn't like it. And they changed a bunch of stuff throughout the article and they even changed my bio. It was my bio. Like they changed it to something that was wrong. It made no sense at all and didn't communicate with me. So yeah, that was lovely. That happens a lot, guys, because there are lots of people that are putting these stories together. So sometimes the person that edits the article is completely different than the person, the copywriter who decides what the headline's gonna be. And that's standard practice, especially in our ever shrinking newsrooms. And a lot of times, you know, media jobs don't pay so well. They're not very glamorous. So you may end up somebody with very little experience who knows nothing about your industry. And that's a lot of times we'll say, well, this didn't come out as planned. But that's why practice and practice your sound bites because the clearer you are, the better the chances of you being portrayed accurately. So how to practice more? Get on your cameras. Get your phones out. Practice, practice your interviews. Read more stories and prepare. And with that, I really wanted to thank all of you for being here with us today. You can reach us at, or you can reach me at Anya, that's A-N-I-A, at anglespr.com. I have a little like a one sheet handout. If you have a media interview, I can just email that over to you. It's just best practices on how to prepare for print or radio or digital or TV. So thank you so much for having both of us on. Thank you so much. Thanks, Laura, for your assistance. Thank you for being here. Let us know if you have any questions. Thank you.