For most companies, the safe and appropriate track is to follow the leaders. You don’t need to be the first to act, but you definitely don’t want to be the last.
An example is early in the crisis when initially there was a handful of emails informing customers of a company’s actions related to the virus and reminding everyone to wash their hands. Within days, every company was sending out letters. It’s okay to be in that group- and ultimately ignored and unremembered as part of that group. You just don’t want to be the last company to send it out because at that point you look uncaring or unprepared.
The most successful companies are those planning ahead. Preparing actions or statements for different scenarios, or predicting long-term market changes and positioning themselves to be ready and ahead of the competition for that change.
The coronavirus crisis also creates a lot of business threats for companies that navigate it poorly.
Our team has helped companies of all sizes and industries through the crisis so far, and are available to help you too if needed.
As the crisis was first beginning, before quarantines began we hosted a critical communications webinar hosted by the Better Business Bureau’s Arizona and California chapters. More than 180 people signed up within just a few days. With our appreciation, the BBB gave permission for us to post the full webinar presentation on YouTube so more businesses could review and use tips as they deemed appropriate.
Transcript from the video:
Speaker 1: So BBB, I know some of you are accredited businesses and that’s why you’re attending, so thank you. We want to provide you with the resources and topics that you need to help your business through this time. A couple of you guys are also just businesses in the community, whether it’s Arizona or California, wherever you are. Thank you for joining us as well.
Speaker 1: So BBB, we’re committed to helping all of our credit businesses and our businesses in Arizona and California. That’s the areas that we service. Just navigate through these challenges and what you’re currently experiencing. It’s something that we’ve definitely never experienced before. I just want to let you know that BBB is here as a trusted resource and to please continue supporting each other as an accredit business and our local communities as well.
Speaker 1: If you’re an accredit business. We also sent you out a survey through an email yesterday. If you can please fill that out and get that back to us. That will help us prepare for a future webinar topics. We hope to go ahead and offer these to you as a benefit, as an accredit business. Probably weekly or biweekly. So please let us know. So without further ado, I’d like to introduce our speaker today.
Speaker 1: I won’t go too much into it because I think his bio speaks volumes already. Josh Weiss, in the past 20 years he’s worked for hundreds of external and internal clients including public and private companies in the healthcare and technology industries, government first responders, and community organizations to build positive brands and manage reputations. He’s a residence in Arizona since 2001, and he’s also the Owner President of 10 to 1 Public Relations. So I’ll go ahead and hand it over to you Josh.
Josh Weiss: Thanks so much, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. I’m sorry that we need to talk at all. So I’m going to turn off the video so that I don’t get self conscious. I’m going to run through this. I know that some of you are going to need to jump on and off. If you have different comments and questions, I do want to answer everything I can. I’m happy to stay online even after our time is officially over. If you want to make comments and ask questions that way to the presenter in the chat room option, I know that we’ll be able to look at those afterward and I’ll do my best to answer any questions that you have. We’re all navigating this together, so I appreciate your effort and your patience.
Josh Weiss: So with that, let’s get started. All right, so my background is I’ve been in PR long time. I am more than happy to talk about myself. So let’s move on.
Josh Weiss: The goals of this session are, I want to make sure that you have a better understanding of your role, and how you can help for your company and your customers about what communication should be for your business. But also understand the risks that we’re all facing, but also understand how to prepare and communicate for future threats that are related to this crisis or even others. So one thing I feel like I need to warn you upfront, I’m a believer in sharing a lot of examples. I learned from watching other people and what they did to figure out what I want to copy, or what we want to emulate, and make our own, and change and all that kind of stuff. Or also seeing where things didn’t go the way they should have so that we can adjust accordingly. So I’m going to share a lot of examples as we go, probably. I may talk about different clients.
Josh Weiss: I am not trying to win you over to gain your business. The idea of this session is that you can take ideas, do them on your own. So I’m not doing this from a sales perspective, but you’re going to hear examples. So don’t misinterpret what we’re trying to achieve.
Josh Weiss: I think there’s a few things we need to do to set up the conversation first. I am a huge believer in the 10 to one rule. So much so that I named our company 10 to 1 Public Relations. So what I mean by that is that it takes 10 good things to be said about [inaudible 00:03:48] and one bad. And unfortunately it is only a matter of time when something bad happens. And we’re seeing that now that is more global. It’s not directed towards you. But the truth is there’s other times you’re going to get that bad story about you or someone’s going to think negatively about you.
Josh Weiss: So if you have a lot of goodwill booked up prior, it really protects and inoculates your image. So think of it this way, let’s say you own a restaurant in town and you just opened in the neighborhood. All of a sudden people are… The first thing somebody hears is a bad review, a bad comment about the restaurant. Well, if they hear the first thing is bad, they’re not even walking in the door. Even if you’re down the street, right? They’re just going to skip you all together.
Josh Weiss: But if people heard a bunch of positive things about your restaurant, “Oh, the ambiance was really nice. The owner was really nice. I got seated right away. The food was really good.” You hear a bunch of different positive comments and then somebody says, “You know, I went there, I just didn’t enjoy it.” You’re still willing to walk in the door because you heard enough positive good news comments prior, right? So the goal of that is that you want to build up as many positive good news stories as possible before that bad one happens. Because people are still open to talking to you if they hear the good things first.
Josh Weiss: So that’s what the 10 to one rule is. Another way to view it is this video.
Video: (music). You can see a number of cups. Let’s say this first cup has negative news. You can see the soda and the dark color. Let’s say this is your negative news story. So if something bad happens, in order to repair it and help your image, you need to start taking these good news stories and start filling them in. As you can see it takes a long time to build back up your good news and to make the bad news not look as bad.
Video: Let’s take it the other way around. Let’s say you have a bunch of good news stories already in the hopper in your goodwill bank, and then something bad happens. From the start, it doesn’t look as bad.
Josh Weiss: So the reason I share that even now, even though this session, this presentation is really truly about how to handle the Coronavirus issues, is that I want to get this point across to you about how important building that goodwill is for bad news that’s going to happen. So if it involves you directly, you want all that good news built up. But even in these trying times, it still makes a difference what people think about you and how you act in the days to come.
Josh Weiss: So during a crisis, and you know, I normally do a presentation about how to handle a crisis. So this is going to combine some generic things, but we’re going to get really specific on Coronavirus. The problem during a crisis is that people are kind of in that ready, fire, aim mode. They aren’t thinking what they’re doing. Everyone’s in that freeze or fight mode. And that’s really where they freeze and they make the story last longer than they should because they don’t know what to do and they wait too long to respond.
Josh Weiss: And the other side is they fight too fast. They talk too quickly and they say too many things right off the bat, and it really throws off a lack of coordination. And it throws off a strategic response on what you need to do to position yourself the right way longterm. The first 24 hours, if you think about it, should be about offering questions, not answers. And this is general for a crisis, not the one that we’re all facing together at the same time. The idea is when the first problem happens and this is just something that you should be considering right now if you haven’t already done this, it’s not about making proclamations to the public, it’s about asking your own employees, “What can I do to help you immediately deal with this problem?”
Josh Weiss: It’s about gathering as much information as you can during that first 24 hours, because it’s offering those questions that positions where the public knows that you’re aware of the issue, they know that you’re dealing with it, but your employees are scared. Your employees right now don’t know if they have a job tomorrow. They don’t know if they’re going to be healthy tomorrow. They’re afraid to come and work as a group because they’re afraid that is someone else sick and they aren’t telling us. Your employees are scared. So they need to see you in that leadership role asking what they need so they feel comfortable and they can keep doing the job that is available to them, but also they need to know that your voice is there to help lead them through this crisis.
Josh Weiss: Ask as many questions as you can. What you don’t want to do is make declarative statements saying that everyone should be coming to work. Everybody should be staying at home for the next three months. We don’t know the answers to those things. Avoid providing longterm solutions before we know the facts. And as we are talking to the public as well as we get into Coronavirus and we get into that conversation, a lot of this is also going to be about making sure that the statements that we make are things that we hope stand up over time.
Josh Weiss: So that kind of goes to today, right? This whole crisis started really 15 days ago, in many ways. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. We don’t know if everyone’s going to be able to return to work in 10 days, which I unfortunately fear that we’re not. This might run through the summer. We don’t know this could run for the next 18 months. We have no idea. So the reason I’m saying that is not to scare you, it’s that we all need to understand that we’re all in this together. Anything that I’m suggesting today, you know, I put on the date on here for anyone who gets a copy of this later.
Josh Weiss: Tomorrow, the news can be completely different based on what’s happening. And it changes the circumstances of where we’re at. I was originally doing a presentation the Better Business Bureau through the Phoenix Business Journal only a week and a half ago. And the advice that I gave then, some of it is still accurate, but that was when everyone was still willing to go to events. That was when we weren’t afraid yet. That was when we were practicing social distancing. So things change so fast that you know, we need to accept that as reality. The data and the suggestion I’m giving you today is really what we think of as today is the right decision.
Josh Weiss: If you’re watching this two weeks from now, please know that a lot of these suggestions may change. We just don’t know. So I’m really trying to protect myself before people take advice on something, and they watch this video six months from now. So let’s get into it.
Josh Weiss: I believe that most companies, and I’m not talking about like the Apples of the world, most companies should do the follow the leader approach. You can do that and it’s okay. What I mean by that is that what someone is doing before us, we should be watching that trend, because in reality that’s likely what’s coming our way. So think about it. First you had the really big concerts like Coachella or know Pearl Jam here in Phoenix announced that they were canceling their tour. Coachella announced within a couple hours the same timing. All of a sudden you went from these big concerts and it gets cut down to smaller and smaller groups.
Josh Weiss: The NBA thought that they would still be able to play games and just not have fans in the audience. And they started talking about that and then guess what, players get sick too. So that trickled down to sporting events and now even high school sports of course are in… Any kind of sporting event of any size of any level. Those are being canceled as well.
Josh Weiss: Large political gatherings. We went from having the debates and the big conventions, and all that kind of stuff to trickling that down into people not being willing to do any kind of political event. You saw hand sanitizers, a run in grocery stores, and very soon that became a run on toilet paper. And then that even went further to different food that you would normally get.
Josh Weiss: Colleges started going to online courses and now there are schools across the country that are all in the same kind of way. We went from 500 people to 50, to 10. You get the idea right?
Josh Weiss: If you see a trend like that starting in your industry, at the big, big player level, there’s a good chance it’s going to continue on to your level. So you need to be prepared and prepare for that. Restaurants and bars are another example because obviously that relates to the number of people you’re supposed to have collectively. But take out is still allowed.
Josh Weiss: If you can see that your restaurants are still open today, how can you start getting ready for a takeout type of company if you’re a restaurant? So that you can move forward in that way. Start looking at what’s happening, and what might hit you, and start preparing for it early. So I think it’s okay to take that follow the leader approach. It’s going to continue to happen. So just be prepared for what the big kids do is going to basically trickle down to the rest of us as well, in how we need to act.
Josh Weiss: We’re hearing a lot about flattening the curve. Let’s talk about the bell curve for a second. I don’t think that most companies again, should be at the very, very front of the curve, because then you’re going to take a little bit more of a hit for closing down everything and then it might turn out there was unnecessary to do that. The other side is you don’t want to be on the opposite side of the curve where you are the last one to close, because you’re starting to see those stories happen right now with certain performers, our bars and restaurants that should have closed that aren’t. Or events that should have been canceled that it took too long to cancel.
Josh Weiss: You don’t want to get lost in the crowd. So, part of that is communications, right? Do we remember as long ago as a week ago when everybody was receiving those “We’re monitoring the situation closely” emails? Well how rapidly has that changed? It went from we’re operating as normal to everyone is now working from home. And where social distancing went a step further. It’s okay to be in that clump. I have no problem. And I can’t tell you how many of our different clients we were helping write those letters for, even though they all sound similar, it is important to be one of those companies.
Josh Weiss: So going forward, as you see those trends, beginning about those group emails going out giving updates, you of your organization should consider doing that too. Let people make fun of it. Let people say, “Why am I sending this letter to all these customers or all the people on my list?” It’s in part that you want to be on the record, you want to let everyone know what you’re doing, that you’re paying attention, and that you care about them as customers.
Josh Weiss: You don’t want to be the last one to do it. So go ahead and do it when everyone else is, no one’s going to remember that you sent the letter anyway, and that’s okay. You still want that paper trail. And that really just shows that you’re paying attention and that you’re not… You’re handing it the right way. So don’t be afraid of doing that.
Josh Weiss: We’re about to get ready for the next wave of emails. So we had them all a week ago, right, about saying that we’re watching closely. This week, you’re going to see more and more emails about how it’s changing business and that people are working remote. Or that they’re only doing online webinars, and they’re not letting people come into the office anymore. Or, all that kind of stuff.
Josh Weiss: Another thing that we’re recommending is for many companies, and let’s have a couple of examples. On your main website page, because you don’t want to take over everything. But at the same time have an area where you’re sharing information with people who do want to see it. So for example, one of our clients is [inaudible 00:14:59]. What’s really interesting about them is that they’re a manufacturer of books and all that kind of stuff. They aren’t the publisher in terms of the backside. This is one that’s literally printing the books in the United States. Tens of thousands of books and all that kind of stuff. They do like all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, are made in Wisconsin where this client is located, and all that. So anyway, we helped them initially because you know, New York is where the publishers are and they were very concerned. So they were ahead of the curve in terms of that letter that went out. And they should have been based on where their audience was.
Josh Weiss: But what we advised them to do is put a button at the top of their website for those people that do want more information. And then when you go into it, what I would recommend that you do and everyone does is they put a date of when that post went up, when their current status went up. What I mean by that is you can see on the screen the update, we put it right at the top, March 13th. For other companies we’re even saying that if it’s something that they expect to update this regularly to literally put what time they posted it.
Josh Weiss: The reason being that the way that this is written is that it’s saying operating business as usual and all that kind of stuff. Well, what happens when you’re no longer operating as normal? Or what happens when something changes and you have to change what you’re doing? That’s when you can change the date, when you put the new communication on. It’s okay to leave the old one there if you think that’s appropriate. And then at the top, just add the newest one. But you always want to put that date on it so people know what’s most current.
Josh Weiss: So let’s say this email is up, but it didn’t have a date. You know this announcement about what they’re doing, and then two weeks from now with no updates made, things have totally changed and the whole plant is closed down. What if someone were to get sick in the plant, or whatever the case is, in the manufacturing facility. This is going to look really tone deaf, or it’s going to be totally inappropriate, because it’s a message that was appropriate two weeks ago, that’s not appropriate today. Which is why I recommend if you’re going to do this kind of statement, put the date on it. That’s also why you’re going to start seeing that trend that I was referring to about a lot of people updating their emails going out to say what’s going on, just because they want to have it on record, from that perspective.
Josh Weiss: Another example is another client of ours is Plexus. They have 400,000 independent sales representatives across the country. A lot of stay at home moms, for example, who are selling their products. They host a lot of events. So they added into their back office for their ambassadors across the country a frequently asked questions area where it just answers different questions that they’re probably asking right now about what’s being canceled, what’s still continuing. Are my commissions safe? All these different aspects.
Josh Weiss: So there’s things that you can do that aren’t necessarily intended to be shared with the entire public everywhere, but it’s totally appropriate for you find a place where you can drive people to that location for those updates. Especially if this crisis is going to last several months. That’s the recommendation, that you want to have a place where people can go for information, where your not constantly sending them emails all the time. They’re going to learn where to go as this continues, when they need information about changes that are occurring as a result of Coronavirus.
Josh Weiss: Another thing is scheduling events and rescheduling events. Anything that’s happening now through June is probably going to be canceled. It’s one thing to kind of hold off for a few months and say that, “Hey, we don’t know where this is at. It’s three months away. We understand it might be canceled later.” Everybody’s saying that they’re going to reschedule in fall. There aren’t enough venues, even if we’re back in normal, a lot of those fall events are already scheduled for different places. So we’re already hearing from some of our clients that even though they want to reschedule for fall, it’s going to be very complicated and difficult to do. So even if you’re trying to reach those event planners, it’s going to be really hard to reach them right now, because they’re too busy rescheduling everyone, and canceling people for upcoming events. But, if you’re able to secure a time and a place later, you may want to just do that now.
Josh Weiss: Or, figure out if you can make your event virtual. So, one of our clients for example… And I’ll get into that actually I think it might even be the next slide. Well, not yet. So I’ll get into, and I’ll show what they’re doing from a virtual perspective for a fundraiser that they were doing from a nonprofit perspective.
Josh Weiss: So this isn’t to sound catty, but you should always take advantage of a crisis in the positive way, right? So if something horrible is happening, what can you do to make it better? I don’t mean that for personal gain necessarily. The question is how do you use that negative and instead of just hiding under a rock and a blanket and curling up into a ball, what can you put your energy to in a positive way?
Josh Weiss: What can you do sometimes that’s related to personal in the community? Sometimes that’s related to your business as well. So what can we do? If you’re a healthcare nonprofit, and this is an example. So, one of our clients is a nonprofit called Family Promise.
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Josh Weiss: So one of our clients is a nonprofit called Family Promise. There’s Family Promises all over the country. What they essentially do in their model was that they team up with churches. So they would help people during the day and give them the care and services they need. A different church every week or religious institution, it’s not just churches per se. A different organization would come in and basically provide all their meals for that week, but also give them a place to sleep, often in a church. Yeah, so we’re talking about three, four families in a group.
Josh Weiss: So essentially what was happening with that, a lot of the churches and a lot of the volunteers and a lot of times the church will have 30, 40, 50 different people helping host these people for that week. Well, a lot of churches understandably, have people who are retired, who have more time and are willing to donate more energy and cook the meals and all that kind of stuff. We didn’t want to force these churches and these individuals from collecting together from the social distancing perspective. We didn’t want to risk anybody’s health. So Family Promise instead decided to still accept the food, but to convert some of their spaces and literally have people sleeping there instead of at the churches, to remediate that pain.
Josh Weiss: Churches are still a big piece, but the problem is that it adds a lot more stress to the nonprofit as you can imagine. It also creates a bunch of funding issues that they have as well. So we’re doing a bunch of things to make sure the churches know how appreciated they still are. The big fundraiser they had scheduled was for of course, three weeks from now and they had to cancel that. So we’re instead turning that into a virtual fundraiser.
Josh Weiss: Church people they’re all making meals, it’s potlucks every evening right, for their groups. So now we’re doing a remote potluck and we’re trying to say instead of the money that you would have spent on making the food for everybody, please just donate that direct. That kind of thing. So we’re trying to go to a wider audience to collect money and doing different, the casserole level donation and the salad donation and the dessert donation and you get the idea, right?
Josh Weiss: So can you take an event that you would have otherwise had and make that instead, something that’s virtual. Another example is for health care and I’m going to go through a lot of different industries to try and give you different examples that might be appropriate for you of what you should be doing right now. So don’t worry.
Josh Weiss: Medivant is a generic drug maker and what they’re doing is they’re building a brand new $10 million facility, which is going to be operational in the next two, three weeks. What they’re doing is they’re supplying generic drugs for hospitals because there’s actually a huge, huge shortage of generic drugs, which is really hard to believe and understand. So the reason I share that as an example, is that the drugs that they’re starting with are drugs that are secondarily going to be in even higher demand as hospitals are under more and more pressure.
Josh Weiss: So can you take advantage of that? So for example, cardiac patients have an even higher risk because of COVID-19. So what they are doing is a lot of those generic drugs for cardiac patients are in major, major shortages. So they are starting to make those drugs first to try and take away some of the stress on the system. So creating new stories about how that fits into the broader issue is an example of how that company is taking advantage of this issue.
Josh Weiss: Another company, Sami-Aid is a telemedicine company. So it turns out just yesterday President Trump made an announcement, as he’s doing every day now. The government’s trying to do what they can and they’re doing updates and conferences every day. They announced that they’re encouraging and they’re actually helping cover costs for telehealth services, which is telemedicine. So what we did is we sent out a pitch to TV stations across the country letting them know that-
Josh Weiss: You might have heard various dispatches from the White House and the president himself recently regarding the use of telemedicine as a primary source of healthcare services for most Americans. Why telemedicine?
Josh Weiss: So what we’re trying to do by sending this video out, and it’s a one minute video, is that we’re offering direct interviews, but it’s really hard for media to do those interviews and some of them will do it via Skype, but we want to just literally provide them the videos so they can make the announcement and they can run the story as they wish right now. So obviously that’s very timely. You want to jump on those appropriate connection news stories and we’ll get into later about when you shouldn’t be pushing yourself into the coronavirus story, but it was just a natural, appropriate fit to take advantage from a healthcare perspective to share what options are for people who are concerned.
Josh Weiss: Not necessarily directly related to coronavirus illnesses, but for any other kind of illness as well because if you have a UTI issue or something like that, you don’t necessarily want to go have to sit in the waiting room at the urgent care or at your doctor’s office and be in a waiting room full of people who think that they have COVID-19 when all you need to do is actually be able to talk to a doctor and by phone is okay as long as they’re willing to then make that prescription so you can go pick it up at the pharmacy and take care of that issue that you’ve had several times in the past and already know what you need to do to take care of it in the future.
Josh Weiss: Service industry presents different opportunities of what you should be doing. So for example, what’s newsworthy about what you’re doing to keep your employees and your customers safe? That’s something that you can be putting in your letters, but it’s also something that we might be able to take advantage of as time goes on from a news perspective as well. We’ve got to remember that right now we’re talking about closures in two, three weeks from now, we’re going to be looking for things to be talking about. They’re still connected tangentially to coronavirus. So for example, what are you doing as a service tech to provide distance? How are you limiting that contact? Are you standing far away from the door? Is it all curbside in a way that you just drop stuff off at the door if you’re delivery? Is there a way that you can do where you don’t have to come in contact with somebody if you’re going to their home, if that’s what they want?
Josh Weiss: One of our clients, it’s a national HPAC company, they’re pushing their white glove service. Essentially it’s the idea that we come in and we’re not going to touch a bunch of things. We’re going to keep things really clean and we’re going to treat it, we’re going to keep everything is positive as possible, but now’s the perfect time for them to continue to promote that white glove. While that was intended for messiness, it really goes from a health perspective now and it totally fits their brand and what they’re trying to portray to their customers that they’re going to do things a certain way. Another example is filters. There’s actually AC filters that are UV light that’ll help destroy a bunch of bacteria. That’s a perfect time to take a product that you have and talk about how it can help people feel safer in their home or help them cope with this incident.
Josh Weiss: So it’s kind of showing that demo, showing that video of what that is. There’s an app. Being able to do that demo. What kind of imagery is appropriate. So let’s say you’re trying to get a perception and a belief that you’re safe and that it’s okay to let this person in your home. What if you have a hotel and you want people to feel comfortable coming into your lobby and know that their rooms are going to be clean? This may sound a little silly, but why don’t you have a cleaner in your lobby 24 hours a day whenever a potential customer is walking in the door and have somebody just always in there cleaning the lobby. I walk into a lobby and I’m already kind of nervous to touch anything right now. Right? If I’m a germaphobe and I’m afraid of the whole social distancing thing.
Josh Weiss: If I see somebody in the room cleaning it, I immediately feel a little bit safer. In my own offices and I’m the only one in our offices now because we’re letting our staff work remote. I’m in the office right now, but we have instead of literally all the cleaning products being under the shelf, we’re purposely leaving them out on the counters because we want anyone last week who was coming into our offices to see that we’re doing all that we can to keep them safe and keep everything as clean as possible. So from your perspective, if you have that kind of lobby or that reception area where people are coming in, it’s worth the money if you have staff there anyway doing that appropriate work to be constantly cleaning and just kind of shift people every hour that way they don’t go nuts being in the same place the whole time.
Josh Weiss: It’s a great way to create the image. It’s not just an image you’re creating, you really aren’t keeping the place cleaner. So take advantage of that if that’s appropriate. Office dwellers again is having those office supplies is cleaning supplies out. If work from home isn’t an option, you kind of have to accept that now and do that. I love it when our team is together. I love the energy, but you know what? It’s just not appropriate because it’s not worth the risk. If someone has auto immune issues or someone has toddlers at home or they have elderly people, parents or whoever that live with them. We don’t want to accidentally expose anybody and you don’t want that responsibility. So if the truth is you can work remote, find a way to do that, minimize the in person meetings if you can.
Josh Weiss: It is stressful. It does feel like you’re not going to be as effective sometimes. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it anyway and we’re all going to have to adapt. So if you accept that it helps. Part of it too is that with kids home now, someone depending on the age needs to be home to watch them. So my advice on that front is scheduled regular Zoom meetings. My team, we’re doing a Zoom call twice a day and we’re just talking as a full group. The idea of that meeting is that it’s going to be 15 minutes. We’re already at over a half hour right now. So we’re going to continually get better at reducing that as we do these more commonly. It’s a way to have everyone continue to stay connected. So you might need to do certain things. If you think your offices might be closed, set up your Zoom and it doesn’t have to be Zoom.
Josh Weiss: I’m not promoting them specifically, but whatever conference company. Get that set up now. Remote access to different things, backup plans, you don’t want to have to work from home. You may not have a choice. So anything you can get set up in advance, then you want to do that. Same for if someone were to all of a sudden get sick in the office and you had to close tomorrow, what are you going to do? So kind of plan that as you can, but the truth is you as the leader need to be talking to your staff and telling them what’s going on. Be really upfront with them, make sure they know that you’re serious about it. It’s okay to stay home for those employees that need to be there. Let them know that you’re working on plans. Ask them. This is part of your communication job now.
Josh Weiss: Ask them what they’re going to need if they do have to do the job from home and what can’t be done from home, so you can plan accordingly. If you’re a manufacturing company, it goes back to the idea that I gave earlier of that book manufacturer. Obviously want to have cleaning supplies wherever you can. Spread people out if possible, but the question is if you had a skeleton crew, can you keep operating? If you do that, maybe have the A team and the B teams that the A and the B never see each other or they’re working different shifts because what happens if all of a sudden a bunch of people on the A team get sick, at least helpful you still have the B team that can keep things running on the side. If mid shift you have to send somebody home, does that close everything down?
Josh Weiss: What’s your policy going to be about when they’re allowed to return? Do they have to have a doctor’s note? I mean figure out all that stuff now because obviously you want them back as soon as possible, but you don’t want them back if they’re going to expose everybody else. What are you going to do about supply shortages? That’s something that we need to be planning on. Are there certain things that you can stock pile now even at this point? Maybe, maybe not. If there’s certain items that you know are the most important ones to sell and to make and to have inventory for, maybe you aren’t making the secondary products anymore. You’re just focusing on those core ones that are going to really protect what you’re doing. So these are all things that you need to plan for, but you also need a plan on fear of your employees.
Josh Weiss: That’s the same as an office people working at desks. Your job is to communicate with them. If you think that they need to be in the office and everyone’s still working, that means you as the leader need to be comfortable walking through the office and talking to people. If you are afraid to be talking to people in your own offices right now, then they should not be in the office. You need to treat them with the same respect because they need to see if you’re making them be there or you’re encouraging them to be there that they see that you’re there as well. So you can’t work remote and make them work in the office. That’s just not the right image and message. That’s when they start posting things on social media saying that they’re making me be here, but the people in charge aren’t.
Josh Weiss: That’s just going to come back and backfire on you. So be smart about that perspective. It’s about how they view how you are acting during the crisis. So some of the risks, we talked about some opportunities before. When it comes to some of the risks, you need to stay in your lane. A favorite phrase is stay in your lane, the traffic’s better, right? This picture that I have up right now is kind of funny three weeks ago. It’s not that funny anymore. It’s not going to be funny as people get sicker and sicker. It will not be funny if people die. You need to assume the worst and protect what you do so it doesn’t look bad later. It might be appropriate today. It may not be appropriate tomorrow and it’s something that’ll embarrass you, especially if people in your office get sick.
Josh Weiss: Especially if someone you know gets sick. Don’t make the joke even if you think this isn’t a big deal. There are a lot of people that are really afraid right now. So you need to respect them even if you don’t agree with them. Be careful what you say. Don’t post memes. Don’t make fun of toilet paper. People are going off and doing that. You know what? Your customer might be the one who’s hoarding the toilet papers. Why are you offending them by saying they’re an idiot, right? Be smart about what you’re doing because you still need these people later and you don’t know what’s going to happen later. So don’t put yourself in that bad position.
Josh Weiss: Actually, let me go back for a second. What we also don’t want to do is we talked about some news story opportunities slightly and how you can potentially position yourself. Don’t pretend you’re an expert if you’re not. So it’s really important that in those scenarios where you really are an authority, so the telemedicine, totally appropriate to put that guy out there as an expert because he owns and runs a telemedicine company. So when the president made a comment about telehealth being an option so that we can take the pressure off of the ERs and the urgent cares and the doctor’s offices, that’s free reign to go out and say, “Hey, this is why you should talk to me. It’s timely, it’s appropriate. I’m not taking advantage of this.” Don’t make it a sales pitch. Just talk about how the technology works. That’s what I mean by that’s an appropriate way.
Josh Weiss: Don’t pretend you know a lot when you don’t. Don’t go out and say, “Well as a CEO, I’ve never seen this before.” Nobody’s ever seen this before. So if you don’t necessarily automatically know more than somebody else, don’t pretend you’re the expert, but you can give your personal experience. Reporters are people too. They don’t know how to handle this any more than the rest of us. They’re doing the best they can. TV stations, newspapers, they’re all figuring out what to do. Everything is changing. It’s making it really complicated to know what stories are appropriate. Right? So think of it this way. A lot of TV stations are no longer letting people come in and do interviews in the studio, like on morning shows. Let’s just reduce the number of people in there, right? Totally appropriate. So that changes how they have to fill that time, but also reduces the number of opportunities for you to be interviewed.
Josh Weiss: Even the stations are being careful where they’re sending reporters. So they’re not going to put them in a group. They’re not going to really expose them to a lot of people, but they might allow them to do the one off interview. Other times they’re just doing the standups in the middle of the street kind of thing or in front of a building, but they’re not actually close enough to actually do the interview face to face. Different stations have different policies. Sometimes they’re letting certain reporters do certain things or it depends on how big and how highlighted the story is. So what we’re advising and helping our clients do is create their own videos. So the example being that I showed you a little bit before of that telemedicine company. You can record your own videos.
Josh Weiss: So even that nonprofit they were talking about and how they’re doing the homes, we’re having them shoot different things about the delivery of the church, bringing the food, and the meal when all the residents are sitting together. That way these clients can thank the people who are donating the food, but also show how we’re still providing services to these people who need it most. Simple examples like that. Record your own video, take your own photos because media are more open now to accepting decent quality video than they were before. I am not talking about professional level video. I’m talking about using your iPhone or your smartphone, creating decent video, HD if possible. A lot of phones now do that, but whenever you have they will consider it under the circumstances, they’re more likely to run it than they ever have before.
Josh Weiss: You don’t want to send it to them as an attachment. You want to send it as a link, add it to YouTube or something like that. It could be an unlisted video. They know how to take it from there. If they really want you to email them a hard file, then they’ll ask for it. The essential goal of that is to not move the camera a lot, keep it horizontal, steady camera and we’re talking about short sound bites. Don’t zoom in or anything like that. It’s not about moving the camera around. I’d rather have one minute of a person answering a question as if the reporter personally had asked the question or one shot of the corner of the room where you’re showing all the activity that’s happening within an area in the corner of the warehouse and how you’re spacing people out.
Josh Weiss: I don’t want someone walking around with the camera. I just want the background shot so that the person at the TV station can explain what it is that they’re seeing. So it’s really hard to know what the stories are going to be in the coming weeks. So right now, last week all the stories were about what is coronavirus, should you be worried? Major closures were just beginning. Some of the shortages of toilet paper were just starting. This week has turned into even more closures and how it’s affecting daily life and how people are starting to think about things a little bit differently. Once those stories start dying down in the coming week or two, everyone’s still going to be talking about coronavirus, but nobody’s going to have anything new to say because it’s going to become a new normal. That’s when you as a business have an opportunity to start sharing what you’re doing and how you’re handling it. Stats are going to be always shared by media, but what is your-
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:40:04]
Josh Weiss: … You know are going to be always shared by media. But what is your, you know, they’re going to be doing stories about businesses and nonprofits that are hurting. So what can you do? And how can people help you, even if they’re not walking into your store? Can they buy things online? And is that something that’s appropriate? Are there, you know, can they buy gift cards for your organization, your business, that help you? Even though they won’t be able to use that gift card for potentially a few months. But people want to help their favorite restaurants. They know that you making that donation, in a way, do the buying that gift certificate and paying now so that they can use it later, if that keeps you open, then that’s a good thing. Take advantage of that and let people know that that’s something that’s important.
Josh Weiss: There’s going to be also a bunch of positive stories about how people are surviving and thriving in this new reality and kind of like almost a guide for others as well.
Josh Weiss: So we don’t want to sit back, but we also don’t want to oversell who we are. We don’t want to oversell our products. This is not the time to say this is a great business opportunity, well, there’s certain times to do that, but you got to be mindful that people are scared right now. So you can say that to the certain people who are the right ones. But this mass, you know, kind of stories out there, aren’t always the right way to go.
Josh Weiss: So, let’s talk a little bit more generally about what you can do to prepare. Some of this goes back to my normal you know presentations regarding that before a crisis and during a crisis. It’s still useful even in the time now. So this time we know we’re all facing this together. There are other crises that might happen that are specific to your business, though, caused by Coronavirus.
Josh Weiss: What you need to do, thinking long-term, ’cause right now no one’s going to give you the attention, a couple of weeks from now they might. And a couple of weeks from now is when you might be struggling more. So the question is, do you have a playbook? So you’re prepared for whatever crisis you might be facing that’s specific to you, not that everyone is facing collectively. And so we want to create pre-written templates where you know exactly how you’re going to handle that crisis as it happens. If you get that call from a media, you already have that template of what you’re going to do.
Josh Weiss: So think of it as Mad Libs, do you remember when you were a kid, the game of Mad Libs? And so essentially what it was is a narrative and there was a line that says add adjective here, and add a place there, and add a name, add a noun, add a verb. And part of the narrative was already written, you filled in the blank, whoever the organizer was, was you know, going around the room asking the kids and the parents for the different, you know, grammatical pieces. And then after you collect them all, you read it out loud. And you know kids always think that it’s really funny.
Josh Weiss: So, essentially what you want to do is build Mad Libs for your business now. What are the five scenarios? It could be related to Coronavirus, or it could be on any topic. What are the five things that you’re most afraid of happening? Use the example of what if somebody gets sick, you know with Coronavirus in your office, what are you going to say in that scenario?
Josh Weiss: Let’s say you have a, you know, you do deliveries and you have staff and you have a fleet of vehicles, and they’re still delivering, but let’s say one of your people are drunk driving in a company branded vehicle and they get in a crash. What are you going to do if that happens? What are you going to do if someone gets arrested inside your facility for some reason? Or one of your staff members? Nothing to do with work, but you still need to deal with that.
Josh Weiss: Figure out scenarios that you don’t think are going to happen, but you’re afraid could happen. Pre-write what you would do and what you would say when that immediately happens. Have your CEOs accept it and approve it, have your legal team approve it. All you need to do once that actually happens is fill in the blank to say the name or the location. But you already know what you’re allowed to do and what you’re allowed to say. Take your biggest nightmares, take the most realistic crises you could face. Build that out now because in the middle of the crisis, you don’t have time to deal with it.
Josh Weiss: Another thing you want to do, and now’s a great time to be thinking about that crisis work, right? Is what’s your plan, right, how do people report it up? So let’s say you’ve got a lot of employees all over the place, and media, a new reporter, walks up and asks one of your low level staffers a question. Well, are they supposed to answer the question? Are they supposed to refer them somewhere else? Are they, you know, you don’t want this person who doesn’t necessarily know what’s going on at the top levels answering questions and speaking for your organization.
Josh Weiss: So what we have a lot of our clients do is we literally give them and we help create with them a business card, front and back. It’s instructions of what do you do if a reporter comes and asks you. It has our direct contact information for our clients to call us direct. You know, they can just hand it to the reporter, the reporter can call us. It kind of gives them that instruction of how to handle it, right? And it gives your staff confidence, but it also makes sure that somebody doesn’t say something they shouldn’t. And it makes sure that the reporters are appreciative ’cause at least they know who the right person to contact.
Josh Weiss: And we’re always going to respond. They may not like the answer we give them, but we’re always going to acknowledge them, we’re always going to respond to any inquiry that they have. And you need to take that approach. So I’m not saying use an outside firm if you are able to do that yourself, but you still want anyone in your company in different locations to know who they’re supposed to refer any media inquiry to, any reporter that comes up to them, and have it get straight to them, and have everyone know how to reach for it.
Josh Weiss: So let’s say the crisis has hit, and this isn’t specific to Coronavirus, but let’s say something specific happens in your organization, what are you supposed to do? There’s really four parts of your actions that you should be taking during the crisis.
Josh Weiss: The first thing is you need to clarify and simplify your message. In the middle of the crisis, you don’t have time to have a committee meeting and talk it all through. You need to very quickly be able to say, alright, here are the core points we need to talk about. We need to focus on these few things. This is the statement. And that statement becomes kind of your, your ride throughout the entire process, right? You can always stay on that and it fits every step of the process.
Josh Weiss: So for example, let’s say there’s a HIPAA violation in your organization. Your message is pretty simple. You’re not going to really be giving a lot of detail on what happened ’cause you don’t know yet. You’re not going to be giving a lot of detail on how many people ’cause that number could change. What you’re going to do is demonstrate that you’re aware of the issue and that you’re dealing with it.
Josh Weiss: So three simple statements if something like a HIPAA violation were to occur. “We’re taking care of our patients that are impacted by this violation.” “We’re going to investigate and take action where appropriate.” “We will redouble our efforts to prevent any future similar violation.”
Josh Weiss: You’re not actually saying what you’re doing, but you are saying that you’re taking it seriously and that you’re going to take care of the people who are affected.
Josh Weiss: People, the customer needs to know that you’re going to take care of them. You know your patient, your client. You’re saying that in this message. You don’t know enough to say exactly what happened but you are investigating it. People need to know that you’re on top of it, that you’re taking it seriously, and that you’re doing what you can. And they want to know that you’re going to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. That’s kind of that first statement in the first couple of hours you want to give during that crisis.
Josh Weiss: This goes back to Coronavirus in a way as well, but the next part is internally communicating with your teams. So let’s say you have a big organization, what you need to do as a leader is quickly talk to your, you know, department heads, and tell them enough, you know tell them the talking points, right? Those few holding statements that clarify and simplify the message. But your employees are scared, they’re scared right now with Coronavirus. They need to hear from you, and they need to see that you’re being a leader, and that you’re telling them how they’re supposed to act.
Josh Weiss: So you hold that meeting with those core leaders, and then those leaders can be the ones that share with the rest of your staff around the organization. What you need to do, as I indicated before, is walk around and let them know that you’re on top of it, that you believe in them, thank them for what they’re doing in a stressful time. If there’s talking points, you need to repeat the same talking points that you’re saying to everyone else ’cause they’ll hear you say that and they’ll be able to repeat that. You have to remember it’s your employees that are actually talking to most of your customers. So if they feel confident, and they know what they’re supposed to say, they are much, much, much more likely to actually say what you want them to say to the customer.
Josh Weiss: You need to demonstrate your appreciation, and you need to try and do town halls, or group meetings, when you’re not all in one place, as time goes on, and that, you know whether it would be weekly or whatever. If you’re not ready to answer questions, you don’t have to answer questions. You can just be lecturing them and telling them what’s going on and how you’re handling it. You know ’cause when you open with questions, you do run the risk of someone throwing you a curve ball, and if you’re not good at answering curve balls, then you’re not going to hit it out of the park. Maybe initially you don’t want to open it up in front of everybody and, you know, position yourself where you may say something you regret, or feel like you didn’t do a good job, or you made people more nervous. But you do need to give them a statement where they can see it. It can be a live stream, if necessary. You know, in person is really tough right now for obvious reasons, but you get the idea of what I mean by that.
Josh Weiss: Next part is communicating with your customers and supporters. You’re seeing that as we said with all those Coronavirus letters that went out and when you receive the next one. But you need to be honest and direct with them. You know they need a, and during a crisis, your customers are willing to forgive you, especially right now everyone knows everyone’s going through these same things. There’s going to be times where you’re not able to deliver a product, you’re not able to do the work that you promised. Tell them that upfront. Get them ready for it now so they’re not upset later. People are already stressed. They’re willing to forgive it now. But even a month from now they may not be willing to forgive it, so they’ll say well why weren’t you prepared for this earlier? Or you’ve had a month to get ready, why aren’t you ready now? So be prepared to be honest and direct with your customers about what can and can’t be done.
Josh Weiss: Provide expectations and instructions of what they’re supposed to do. So you can’t just say, Oh, you know, we’re working on this but we’re not going to have it, or, yeah, your information was stolen, too bad. No, tell them as a customer what the next steps for them are during that process, or what you’re doing to mitigate, you know, the supply side issue, and when they can expect product without it being promised on that date because it’s in part based on other things.
Josh Weiss: Respond to social media posts ’cause people are going to be cooped up in their house, they’re going to be angry, they’re going to be scared, they’re going to start turning on each other, potentially, or they’re going to come together as a family and support each other. We don’t know which way it’s going to go yet. Be prepared for both directions. If you are the one whose saying, kumbaya and let’s come together, people are going to treat you a lot nicer. If you’re ignoring them and you’re not responding, people are going to be really mad at you. So they need to know that you care. It doesn’t mean you need to answer every question. they just need to know that you saw the question.
Josh Weiss: So when it comes to social media posts, people are asking a ton of questions. I’m not suggesting you have to write new answers every single time. That’s when having it on your website and having that link that has the updates say thank you so much for your inquiry, we are posting all information about our response regarding COVID-19 on our website, we invite you to go to this link. And that’s where all the frequently asked questions are, and that’s where you can kind of point everybody where to go. Over time, people are going to stop posting on your Facebook page, these questions, because they’re going to see that at least you acknowledged their question and you told them where to go.
Josh Weiss: But if you always respond with the same one line statement, thank you for your inquiry, we’re posting all information about our COVID-19 response on our website, here’s the link. If you always stay consistent with that message, there’s no point in people asking you questions on your Facebook page anymore because they’re going to know exactly where to go, and that’s the only answer they’re going to get, so they know how to get the information that you’re trying to share with them.
Josh Weiss: Media are a conduit to talk to upset customers and you need them to be able to see that you’re doing your part. ‘Cause if somebody were to call, you know, and you know, consumer report kind of thing, and try and say that you were doing a bad job, but you have on your website an explanation of what’s going on, and when you hope to have product out, and that it’s not personal, and all that kind of stuff, the media are going to see that and they’re going to see there’s not much of a story. So take advantage of that when you can.
Josh Weiss: Another example is communicating through the media. There’s going to be times in the coming months where there’s still going to be that need, where you’re going to talk directly to media to deal with that crisis. You want to have one designated spokesperson for your organization. The problem is when you have five different people are all answering questions, the answers are going to be different from each of those five people. So you want the same person answering all the questions ’cause there’s a much more likely that they’re always going to answer the question in the same way.
Josh Weiss: So if you think about it, think about it like your kids, right? So if your kids know that you know dad is the staff and is going to say yes to everything ’cause he doesn’t know anything, then of course the kid is going to ask dad and not mom for permission. Well, it’s the same with a reporter. If they know that a certain member of the staff whose allowed to speak is going to say more than their actual spokesperson, of course they’re going to go to the person who has loose lips. Of course go to the person that has a more colorful soundbite. So if you designate only one person as your spokesperson, it’s going to make things a lot easier.
Josh Weiss: You have to remember that reporters have deadlines that are more important than your deadlines. They have to have their story in, they have to do it, they don’t have a choice. So when that scenario happens, you know you need to understand their deadline and follow theirs. If you screw up, crow tastes better warm than cold, take responsibility for it, own it right away. And people are going to be willing to forgive you ’cause they’re going to see that you’re trying to fix the problem. Demonstrate how you’re trying to fix the problem.
Josh Weiss: The other thing that’s kind of weird is that, I would argue that, when the crisis first happens, if it’s really about you, not just the general news story of the day, don’t let the CEO or the key leaders talk immediately. Again, the first 24 hours are for questions, not answers. So, instead, your spokesperson can say how you screwed up. It’s day two when your leader needs to be there to say how we fix the problem, let your leader look like the good guy. It’s Okay for you to be the bad guy, and they’ll appreciate the fact that you took the hit for them. Let your CEO, let her be in charge, let her explain how she fixed the problem. That’s going to be a much safer thing for them and their career, but it also allows them to show that they’re moving the company forward.
Josh Weiss: So, essentially as a, finishing up on a couple of slides, and I’ll accept questions afterward.
Josh Weiss: Don’t prolong a story when a crisis is happening, just answer the question. If you screwed up, take responsibility for it, it stops the story from continuing.
Josh Weiss: You never lie to a, a reporter’s going to come back at you, accept their deadlines.
Josh Weiss: And I would love to accept any questions, hopefully. And I know that we’re just finishing up the hour, I’ve got like five minutes, I’ll stay online for anyone who wants to continue asking questions. And of course happy to share this presentation if you find it useful later, I think the BBB is going to share a link to it also.
Josh Weiss: We’re all going through a lot of stress right now. We’re all struggling on what to do. We’re all making this up as we go along. I am making this up as we go along from our perspective and how we’re helping clients. What we’re recommending today could be different a week from now with new information.
Josh Weiss: You’re going through this, we’re all going through this. There’s comfort in that, but that also means you don’t want to go too far off on a limb. If there’s ever a thing that I can do to help you and offer some advice, I am always good for a five minute phone consult, right, I am more than happy to share my opinion. I have no problem doing that. If you want to ask me a question, that’s my direct contact info, send me an email, you know try and give me a call. I am happy to try and help you. I’m not going to charge you for the quick, you know, what do you think kind of thing. Don’t worry about that. If you asked me to implement it for you, totally different issue. I am very happy to try and answer any questions that you have.
Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you Josh for all that great information.
Speaker 1: We have a couple of questions in our chat. So if you have questions, please go ahead and type them in. So our first question comes from Douglas: What good lessons do you hope the world learns from this pandemic experience, as a person who lives twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five with two autoimmune disorders, my company has always maintained certain protocols and protective practices. Even these challenges, we always try to think of new practices moving forward. So what are your thoughts? And what are some new standards that you can recommend?
Josh Weiss: It’s hard to, you know, for me to feel like an authority to be able to give that answer. I think that we’re all realizing that this isn’t going to go away. And so let’s say this only lasts for a couple of months, right? And that’s potentially the good case scenario. Let’s say this only lasts for a couple months. Are people going to stop doing handshakes even afterward? Is it one of those things that people are going to be much more respectful of others and that we’re going to see people if they have even just an allergy cough, that people are going to be wearing a mask? Are we going to see, you know, big events, no longer occurring in that way? Is remote staffing going to be a lot more prevalent, even after all this is over? We don’t know the answers. It also provides a great opportunity for some people to help create what the new normal is going to be later if this does prolong.
Josh Weiss: I think that there’s a certain amount of respect that will continue in terms of respecting others and their health issues. But I think, and I’m not, I think it’s going to take some tragedy before people start realizing their responsibility. And I think that’s just human nature, unfortunately, to a degree. I think that you’re seeing, you’re always going to have a percentage who think that this is ridiculous and it’s overblown and people are freaking out for no reason. And, you know, we’re only talking about 20 cases in Arizona and you’re closing down the whole state, that’s ridiculous. That’s not how this, you know, that’s not how pandemics work. And that’s not how people get sick. And just because the number is 20 doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of people who aren’t exposed and not facing issues and not going to the hospital and not being tested.
Josh Weiss: So I think it’s going to take certain incidents before people realize they need to change their actions. I don’t know if I’m answering your question at all. I do want to believe in people. I do think that we’re going to do what’s right, and we’re trying to do what’s right. Some people need that extra motivation. I think we’re going to come out of this stronger. But I am afraid that we are going to come out of this differently. And I hope that we don’t lose the communal team atmosphere of, you know, it’s Okay to be in a group of people and that we want to support each other that way. And I hope it doesn’t isolate people, long-term, where everything is remote. There’s already enough complaints about millennials who are only talking to each other through social media apps, and they’re not actually picking up the phone. That’s kind of scary. I hope that that doesn’t become the norm for everybody.
Speaker 1: Okay. So our second question comes from Kimberly: If you have offices in multiple locations and several PR staff, is it Okay to have multiple people as spokespeople providing that they are uniformly trained?
Josh Weiss: I think that there’s, that’s a great question. I think there’s a couple of different ways to look at that. I think that, as a PR team across the country, right, and we have a lot of clients that have, you know that are, they’re you know across the country, so a lot of different spokespeople, I think it’s important that everyone knows whose in charge still at the corporate level, and that there needs to be certain boundaries on who can say what, right? And what the role is of what, how they’re supposed to participate.
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:00:04]
Josh Weiss: Right. What the role is of what? How they’re supposed to participate? Because you don’t want them stepping out, just speaking and making statements that affect other regions, not just their own local market. Having that weekly conference call where the leader says, “Here are our talking points and here’s what we’re comfortable with you saying, but here’s where you’re not allowed to go, and here’s where you need to refer to corporate.” To be the spokesperson on this issue, I think that that is an appropriate way to handle multiple offices right now. I’m careful with someone on the local level doing those kind of communications, but you need to also set your policy. Are you going to allow interviews to occur in Austin, set up by the local Austin area PR person? Who’s going to do that interview and are you okay letting the division head in Austin be that spokesperson?
Josh Weiss: There’s a certain point every company’s a little bit different in how they operate and all that kind of stuff about who’s allowed to speak. On the other side is that if you have all the communication coming from one person in terms of like the CEO is giving the dictate or that kind of video, potentially you can have the local PIOs or the local PR people sharing that video or sharing that story to their local media contact. They’re still the point of contact, but they’re sharing a national story. Instead of you setting it from corporate out to everyone across the country, you can tell your local PR staff, “Here’s your story that we need you to help get locally covered.”
Speaker 1: We have another question from Randall. I am a small business and a general contractor in San Diego. Many of my homeowners are stopping construction projects and respectfully work will not continue from 8 to 12 months. How can I financially get through the next 8 to 12 months?
Josh Weiss: I’m not the right person to answer that one. I’m sorry that you’re going through this and we’re all scared right now. I think that and I have no expertise in this. I think that if you can demonstrate the protocols you’re taking to keep distancing or how you can still do work without them ever having to face-to-face have a conversation with you, and that you can do a lot of the planning stuff, and the plans and all that kind of stuff remotely and through tele, through a web conference, but then that allows you and your staff to go out onsite. Or how you’re doing, making sure that anything you touch is only certain items they know not to touch it. If it’s a construction area, it should matter from that perspective. They’re probably not in that area anyway.
Josh Weiss: I think that you might need to make those kinds of modifications. If you’re talking about like literally redoing a bathroom for somebody, again that might be, “All right, well, let’s work this out where we can do this quicker, where we’re only using certain doors. We’re only in your home or a certain person of your home where you’re not going to be in at all so there’s no direct contact.” You can find a way to, maybe, someone else can be the one who’s literally cleaning the space after you’re done. Maybe that’s something you can add into your work site from the construction side. That after we’re done, before you even go into these areas, we are paying for a cleaning service to come in and do one final cleansing of the space to know that it’s completely safe for you to be in there.
Josh Weiss: But it’s about minimizing the number of people in their exposure. They’re afraid right now. Not the work that you’re going to do, but of the close contact. If it’s a financial decision that they have to stop, because they don’t know where their money’s going to be there, they’re afraid they’ll losing their job or something like that, there’s nothing any of us are going to be able to do about that one. But if there’s issues that they have that you can kind of mitigate or demonstrate that you’re that white glove service, that’s your opportunity to hopefully win a couple of those projects back.
Speaker 1: We have a question from Jeremy. You kind of touched on this already a little bit, some best practices. His question is, we have a small family business doing carpet cleaning. How can we make sure our clients feel safe enough to allow us to come into their homes to clean? We have already sent out information by email as to how we are sanitizing our equipment after every job and what each tech is doing to keep everyone safe and is currently being added to our website. Any other ways that you would recommend or things that we should do to communicate to our clients?
Josh Weiss: I think that’s a great start. I think that maybe you can even create some videos or pictures demonstrating what you’re doing and that might make some people a little more comfortable. I think that you potentially have the opportunity to say that the cleaning is actually ultimately making their home safer. It’s the air purifying, it’s those vents that have the UV light to kill the bacteria. You going in there and cleaning their carpets, you’re removing any potential virus strains that are being tracked into their home currently or that are already there. So the question is: Is the risk reward kind of issue? Maybe what you do is … I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go along as well. Maybe that’s when, if you know that you can be in and out in an hour or an hour and a half really quick, maybe that’s when the family goes for a walk and you’re doing it on your own and that way they’re not in the home, they have no exposure to you. Or they’re in the backyard playing.
Josh Weiss: If there’s little kids and you’re in there and you do the work and they don’t have to contact you, they don’t have to sign the sheet and pay you right there because they’re paying you online. So maybe it’s the “no personal touch” service, as part of the cleaning process to make sure that, yes, technically there’s a risk about you bringing in new people into their home, but you’re removing so much more of that risk. It is worth it. Maybe there’s ways you can emphasize that from a communication standpoint. If you’re able to achieve doing that or you’re able to create the system, two-three weeks from now, that’s when media are going to be looking. A month from now they’re going to be looking for ways to tell stories about how people are adapting. You might be a really interesting business story about how your business adapted to make people feel safe and to keep their home even safer than it was before you were there.
Speaker 1: Our next question comes from Estrella. Can you give us a little more insight on how our service company can be more effective in communicating a safe environment? I know you touched a little bit on that. It also states, we are also letting our customer knows that we are here for them. We unfortunately lost about 80% of our business this week. Our business provides window cleaning and power washing to both residential and commercial.
Josh Weiss: I’m sorry, I think it’s a hard … I’m not sure I can. I think it’s pushing, again, the fact that there’s no direct contact with you and that you can do all the windows from the outside kind of thing to clean it. I think that if anything, people are going to want to look out their windows even more right now. They’re going to miss things. They’re going to want to see out of their home. If the office building is closed up and nobody’s working, yeah, it’s going to be hard for them to want to spend the money right now instead of having you come and clean closer to when they actually returned to work. Maybe it’s having them prepay for whenever the offices turned back on. They sign a contract now and that you’re going to come a week before they reopen. That way the windows are clean when the staff come back into the office.
Josh Weiss: From the home perspective, maybe it’s, we’re never going to enter your home. We’re going to do everything from the outside, but we’re going to leave on your doorstep a bunch of cleaning supplies at no costs where you can clean the windows from me inside because if you don’t want us to come and do it for you. I think everybody’s struggling for the same thing right now. I think that I can see the cancellations being even worse right now for every business and every kind of service kind of thing. Because everybody wants to see what’s happening.
Josh Weiss: Plan forward though. If you don’t have the busy-ness right now, if you’re not getting those calls for your services, the carpet cleaning, the window cleaning, all that kind of stuff, that doesn’t mean a month from now or two months from now when we hit our new normal and if people are still stuck at home or sheltering in place or that kind of thing, people are still going to want the services. There’s going to be the ways that people are able to offer it. So the question is yes, you might not be getting calls right now, but what calls can you lock in for a month from now? Or what actions do you need to change within your organization and your business to make people more comfortable if everybody is stuck at home, that you’re able to still provide those services? If their primary fear is I’m getting sick or them being exposed to you, how do you mitigate those issues so that you take away their biggest argument of why they’re afraid?
Speaker 1: Okay, Josh, we have one more final question that just came in. It’s from Luke. He asked: What are some of your favorite book or favorite internet resources when it comes to PR?
Josh Weiss: It’s going to sound silly. I actually don’t like reading a lot of the books. Not that there’s not a lot of great information. It’s more that when I rarely get a chance to sit down and really enjoy a good book, I kind of want to escape with it. I tend to do a lot of the espionage type of books. There’s a bunch of podcasts as well. They’re just business oriented that I find really interesting. I’m going through without fail right now a bunch of the old episodes on that is a podcast. One of the examples I gave about the first 24 hours are for questions and answers, actually in part came through one of those podcasts. It was about the mayor of Dayton right after the shooting that occurred at the Oregon section of the town or whatever, in their bar district. The response of how she as mayor of Dayton responded and what she was advised by others and the national response and with the president coming to town afterward and they were on the same page.
Josh Weiss: I found that really interesting to learn from that example, which is why I kind of added that example of 24 hours are for questions, not for answers, into this presentation as a result of that podcast. I don’t know that I’m answering the question fully. In terms of other materials, there’s some really good ones out there in terms of Regan has different emails that go out on a regular basis and there’s a lot of good information in that one. A lot of different people are adding their own blogs and comments from that perspective.
Josh Weiss: I’m sorry if I’m not directly answering your question about what books to read. I would sign up for Regan emails. You’re going to get two or three of them a day and at some point you might want to reduce the number. But there’s a lot of good blogs out there that you can learn a lot of information from.
Josh Weiss: Regarding coronavirus, everyone’s just making it up as we go along right now. Some people are afraid to put their opinions out there because they’re afraid it’s going to change in two weeks. That’s why I’m making sure I put the date on this presentation and making sure everyone understands that just because on today, Wednesday, March 18th, this is the best recommendations based on the information that we have. Tomorrow it may be a totally different recommendation and we just got to adapt and try and think long-term on the PR efforts that we’re doing.
Josh Weiss: When you’re reading a blog that might’ve been written or an article that might’ve been written a year ago, we still need to be careful to how do we take what we learned from that and adapt it today, but the truth is what things look like a year from now and how businesses operate and how we communicate, it potentially could change significantly in the coming weeks and months.
Speaker 1: Hey Josh, we just got two more questions. Do you have time for two more?
Josh Weiss: Yeah, I’m good.
Speaker 1: This one comes from Oscar. We are a residential AC contractor in Arizona. I’m worried that people are not doing the maintenances and whether it’s changing. I just feel like when summer gets here, we’ll not be able to handle the load and people will be stuck in extreme heat in their homes.
Josh Weiss: Yeah, I know that’s very scary. I’m in Arizona too, and we do represent some HVAC here in town. I think that you … again, it goes back to what can you do without touching people? What can you do with keeping that distance and letting them know that? Part of it is if they’re afraid, you’re just not going to be able to staff and do the work later. Maybe you’re offering deeper discounts right now to stay busy. It brings in some cash knowing that you’re still going to be busier this summer anyway, because more people, the extra calls you’re going to hopefully get.
Josh Weiss: The other side is that if you really think that the bet is for the summer, staff up now. I mean, there are other things that you can do to make a bet where you’re actually hiring people when other people are letting people go. There’s probably a lot of techs out there that are, they’re losing that income and they’re looking for somewhere else. If you guarantee them money now based on the expectation come summer, maybe that’s worth the investment. But yeah, you’re facing the same issue that every service company is facing right now. People right now are just waiting a couple of weeks to figure out what to do.
Josh Weiss: A couple of weeks from now, they’re going to start figuring out what do they need to do to prepare for later. Maybe part of that is like, look, if this is going to stay this way for a long time, you don’t want your air conditioning to go out come summer. What do we need to do to prepare in advance? That way you don’t get stuck in the sweltering weather come summer. You need to get this checkup done. Let’s just schedule it now. It might be three weeks from now, but at least get on people’s schedules and start building that out. Yeah, you might still get cancellations the week of, but if people are willing to schedule now, take advantage of that because it just means that they’re not going anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Great. Our final question comes from Daniel. When you’re actively seeking to inform and engage with your audience, not waiting for them to seek you out, do you recommend that we share the outbound communication across multiple channels such as the website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, or should we pick a single channel for outbound messaging as to not flood our audience with the same message repeatedly?
Josh Weiss: Great question. I think initially you need to maybe get it out to as many people as possible. You might want to send to everywhere, but then you need to direct them about where new information is going to come from. If it’s you’re going to be updating information on your website, maybe you’re sending out an all channels to tell them to go to your website for more information on an ongoing basis and that’s where you give the daily updates. The more consistent ones. But then, you choose a different distribution channel to do messages at different times. Maybe it’s Facebook on Monday and Instagram on Wednesday and Twitter on Friday and it’s an email newsletter that goes out every other week instead of every day. You might want to pace that bu you want to have one place where all the information is continually updated, which you’re always pointing people to go to.
Speaker 1: Great. I think that’s all the questions that we have that were submitted. I want to thank you, Josh, again for presenting today’s webinar on critical communications. I also thank everyone for attending with us today. Please stay connected with BBB through social media or website. We’ll also email our next webinar topic either the end of this week or early next week. Please stay safe everybody, and I will go ahead and email the slides of this and also the recording. Everybody who signed up for the webinar will get a copy of it.
Josh Weiss: Thank you all. Stay safe. I appreciate you spending your time with us now and we’re all in this together, so don’t forget that and hope to talk to you again soon.
PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [01:17:14]
