In a crisis companies want the media not to write about them but that's the wrong strategy and here is the right one.

Sometimes it's better not to get noticed. Anthony Hayes shares his insight from New York where he runs the Hayes Initiative .  He explains solutions for situations like crisis management which might require negotiation with the media outlets not to publish a certain story or replace existing ones with a good story.  He shares knowledge on the toolkit to have in place, and expresses amazement at how few companies are prepared for a crisis. Don't let that be you! Listen to this really informative episode.

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Transcript

Anthony Hayes: 0:00

I will tell you, after 2020 I'm stunned at how many people do not have an active crisis management plan on paper I think it would probably surprise more and more people. And I think, you know, what 2021 should be about for people is if you have one, you need to look at 2020 and make sure that you are, dusting off changing editing because a a crisis management plan is a living, breathing document. It's not you write it in. You're done. and if you don't have one, you know, you definitely should write one.

Jim a James: 0:30

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the unnoticed show. And I'm really chuffed today to have Anthony Hayes with me. Join me all the way from New york and Anthony runs the Hayes initiative. Anthony. Now you tell me that sometimes it's better for people not to get noticed. Tell me what do you mean by that? And what do you do for the people

Anthony Hayes: 0:49

Well, thank you for having me. And, you know, I think as a PR professional, you know, we've, we work, we've been very lucky that we've gotten to work with some really incredible people, but a lot of the work we do, I would say about 50% of the work we do is crisis management, crisis communication. And so sometimes what we try very hard to do is. You know, where we can shape stories impact the crisis, or, you know, where sometimes reporters will be sniffing around because they think there's something there. If we do our work and really prove the point that there was nothing there and that there's not really a story to be written, then sometimes that's a real success as well because sometimes PR agents you know, Reporters have the best of intentions, but then all of a sudden, you know, they may not have all the facts, but when you, if you do your work, you have good relationships and you have those off the record conversations and can take proof points, whether it's, you know, reports or emails or whatever you need to use to sort of demonstrate that there's really not they're there. then you can really help reporters understand there's no story there. Cause story, believe it or not, reporters, aren't always champing at the bit to sort of write a story that isn't true. So I know a lot of people think that I think the opposite, but that is actually not true. there's some real integrity there for a good majority of them.

Jim James: 2:05

and I think that's absolutely a great point that the media you're not out to catch anybody out right there. They're doing the job for the readers, not for the clients. And Anthony, just tell us a little bit about the Hayes initiative, who are some of your clients? Just a bit of context. Into the conversation.

AnthonyHayes: 2:21

Sure. So, yeah, no, we were small LGBTQ owned and operated firm based in New York city that has been very lucky to, do work with Bloomberg philanthropies, Bloomberg LP. you know, I think before the show started, we were talking about some work in Singapore and Beijing with that group. We also do work with the major league soccer team here in New York city, which especially for the folks in the UK will know city football group, man city is the parent club to NYC FC here in New York. and, you know, we've had quite a bit of. Good fortune. Right now, we're working on a really major infrastructure project here in New York city that got a big boost actually yesterday around congestion pricing, similar to what has been implemented in London. There'll be nuances to obviously the New York city plan that are different than London, but That is sort of an ongoing huge project that will be really change a lot of things here and define a lot of things in the United States, because it'll be the first city in the United States to actually implement a program.

Jim James: 3:22

And Singapore of course had road pricing some 20 years ago. Right. And a great system. It is too for congestion, but coming back to communications or maybe that is a case study, how will you help the implementers of this road? Pricing scheme communicate that then Anthony, because there are lots of stakeholders, aren't there and many opportunities for lack of. Communication and sort of impending crises.

AnthonyHayes: 3:51

Yeah. And I think, look that the MTA in New York is obviously leading that effort and we're really supportive arms and legs, so to speak for them to really help them implement the plan that they want. You know, they are very committed to making sure there is outreach. it is part of the program, you know, and it's in obviously their interest to make sure that the public is aware. When you're rolling out sort of a big program like that. So, you know, that, that project, as well as other projects that we've worked on, you know, it's sort of similar tactics of a campaign, you know, we will take and make sure that we map out who are the people that are going to be affected by whatever we're working on. and then sort of figure out the best road to me with them, right. There are some people that. We want to make sure they have a one-on-one conversation. You know, we may pull in a group meeting. We may, you know, I think there's lots of tactics that sort of communication people you know, community outreach can happen as well. We've had Someone that a group of people that we can't name, but that have come over and wanted to do work in terms of introducing, you know, their business to sort of key stakeholders in New York. And so just some of those, you know, while it's not obviously public and in the press, it's really just sort of going around introducing and bringing them because, you know, they don't do business in New York, but you know, it's worth sort of reaching out and mapping out those stakeholders.

Jim James: 5:13

So part of the communication plan, there is obviously known in advance. Isn't it? It's a proactive outreach. A lot of what you talk about on your website or some of it is about discretion and about crisis management, which is. Almost by definition where there hasn't been a plan. can you just talk us through what would a, an entrepreneur or a small business owner need to have a ready as a bare bones crisis comms plan?

AnthonyHayes: 5:44

Yeah, certainly given what we've all sort of experienced over the last year. I think it's a very good question. And we have been asked that quite a bit as I'm sure you have as well. So I think the thing that I always. Impart to people is that it's not really, if there's going to be a crisis, it's when there's going to be crisis. And I know it sounds a little sort of ominous and sort of a very pacifistic way to sort of approach. But I do think that yeah, it is a bit naive to assume that there won't ever be a bump in the road or there won't ever be a difference. Disruption to the flow of business or, you know, a natural disaster or just certain things that just we have to do because you know, we're alive and we have to live through those things. But so the basic comms plan really does need to have. You know, a couple of key elements. and I think really to me, the biggest one is who is the team, right? So if a crisis happens, you know, if you're a small business, everyone's going to be involved in the war room. So to speak the metaphoric place where everybody meets to sort of get through the crisis. But you know, if you're a bigger organization, you're going to want to know, okay, it's someone from the legal team, someone from the HR team, someone from the comms team, you know, you're going to really want to know who the people are. and they're going to have very clear and defined roles so that everybody's sort of in a lane. and there's really a hierarchy of decision-making. so that, you know, it goes here first, then it goes to legal, then it goes to here, then it goes to the CEO and they bless it. And we put out the statement and then, you know, you're going to want to make sure you have your list of stakeholders that you need to make sure you're getting in touch with both internal and external. I think a lot of times the internal gets overlooked and then therefore, Key people. Like if you have a sales team who are going to be fielding phone calls in the middle of a crisis, they're going to desperately need talking points to sort of get your message out. your investors. There's a list of people internally that I think a lot of people overlook and they forget that they can actually be really instrumental in driving the message once the message is decided. and I think the most important thing is to determine when. You know, it's the rock and the hard place. Right. And you have to really sort of get this right. and we've watched so many people get it wrong, where they wait too long to respond because they're nervous, they're gonna get it wrong. and I think it's better sometimes depending on what it is, obviously every crisis has to be taken, you know, one at a time, you know, there's no cookie cutter answer on how to manage a crisis, but you want to make sure. You at least acknowledge that, you know, that there is in fact a crisis happening. And I think that's where people get dinged quite a bit is that they don't realize they have waited too long just to even acknowledge to customers or the public or however that sort of plays out.

Jim James: 8:30

Yeah. And I think one of the recent episodes was buzz sprout. The web hosting companies is only a midsize company, know 20, 30 people. And they got a DOS you know, denial of service attack, a ransomware, and who would have thought that a company of that size. Would come under a, you know, a concerted effort to extort money. So it seems that now it's not just these traditional, you know, manufacturing plant has a problem or product recall. Actually companies can be attacked at random by invisible parties. Can't they? What do you think Anthony, about how companies can set themselves up now that the workforce are not in one place, because one of the ways that we look at it. crisis comms. It's really all about business continuity, right? It's how do you keep things going? How do you advise companies to do that? When people are not all in the same space?

AnthonyHayes: 9:30

Well, I think that's, I mean, I think obviously, you know, talking on zoom, right. Or, and I think between teams, zoom and all of the other platforms, I think they're going to be very critical. But I think the one thing that I notice is people don't. Often think about, I think we're getting more and more into sort of cloud-based systems, but certainly any crisis management plan and tools, tactics, things that are needed, passwords, phone lists, all that stuff needs to be on a cloud-based system. You know, I would say really the leader of the team, whomever that might be or maybe you divide it out. If you have a really large company, you have several people, but. You know, I'm a big believer in someone needs to have a hard printed out copy because if there's no, you know, having managed natural disasters, if you don't have electricity, then you don't have phone numbers. If you don't, you know, then you don't know the where things are, you know, it's very funny because we don't think like that. But as organizations into your point of continuity, I think that's a really big, important one is just having hard, at least one hard copy for somebody so that there's some pretty, pretty big things, but you have to figure out the right way to get your team used to. I think one of the upsides of COVID is I think people have become very familiar. With working remotely. they may not like it, but I think a lot of teams have gotten very good about how they sort of pull that together. And I think in a crisis, you know, I think it's very easy to get everybody on a call, like, like what we're on today and really just sort of keep it running. Right. And just to have everybody there, because when you're in a crisis, you don't need to be. You know, you want to limit, you know, the phone calls and you see you one on one off conversations. You want to keep the team tight. You want to keep everybody in this, ideally in the same space, even if it's virtual, just because, you know, everybody may be working, but they can turn and say, Hey, does everybody know what your, what is everybody else hearing from AP? I'm hearing that they, blah, blah, blah. You know, you can just have real quick conversations because time is of the essence.

Jim James: 11:36

so that's an interesting point that you raise about, you know, what are you hearing from AP, for example? So you have mentioned as sort of the media relations part, as well as the internal relations. What do you plan for clients in terms of like material in advance for the media relations part? Do you have templates and so on, in place or do you need. Do you think the clients to respond and generate the content there and then ready for the media?

AnthonyHayes: 12:06

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you should have basic, you know, templates for media advisories, press releases, make sure you have your boiler plate, which is obviously at the bottom that's about your company or, you know, the key sort of things you would want to make sure you include, you know, contact numbers at the top. All of those things that are very basic, but if you have those basic temps, Complete place. You know, if you are in a place where, you know, the typical comms person who writes up the press release, isn't there, you know, someone else can sort of jump in and it's not like they're, you know, the first time they're doing it, they can sort of. insert here, hold quote here. You know, you can have all those things. but beyond that, just because every crisis is unique I, it, it does get a little, you know, you have to be very sort of careful about, you know, I do believe everyone should game out many scenarios. And so I think in those crisis management plan meetings, and I actually think the crisis management team should meet once a year at minimum and just sort of say. Are these fresh, does this work, are these, you know, are these phone lists up to date? Is this up-to-date, you know, those kinds of really administrative things so that you're not doing that in the middle of a crisis, but you know, this kind of work is ongoing. beyond that, no, I wouldn't say we get too granular in pre preemptive templates, but except for the very basic things we definitely have We help our clients create and prioritize their press lists, you know, who are people that are more friendly, who are people that you know, are going to be really adversarial, who are neutral people. And especially the friendly people, you know, you can make some quick phone calls to reporters and say, Hey, listen, you know, we you're first on our list just to keep your phone open or it'd be ready for us. Like, well, we're coming, just give us a little bit of time. and then it also could, you know, you can help navigate It demonstrates, especially with social media today. And so much of what the reporters do is on social media, even before they write, you know, even a tweet from a friendly reporter or a handful of reporters saying we heard from them, they're going to come out with a statement soon, right. Even that buys you time so that you can get your ducks in a row in neuro, so to speak.

Jim James: 14:19

Okay. Yeah, that's really interesting about the need to engage very quickly and being prepared. It's almost like having a fire drill, isn't it? You know, everyone has got some fire evacuation procedures somewhere written down and you kind of need to think of PR in the same way, maybe. Right.

AnthonyHayes: 14:36

Oh, yes. And I think most people

Anthony Hayes: 14:38

I will tell you, after 2020 I'm stunned at how many people do not have an active. Communicate or a crisis management plan on paper? I think it would probably surprise more and more people. And I think, you know, what 2021 should be about for people is if you have one, you need to look at 2020 and make sure that you are, you know, dusting off changing editing. because a a crisis management plan is a living, breathing document. It's not you write it in. You're done. and if you don't have one, you know, you definitely should write one.

Jim James: 15:10

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's interesting. Cause something's going to attack the company in some might be self-inflicted I saw because of the riots, the CEO of one American company actually was on Capitol Hill in February and that created some conversations in the media for that company in all the employees and the shareholders too. Right now, one of the. Challenges. I think that I found when I worked with a client is that they don't want to believe that anything could go wrong in the organization, that they somehow would be neglectful of negligence. And then the Senate didn't want to share that with me. can you talk through how the external no council can support and get over that kind of

AnthonyHayes: 15:57

Yeah. It's interesting. External counsel has a real. To me, it's fascinating because we can play lots of roles, right? So either you have a longterm client that you all know each other very well. and sometimes those relationships are very deep and she's everyone knows one another and it's, there's a lot of trust. and I think is very difficult when you're in a crisis, especially if you're a leader is, you know, you don't know who you can trust, and you're really nervous about sort of. Well, who are these people? You know, and depending on how sort of the structure of these, especially much, much larger institutions go, you know, they may not have met the PR firm that it's on retainer, right. Because why would they ever be necessarily sitting in the C-suite of, you know, a major bank or something like that? but so that a lot of times externally, the ways that we can really help is. Sometimes the communication communications, people are often the people who are like, we can't say that, you know, they're often than no people. initially. I think a lot of times leaders can sort of see the communication team as the know people and they don't, that can really be a point of friction. And, you know, having someone else who is external, who doesn't really have all of the internal politics that go on in an organization, we don't really have a dog in that fight. So to speak. So we get to just sort of come in and mirror or parrot what the comms director who works there every day has said. And then they're like all of a sudden the leader thinks it's a great idea, you know, and I'm sure the comms director is like, okay, thanks for that. is when you get brought in, in Because we certainly gotten phone calls because a friend may work somewhere or someone knows us and they're in crisis and they're like, we need someone who do we call. And then all of a sudden you're getting a call. And the challenge is, you know, similar to attorneys, you know, your PR team needs to know, like it's not a, it's not a, the more we know the more we can sort of push toward full disclosure or push toward, you know, we can help game out scenarios that will help the client really determine, you know, how they want to go about handling this, you know, is it a big, may, a culpa press? Conference or is it a statement? Is it, but if we don't know where things are, then what happens is you're drafting statements or making responses that, um, could, um, make it making it better?

Jim James: 18:18

And then one last question for you then Anthony Hayes. what about media not to run a story? How, do you say, I just don't want you to write that.

AnthonyHayes: 18:30

Well, you know, it's not an easy call. I think there's several ways to go certainly tactically handled that lots of different ways. So one is, you know, either you have a relationship with the reporter and that, that becomes those. Those are always easier. That's why like the, you know, it is a relationship business. The other option is, bigger story to trade? You know? And so really the client has to decide like, well, wait, we know we're going to announce, I don't know that you know, that we're firing the CEO in a week, so, okay. Well then let me go trade that because maybe they'll take that over this. And then, you know, that doesn't mean that the reporter may not include some of what they've called you about. But, you know, it's you trade and I'm not saying that it always works. So I think that people sometimes think there's magic where you call the PR team and the PR team's going to clean it up.

Jim James: 19:25

Yeah, no, it is. And they do it very immersively. We live in countries where we have journalists who have that job to keep us all well-informed Anthony, if we want to find out about you and the Hayes initiative, how can they do that?

AnthonyHayes: 19:38

Oh, sure. You can go to hayesinitiative.com. That's HAYES as with an E. or you can just email me anthony@hayesinitiative.com

Jim James: 19:46

thank you so much for joining me all the way from the big Apple today on the unnoticed show. All right. Do you be listening to Anthony Hayes? Who's the founder of the haze initiative all the way in New York, especially specialist boutique PR firm, really sharing about the fact that sometimes it's great to get noticed, and sometimes it's great to be less noticed. Thanks for listening. And we'll put all those in the show notes. And in the meantime, we wish you the best of health, a profitable business, and that you think about having a plan for your business for better and for worse.