Has something bad ever happened to you and you immediately feel the sense of fear and dread? Most of us can relate: a fender bender, a missed deadline, bad press. The fact is: it happens. This is where crisis communications becomes important.
If you’re like me, your first gut instinct might sound a little like, “Oh, shit.” But that response does exactly that: it does shit.
Nothing.
Zip.
Nada.
But a crisis communications plan? That can save your ass.
Before there was amPR inc. and, in fact, long before I entered the world of PR and communications, I was a volunteer fire fighter. (I know!) As a VFF, I had the privilege of receiving Medical First Responder (MFR) training and vehicle extrication training — that’s the jaws of life and, yes, it is really fun to cut up a car.
All of that training equipped me with skills that I hoped I would never need to use but, because it’s never a matter of “if” so much as a matter of “when”, I have been called upon to use those skills multiple times – long after I hung up my gear. The reality is when we develop our toolboxes of skills and strategies, they stay with us and, when we need to use them, we’re really glad we knew what to do.
Let me tell you a little story.
Most recently, I had to call upon these skills in an actual life or death situation featuring my youngest son.
At 19 months, he is trying to be independent but he’s not always steady on his feet. In a flash, he fell about six feet from the gangway that extends from a floating wharf to the parking area above — headfirst, fully dressed, into the five-degree Atlantic Ocean water below.
Cue panic, right?
My instincts and past water rescue training took over before I had a chance to think. By the time he’d hit the water, I had already stripped my jacket and kicked off my shoes – removing anything that would weigh me down or hinder my movement in the water. Before he’d even resurfaced, I had landed in the water just inches from him to scoop him up and bring him to safety. He was in the water for less than 10 seconds, start to finish. Once on the grass, I stripped us both of our wet clothing and checked his airways as I shouted for someone to bring dry clothing for him – a blanket, a towel, literally anything.
Crisis averted.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Preparation is your best response.
Now, imagine the business equivalent of your 18-month-old falling headfirst into the water.
Perhaps it’s a security breach. Maybe it’s a disgruntled employee who’s made a legal claim. Or, maybe your CFO was arrested for fraud, an acquisition fell through, or you have a huge recall of product due to safety issues.
Are you and your team trained and ready to handle it?
A solid crisis communications plan is the business equivalent of the toolkit I used to carry in my car in my MFR days. It’s the AED at the rink. It’s the CPR and First Aid training that you might have rolled your eyes through until that time your kid choked on a snack and you knew how to do the Heimlich. Phew!
A crisis communications plan isn’t just a list of canned responses where you fill in X and send it out to the masses. It’s a thoughtfully curated, strategic plan custom-built to your unique organization. It’s developing a crisis response team and understanding how various crises can affect different stakeholders and the best way to communicate.
Let’s build your toolkit together.
So… what’s in your crisis comms toolkit?
Because here’s the thing: crises don’t wait. They don’t RSVP. They don’t care if your team’s at an offsite, your CEO’s on vacation, or if it’s 4:59pm on a Friday. When they show up, they show up fast—and messy.
But when you’ve done the prep work? When you’ve put a plan in place, trained your team, and know who’s doing what before the alarm bells ring? That’s when the magic happens. That’s when instinct kicks in and chaos turns into coordination.
At amPR inc., we build those kinds of plans. The ones that help you move with clarity instead of confusion. The ones that make sure your next “Oh, shit” moment doesn’t end in “Oh, no.”
Because when the worst happens, the last thing you want to do is wing it. Trust me—I’ve been in the deep end.
Literally.
