Crisis management and media training: What every business needs to know

As a business owner or manager, your brand’s reputation is your most important asset – yet too many businesses fail to plan for a crisis that could leave it in tatters. Graeme Patfield, Director at Hampshire PR consultancy Polymedia, explains.

A crisis can strike any business, in and industry or sector, at any time. In more than 25 years of working with businesses of all kinds, the team at Polymedia have helped communicate through a host of reputational risk issues.

These include deaths at a major public event, claims of sexual assault, allegations of gross negligence and a high-profile member of a professional services business accused of acting inappropriately at a war memorial. Crises can and do happen, more often than you think – and when they do, the way you handle them can make or break a business.

When you are thrown into a crisis there are multiple plates to spin at once – operational issues, establishing facts to discover the truth, collecting and reviewing evidence, following HR practices, informing regulatory bodies – a mountain of calls and admin which you absolutely must get right.

That’s a lot to handle, but never overlook the need to communicate through the issue or crisis, or the steps that could be taken to head it off at the pass.

PR consultants and crisis management specialists can operate independently of the storm to provide a clear-eyed, independent and objective view informed by experience.

Firstly, we establish who is giving sign off on everything – it’s best to work at board level. Then we check the facts that we’re working with. We’ll challenge on these – it’s essential we know what we’re working with. If we don’t know the facts are accurate, we don’t use them.

Next comes assessment of the level of risk – and where it’s most likely to come from. How many team members do we need and where? What resources might we need from you?

Then comes a review of audiences – who do you need to communicate with, and in what order of priority? Most businesses think media first, but there’s host of others depending on the scenario. Partners or directors, staff, clients, insurers, lawyers, the bank, influencers and other stakeholders, and so on.

We then devise the objectives of the comms, the strategy, the tactics and messaging for the response – all tailored for each audience.

Few crises are static – the facts and the response change as they unfold. We must be sure we’re ready for them. Depending on the scenario, we might liaise with authorities such as police or ambulance services to ensure we’re all working with correct facts. We might monitor media, print, online, broadcast or social, to see if anything new might be breaking. If media are involved, we would keep liaising with media even if we have nothing new to tell them to ensure they know we’re being fair, honest and transparent and understand their needs.

An issue or crisis that’s evolving or breaking is always scary. We can’t make the problem go away, but we can ensure your brand voice is heard, that you communicate professionally and that your facts sit alongside any others to mitigate any potential damage.

How media training can help

When we think of media training, we often picture the classic crisis situation – something awful has happened, and journalists are on the doorstep with cameras and microphones demanding answers.

While this can happen – and it’s important to be prepared in case it does – media training is not just about preparing for the worst.

Why is media training important?

Whether an interview is planned or spontaneous, about good news or bad, a good grounding in interview techniques can make the difference between a PR success or a damaging failure.

We’ve all seen politicians and business leaders face tough questions from media. Who can forget Prince Andrew squirming in front of Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis – a spectacularly misjudged interview that led to his total fall from grace in the eyes of the public.

How do you feel when Prince Harry and his wife Meghan speak to interviewers? Did Liz Truss’s robotic delivery affect her short-lived prospects as Prime Minister? Did you place your trust in Professor Chris Whitty during the Covid-19 crisis, or doubt the authenticity of then Secretary of State for Health’s Matt Hancock’s tears on TV?

In a myriad of tangible and intangible ways, everything from the clothes you wear, your tone of voice, your phrasing of answers and your ability to think your way around a question makes a difference when it matters.

Get it right and you may emerge from even the most challenging situations with a good, or at least a less damaging, outcome.

How can you improve your media skills?

Media training doesn’t just teach you how to maintain composure and come across in front of an interviewer. It also provides you with vital skills when it comes to messaging – how to ensure your businesses priorities and values come across in your answers.

It gives you a deeper understanding of the media landscape and their respective audiences – which outlets are likely to have an agenda, how a regional interviewer may differ in approach to a national one, and how each can most effectively be handled with an appropriate response.

For any business likely to find itself in the public eye, whether planned or unexpectedly, media training is a wise investment that pays dividends when it matters.

Find out more about Polymedia’s specialist media training and crisis management services at www.polymediapr.co.uk/media-training and www.polymediapr.co.uk/crisis-management