TJ Walker explains how to handle a crisis: respond to media within 30 minutes, prepare your top three messages and 30-second sound bites, and have written notes ready so you don't say something you'll regret. Speed matters, but so does staying composed.
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First things first. If a crisis occurs and reporters show up to interview you, hold a press conference or are calling you, you have to reach out to them, respond quickly, and I mean quickly. The days are gone when you could take 24 hours to respond to the media as the Tylenol did company many decades ago. Now you've got to respond, if not instantly, certainly within the hour, preferably within a half an hour or less. Otherwise you run the risk of the media saying you're hiding. They're just going to assume the worst. They're going to quote other people saying that there's hysteria, criminality, all sorts of problems. So timeliness is absolutely essential. As we talked about earlier in the course, you've got to have a message, your message. In a crisis, like any other media opportunity, you need to have your top three messages. You need to really be able to sum it up quickly in about 30 seconds. And you need to have sound bites. Now, this is confusing to people because they think, oh, this is a crisis, it's bad news. I want to put as little spotlight on this as possible. I don't want to be quoted. Well, I'm sorry, you're going to be quoted. If there is a murder, a death on your facilities, people have injured, a fire, an explosion, will feel obligated to quote someone from your organization in the story. And if you don't plan for it, then you're going to end up with arbitrary quotes. So that's why the core principles still apply. Brainstorm on messages, narrow down to your top three. Brainstorm on sound bites, narrow it down to, if not half a dozen, at least three or four for each one. Have those written down on a single sheet of paper or computer screen. But when there's television present, you still have to be speaking out, looking, preferably not reading. So that is the very, very first basic thing you've got to do. You want to be quick, you want to be responsive, but you can't just run out in front of the cameras and say, oh, my gosh, this is horrible, but I want to be transparent and take all your questions. If you go into it in a completely reactive way, then you're going to end up with all sorts of quotes like, well, we don't know, maybe the whole plant could blow up. Yeah, I can understand why people want to evacuate. Yeah, I can understand why nobody wants a chemical company in their backyard or their town. You can end up with horrible, horrible quotes that can destroy your reputation. And maybe the crisis wasn't that great. Maybe the facts aren't in. So you want to be quick, but you cannot rush. Now, before we do that, let's talk about your team you need to have in place.
