168: What is the Actual Difference Between a PR Crisis and an Issue?

It's 2022. And oh, how I wish I could say how exciting it is to be beyond the pandemic crisis of 2020 and 2021, but alas, we're not. Welcome to the Indestructible PR podcast, which uses current events and tested media and PR strategies to help you manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. Oh, I built an entire podcast around a crisis. Oh, what a downer. But it is important to discuss because many companies nowadays, they are unprepared for crisis situations because they don't know what triggers one or what defines one. And the problem is that when you have this confusion, it prevents you from the proper planning of a crisis. So the outcome that you desire now is to know what a crisis is before it happens so you can adequately plan for one. So this week, clarifying the terms used in crisis communication planning so that leaders and communicators are able to plan, manage and respond to an external or internal event successfully. Let's just start with the definition. Let's define public relations for many people who work in pr. Edward Bernays, he's considered the father of pr. Any has who's accredited in public relations from PRSA, knows it's usually a test question. In the credential test. He's the one who said propaganda needs to go. So he substituted propaganda with the more positive term of public relations. So prsa, that's a public relations society of America, has defined public relations as influencing, engaging and building a relationship with key stakeholders across a myriad of in order to shape and frame the public perception of an organization. The public perception is key because in today's online environment and online ecosystem, where reputations are built and destroyed so quickly, to understand the definitions helps you plan for any type of crisis that can impact a reputation. Now, a PR crisis, there's a lot of definitions out there, but they usually all circle around the same. A PR crisis is caused by an event, an issue or incident that causes a breakdown in the relationship between an organization and one or more of its publics. Publics being a group of people brought together by a common factor. And a PR crisis threatens the organization's existence and it triggers a response from the organization. And that's where I live, in the response and planning for the response. Now let's break down the different types of crises that you can have. The first is external, and it's not an external crisis. So it's more of, think of it more like an incident or an event that triggers something. For example, there are Natural disasters from a few weeks ago. There were the Kentucky tornadoes. There is terrorism. Think 9, 11 is a big one. There's the pandemic. There's financial. When the stock market plummets. These are external events that happen. That is different than the internal issues, which are more in line with what a crisis is, is because it's a factor that's happening that's impacting the reputation of an organization or a person. So there could be workplace. An example would be Chris Cuomo being fired from cnn. The workplace issue was ethics and journalism. There is an employee incident where Chris Cuomo's former producer, John Griffin was fired by CNN last week or two weeks ago because he was accused of sex crimes against young girls. And this story, by the way, is incredibly disturbing. Like, I'm sure Chris Cuomo's thinking, if I didn't have enough problems, I worked with this guy. There's an example of leadership, Chris Cuomo's brother, Andrew. Andrew Cuomo, he was forced to resign. We all know the story there. I've talked about it plenty on the podcast. Then there's financial. Joseph Percoco. So he was the aide of Andrew Cuomo, a family loyalist. Also worked for Andrew Cuomo's father, Mario Cuomo. He was sentenced to six years in prison in 2018. He's out today. The day that I'm recording this, I saw that he came out. But that would be an example of a financial incident or financial issue. Another example of an incident or an event, it could be related to a product. Take, for example, the book from Penguin Random House, American Crisis Leadership lessons from the COVID 19 pandemic, written by former Governor Andrew Cuomo. This now was an incident that the publisher had to deal with. Cuomo was recently ordered to forfeit the earnings from this $5.1 million book deal after an investigation from the New York State Attorney General's office. They had cited that Cuomo's excessive use of government resources and the deep involvement of his executive staff to help put that book together. And. And it was that report that led to his brother Chris getting fired from cnn. Which brings us back to what does this mean for you? My definition, it's still before Christmas when I'm recording this, so I still have music in my head. But what does this mean for you? So my definition. Those are all the definitions that lead to the work that I do. As far as crisis PR goes, I don'. Work in it anymore, but I follow it closely because it helps me gain insight to help my clients and listeners of the Podcast with the lessons to help you manage your issues. Personally, I hate the word crisis. However, it conveys the right message to people. It elicits fear and a reaction. People know they need to manage something. That's where I get my edge, you know, that's where I get my electricity from it. So I certainly used to work in crisis pr. So when I worked for fema, when I worked in the cruise lines, you know, and the issues are still the same. The Kentucky storms, you know, all those tornadoes, that's a big FEMA issue. 48 people testing positive for Covid on Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas ship a few weeks ago. You know, those are external incidents that lead to to a crisis. So a crisis is that all hands on deck mindset. It's an external event that leads to an immediate response. The golden hour is when the response begins. So the people in charge or the people who are ultimately responsible. So whether it's a company or even the government, they have to inform the key publics first. You know, again, a publix, they're any group of people tied together by a common factor. So it could be members in a town that was completely obliterated by a tornado, or it could be passengers on a cruise ship. Crisis communication. Now the definition of that, it's defending and protecting an individual, a company, an organization, when they're facing a challenge to its reputation. Currently I work with clients to prepare them for issues that can lead to a PR crisis. So we use crisis communication strategy and tactics to do that. So these issues, they affect the head of an organization or a company. So I work with managers, CEOs, presidents of organizations and their communication teams. The companies that are most vulnerable are small businesses Association. When people think of small business, they might think of just like a mom and pop shop. But really a small business is defined from revenues from 1 million to $40 million with 100 employees to 1500 employees. And many of these companies don't have the resources on hand to adequately respond or prepare for a crisis. You know, big profitable companies, they can hire big firms. But the smaller ones, they need help because they have issues too. Everyone has issues. It's not just the big dogs that have issues. Every organization is going to have its own issue. And that's where I currently work in that space. With these small businesses, the titles may change. It could be marketing, it could be member services, customer service, but a lot of them are just dealing with public. So it is public relations and it's identifying what their issues are that could lead to a crisis. Now, sometimes external factors cause a PR issue to develop into a PR crisis. And so that outcome of an internal event or incident results in a PR crisis that lasts as long as your plan allows. And that's when you have a plan. If you do, the crisis goes away quickly, but if you don't, you are facing a long term PR crisis that will just be allowed to continue. So crisis communication to manage that, what I do, what my team does, we create critical communication plans. Because so many people associate a crisis communication plan with just those big external crises. What happens if we have to deal with a major storm, a tornado, a hurricane, a wildfire, the pandemic? They just think big, like those external events. But we want you to think about the issues, the internal issues. That's really where a crisis can happen. So I devise crisis communication plans to help manage issues that can lead to a PR crisis. That's the type of plan that every organization needs. That plan that gives you peace of mind that if anything happens or any issue, that you'll effectively be able to respond. External issues and external incidences, the big ones, can create other issues within your organization. In every podcast, I offer an Indestructible PR tip. And here it is. No matter the size of your business, your organization, your association, you need to have some type of crisis communication plan in place. Whether it's just a template to follow when something happens or a full scale plan that has been created around a specific issue, you never want to handle a crisis or critical issue without a guide to follow. Now, if you don't have one and you don't know where to start, you can join Indestructible Online. It's a membership for PR professionals, communicators and managers to learn the methodology for handling unexpected backlash from the public and the press from one of these internal issues that happens to an organization. You can head over to my website@indestructiblepr.com for more information. You can also head over to the Show Notes. I have a link there as well. Everyone, as you head into 2022, let's make a resolution here. You want to make sure that your company's reputation is indestructible. If your company has a solid reputation, your organization, your association, your business, your nonprofit, then you have an indestructible reputation. That's all for this week. Bye for now.