Once the crisis has hit, you've got to come up with a message to the world, your own employees, your customers, your clients, stakeholders, and to the media. And you've got to do it quickly. Now, the problem many organizations have is they don't really think through their messaging process, and they want to come up with things that just don't make sense. If there is an explosion at your factory and people are injured, your message can't simply be a generic. You know, we here at Walker gas company think safety is number one, our number one priority. That's not relevant to the media at this point.

When you're coming up with a message. You've got to do it in a very, very specific way. For starters, you have to ask yourself, what are the basic questions people want to know they want to know what happened? Now there's a good chance you don't know what happened if there is some fire at 3am and it's now 330. You might not know what the source of the fire was put you can explain to people that there was in fact, a fire. You've got to figure out what are the basic facts.

And you can state the basic facts you cannot go beyond that. You cannot guess you cannot say, well, we're certain the fire will be out tomorrow. We're sure this leak in the Gulf is going to be plugged by tomorrow and it won't leak anymore. You don't guess. In general, it's great to be optimistic in life during a crisis in front of the media is not the time to be optimistic. That is a just the facts, ma'am sort of time.

You need to stick to the facts. But beyond that, you still have to come up with a message you have to tell people what you're doing proactively. If there is a crisis, and people are in danger, you need to let people know that you've evacuated the area that you have, in fact notified local state national authorities fire fighters. If that's the case, you always need to let people know that you're doing something proactive to solve the problem. So when you're coming up with your message before that first press statement, first interview, first press conference, you have to really ask yourself, what are the basic facts? Then what are the obvious questions we know reporters are going to ask us on this subject, you've got to have answers to the basic questions.

Next, you've got to think about what's important to you. What do you want people to know about this situation? Let's say you're under indictment for embezzlement charges. And you know, you're completely innocent, and it's not even possible for you to embezzle this money. You've got to figure out exactly what the facts are, and how you want people to know this. Next, you've got to figure out what's of interest to the media.

Because if it's not interesting to them, it's not a good message. Finally, you have to think about who are The readers, the viewers, listeners of this media outlet, what's going to be interesting to them? If it's a local TV station and people in your community are worried about a gas leak, you've got to tell them exactly what they need to know. And you can't lie to them and say there's no danger if in fact, there is danger. If you need to evacuate, then by all means, let that message get out through the media. Sometimes it's helpful to think of this as a Venn diagram.

Here's everything you want to get out. Here's everything that the media is interested. And here's another circle that reflects what the public wants to know. You've got to figure out what's the sweet spot that overlaps those three circles. Too often organizations just try to push their own message and they don't care about what the media is really interested in. This is not the time to say well, I want an award last year for being the most integrity filled businessman of different hills.

If I've just been indicted for embezzlement, the reporters are not going to put in a message that I'm somehow Mr. Integrity because I want an award last year. It's not relevant to them. So you've got to be highly highly selective. You've got to eliminate extraneous facts that are not going to be relevant to the issue that aren't going to be interesting to reporters or might not be interesting to the public, you need to be able to say everything you want people to know. And about 30 seconds, three main message points.

Now this is an addition to the basic facts of what happened. Don't ever be afraid to say, I don't know. In fact, one of the best responses you can have during a crisis, especially in the initial hours, or the initial day of a crisis is, I don't know we're doing everything we can to investigate that. But first, we're putting out the fire Trying to maintain the safety of our employees or the people in the community. Don't ever be afraid to say, I don't know. When you look at the history books of classic bad crisis communications, it is filled with people making a prediction astray.

When is this leak and of stop in the go? Oh, well, I'm sure it's gonna happen by next Tuesday or the next 24 hours or don't guess, stick to what you know. That's why you have to have a message. If you go in front of a reporter. And you think well, I'm just here to answer questions. You are in big trouble.

Now you do have to answer questions. You can't simply ignore the reporters questions and put your message out. But you do have to have a message quite often in a crisis for any large company. The message is going to be there was a fire that started to I am today. We immediately evacuate waited the area we did everything we can to try to protect and preserve the safety of our employees. We've alerted all state, federal, and national officials.

And now all of our focus is on stopping the fire. That's all you need to say. If there's still a fire going on now, if it's a day later, your message may be different one of your messages may be we are investigating this so we can make sure this never happens again. There's no such thing as a perfect generic message that will handle every crisis. There is however, a system that is perfect. And that system is you've got to have something that states the facts, as you are 100% certain that they happen.

You've got to answer the basic questions, you know, are coming and sometimes the answer is I don't know. And you got to come up with some message that puts you in the best possible light but that seems credible. Your message that's important to you Something that's interesting to reporters and relevant to the audience. If you do that, you're going to have a good message at every stage in this crisis, even though your message may change, certainly from day to day. Your message talking about a crisis that happened two months ago is going to be very different than a crisis that happened half an hour ago, or two hours ago. Messages evolve as circumstances change, and facts change but the process, how you have a good message is remarkably consistent.