Business Media Club blog: Crisis, what crisis?

04 Oct Business Media Club blog: Crisis, what crisis?

Dad’s Army’s Corporal Jones shouting ‘Don’t panic, don’t panic’ while hurriedly stomping around in a daze is one of British comedy’s enduring images. It is typically what happens when a crisis befalls most businesses.

People often shout, swear and blame rather than focus on dealing with the problem in hand. Why? Because they lack a pre-prepared plan.

They’re in the majority. More than 80 per cent of UK business fail to have any sort of crisis plan in place, let alone a specific media crisis plan, even though the most likely instant reputational impact to hit most businesses these days is a social media crisis.

After all, it couldn’t happen here… could it?

While everyone and anyone can see what people are saying about your business, you’re left figuring out what to do while your reputation goes up in flames.

And get this – more than 90 per cent of businesses that suffer a major reputational hit go out of business within two years. That is a risk too far. A plan in a no brainer.

In response, if you can call it that, some folks bury their heads in the sand and hope it blows over. Others fan the flames with ill-considered and off-the-cuff reactions.

The savvy few stay calm, refer to their prepared plan, put a team in place to manage the crisis, provide responses and timelines to carry out an investigation (if that is what is required) and then make further considered comment when they find out what has gone wrong.

If they need to, they say ‘sorry’ but only when the time is right and if it is appropriate. They manage the crisis rather than leave themselves open to the fortune of a fair wind.

Moreover, they don’t blame others. They accept responsibility and take positive action. They ‘fess up if a cock up has occurred. These things happen. If long term action is needed, they learn lessons, heed advice and, most of all, communicate it. They are big enough to apologise and calm troubled waters.

Why does this matter in media training or to a communications and marketing club? Surely, we have business to drum up?

Because reputation, credibility, integrity and trust matter most to every business. Lose any of these characteristics and your business will struggle to survive, let alone thrive.

It is high stakes stuff. Yet I’ve never heard any networking clubs bar the Business Media Club touch it with a bargepole.

It is too uncomfortable, there’s no jolly bonhomie about it and, for some, it is too close to home – the precise reasons we include it in the Business Media Club calendar each year. You’re screwed without it.

Crisis, What Crisis – how to shape a media crisis to calm the waters not fan the flames to protect your business – is the theme of October’s CGM Business Media Club meeting.

Our meetings are on Friday, October 29 (10am-12pm) and Thursday, November 4 (2-4pm).

The specific skill we’ll focus on is: How to shape a media crisis plan for your business.

For further information and to book your place for October 29 or November 4 visit our Business Media Club page.