Candid Care: Stronger Brands, Smoother Crises

Candid Care Ep 13: Stronger Brands, Smoother Crises

Welcome to Candid Care, brought to you by M3. I’m Sarah Kekula, M3’s Director Of Senior Living And Social Services practice, along with Talia Fletcher, Risk Manager at M3. Each episode of Candid Care promises to challenge your current thinking about the long-term care industry and introduce concepts to improve your organization and advance the field from executive risks to key strategies. We’ll approach each topic from multiple angles and invite leaders with unique perspectives to join in the conversation.

Please be advised this podcast and the recommendations throughout are not intended as legal advice and should not be used as or relied upon as legal advice. This podcast is for general informational purposes only.

00:46 Sara Kekula

Lori, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re super excited to have you and talk a little bit more about certainly Mueller Communications with the whole world of PR maybe demystify communications and media firms, and what can they do for providers in the long-term care industry?

So if you would be so kind, could you maybe help set the scene and explain for our listeners what does a communications and media or PR firm do for their respective clients, like let’s start there and set the foundation of understanding.

01:20 Lori Richards

Absolutely, Sara. Thank you so much for having me. And I think that’s a perfect place to start because I think often when many people, when many people meet me for the first time or we get on the phone, it’s often in a moment of crisis and they don’t necessarily have the full picture. And what it means to work in communications or in PR for us, I would say that the vast majority of our work, probably 80% plus, really is on the positive proactive side and it’s helping organizations establish quickly and distinctly who are they, right?

So we always hear about the elevator speech, right, you’re in an elevator with a prospective customer prospective client. Can you in 30 seconds or less identify who you are, what your brand is and what makes you really different and distinctive than, say, a competitor of yours?

So a large majority of our work that we do in the communications field or here at Mueller Communications is really establishing kind of those core foundational elements for our clients, once we’ve got that down, then we move forward and talk about, OK, in the PR sphere of things. Who are your partners? Who are you connecting with locally? Can we work with the media to help now tell that story more broadly in your community and get that story in front of, again, potential clients, potential stakeholders, whether it’s on the regulatory side or on the customer side.

So, there’s some sort of foundational steps that we take one step at a time, but it really all works to establish a positive brand and then a positive community presence that all is really, really important should you find yourself in a time of crisis.

02:59 Sara Kekula

And that’s so helpful and I’ll go back to what you just said about 80% of the work that you do is for the good. And so then my head goes to, well, tell me more about that other 20%. But I mean, in all seriousness, I do think just naturally following that comment.

You know 20%, that’s got to be the emergency or crisis situation. And I know, you kind of shared with us as we were getting ready to hit record is fail to plan, plan to fail. Can you talk to us a little bit about from a providers perspective what do they need to be thinking about with respects to crisis communications and how can they plan for it.

And from your, you know from your chair, what do you recommend so they can get in front of those sorts of things?

03:43 Lori Richards

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you nailed it with. It was again, the plan full list, right. So my first recommendation is make sure, especially in a time of non-crisis that you as a leader, as a care provider are taking the time to think through what your crisis communications plan is right, and that might mean who are the players that are involved? What are the messages?

Who are the audiences that are important to us that we need to be sure we’re in front of in a time of crisis, right. There’s some really basic elements, but I’ll take a step back for a minute as well when we when you talk again about that collective 20%.

What I’ve learned as a communicator over the past 20 years and I’m sure your audience to this podcast can relate is, there is no way we can possibly anticipate every scenario that could ever potentially happen that’s a threat to our businesses and our organization.

There’s some crazy stuff that happens out there. There are still things that come across my desk where I’m like really, I cannot believe that actually happened. So rather than try to anticipate every single crisis scenario that could happen to an organization, what we do is we try to bucket those into different levels of severity in terms of how do they impact the organization, right?

So something a little less severe might be some social media fodder, right? Someone makes a funny comment on social media that maybe gets some attention, right. But at the end of the day, it’s really not going to have an impact on the bottom line of your business.

We try to bucket these into different scenarios. Generally four or five with the worst scenario again being something that truly is going to have a bottom line impact. So maybe it’s an issue with regulators that affects your ability to operate. Maybe it is like again something truly, really impactful that happens that’s going to make people think twice about engaging with your organization or becoming a client or a customer.

In looking at those different scenarios then what we do is we set out a plan and how would we respond to each of those different levels of severity? What are the messages? Who are the audiences, right? So trying to kind of break it down into those different buckets is really, really helpful to do in advance. So that if you find yourself in a crisis, again, you can activate that one scenario, rather than trying to even start with an assessment of where are we at?

06:05 Sara Kekula

Yeah, it’s time. I love that. That’s super helpful. But maybe now we should pivot and talk about that other very important 80%. And again I’m going to use your language. I just think this is so profound, it’s how to front load the good. So that’s right from your mouth, Lori. And so tell us more about what that means. And I would love to hear about all the other stuff you do in addition to you know on those kind of kind of categorical risk challenges, the positive side of crisis communication or should say communications partnership excuse me, not crisis but communications and media partnership.

06:36 Lori Richards

Absolutely. Again, I think before we even start thinking about crisis planning, it is really important for each of the organizations or groups that you work with to think about what is the brand that they have kind of out in the marketplace, what’s their communication strategy when you have either prospective clients come in and maybe it’s your, your facility or engage with your organization from sort of a new business perspective, what do they think about your organization? What have they heard? What’s the perception out in the marketplace?

Those are all elements of brand that are really important to think about. And if you’re asking customers or consumers and you’re not happy with what you hear again about the brand or candidly, if as many potential customers that you want aren’t coming through the door, you should question where, where are we at from a communications perspective and where are we at from a brand perspective, and can we strengthen that.

Because I think first and foremost brand really helps drive engagement and sales or if that’s kind of the terms that we’re looking at for your customer base, those are really important elements of a strong brand as well. Crisis comes into play in a different perspective as well.

And then it’s also, you know, how do people hear about us or think about us? Are they, do they know of your organization? Because again, you partner with your local farmers market, do they know about your organization because they read about you in the local newspaper? How are you once you have your brand established, how are you getting it out there to the people that matter to you?

08:08 Talia Pletcher

So it’s fair to say that senior living organizations really need to tell the story of who they are. That’s probably the best way to plan and get ahead of any potential negative crises or negative situations coming their way.

I think we need to highlight too a little bit about how can they humanize their organization. So can you provide some examples of things that senior living organizations have done in your experience that can really highlight who they are in the community and really show that they are the pillars of the community. They take care of some of the most vulnerable people in those communities.

Well, can you talk a little bit about what you have done with organizations?

08:44 Lori Richards

Absolutely. And Talia, I love the word that you use in humanize, right? This is such a huge element of what we look for when we engage with an organization and say we’re going to engage in media relations program or we’re putting together a social media content calendar for the year. One of the things that organizations can best use to differentiate themselves from the other guy around the block is the human element, right? Tell me that one specific story of a caregiver who’s so unique because she or he has been at your organization for 20 years.

Tell me that unique story of again a school or a daycare partner that comes and does craft time with your organization or with some of your residents once a week. Tell me of those unique stories that are going to be a little heartwarming, but are also going to humanize and differentiate your organization from others that may be in the same space.

I think oftentimes organizations feel like they need the perfect story in order to reach out and start engaging in maybe a PR campaign or a social media campaign. But what we’re really looking for is an example, right? It doesn’t have to be that every single resident is musical savant, right? But if you have one person that is doing a really unique thing. That’s a perfect example of a music program at an organization or something that’s available at an organization. Those are the moments that we’re looking for to tell the stories.

10:24 Talia Pletcher

One thing that a lot of what Sara and I do and our team does to prepare our clients is looking at different strategies from a defense standpoint as well, when they do have a crisis or maybe a potential litigation situation, can you speak to your experiences or what you’ve seen in the industry about how an organization can use those great stories when it comes to the defense of a crisis?

10:49 Lori Richards

I just want to touch on a few other pieces that we’ve seen in working with a lot of organizations in, in your industry. One is, don’t overlook people at other at every level within your organization as it pertains to areas of vulnerability in a crisis situation. So sometimes what we’ll see is we’ll work with organizations that are really planful with the people in the board room, right? So they’re really planful. They have this great crisis plan. The C-Suite is fully prepared to handle a crisis, but what they’re forgetting about is the person who staffs the front desk, right? Or they’re forgetting about some of your frontline workers, because oftentimes I’ll just throw out their say, it’s a media scenario. Where all of a sudden, a news station just shows up to the front desk. If that person doesn’t know his or her role in a crisis situation, the whole thing can fall apart, right? So it’s really important to understand that when you’re crisis planning, it’s not just for the C-Suite. In fact, everyone plays a role in making sure that we have a really effective response in a potential crisis scenario.

So, as we’re thinking about what’s really important for organizations to consider, there’s a role for everyone to play in it, and let’s make sure that we’re not overlooking the little places that could potentially be vulnerable in a crisis situation.

12:13 Talia Pletcher

That is such a great point. Employees of every level are your biggest advocate and your biggest. I mean, they’re the frontline to the world as you, you know, pointed out. So I think that’s such a great, great take away.

12:26 Sara Kekula

Your biggest advocate in your biggest area of vulnerability. I wrote that down. Yeah, that’s such a good point.

Well, if you don’t mind Lori, too, I’m going to use. I mean, you’re a master communicator. That’s why I just keep using the same language that you’ve shared with us already. Because I don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

But I kind of want to go back to how we started the conversation too. And. And I think as we maybe look to kind of wrap things up, if you, from your chair, like if you want to summarize or give your maybe even elevator pitches to what do you want listeners to walk away from? With this discussion and conversation, whether it’s top two, top three, what have you. What does that look like for you? Tell us what you want listeners to walk away with today?

13:02 Lori Richards

Frontload the good stuff as we talked about. Pay attention to your brand, building a good brand also requires maintenance, right? Make sure you’re tending to the care and feeding of your brand. It’s really important.

Second, as it pertains to the crisis elements, be planful if you are failing to plan you can anticipate that things are going to go badly. One analogy we often like to use is it’s kind of an emergency response scenario being really planful about your potential crisis scenario is like making sure that you’ve got working smoke alarms in your house.

You’re more likely to know and be ready and have time to react to a crisis if you don’t have a great crisis plan in place, your option when you call me the day that something happens, it’s like calling the fire department when your house is already on fire.

13:55 Sara Kekula

Yeah, that’s a visual.

13:57 Lori Richards

You want to have the smoke alarms in place because we can catch things sooner and we can prevent things from becoming way worse than they need to be.

And then lastly, if you do find yourself in a crisis situation again, hopefully you’ve been planful so everyone knows their role and can jump into action. And it’s really important to, if you work in a people business, to those strong leadership lead with empathy. Right. Because we’re talking about people here.

And make sure that you’re communicating the right message to the right audience through the right medium, right when you’re working with older populations, for example, don’t overlook the traditional media. We know a lot of people of different generations are still turning into traditional news sources to get their information. So make sure that you’re considering your audience and you’re reaching them the way they get their news.

14:49 Sara Kekula  

Super helpful. And I keep thinking about as you’ve been sharing those really good insights is maybe don’t make assumptions, right? I mean there’s such a value in partnering with the experts in the business that can kind of guide you along the path. You don’t have to walk it alone.

15:03 Lori Richards

I would agree. And I would say listening is just as important in a crisis situation as is acting, right. So this is where you got to be monitoring your social media. You got to be what are people saying, right? Because listening is very important.  

15:18 Sara Kekula

Yep, and I know I’ve seen the upside in working with firms such as yours with respects to active monitoring of those very accounts, so that you know again a provider long term care organization doesn’t feel like they have to carry that burden. They can partner with a communications firm and they will be the experts to manage that as well.

So that’s actually a really good call out because that can be so important, particularly in times of crisis, but also maybe, as you’re rebranding right as your if you’ve to manage your employees and what they might be saying and of etcetera, etcetera, just to be fully aware as to what’s happening, what is the community saying about your respective organization and certainly your brand and your mission?

So with gratitude, Lori, thank you so, so much for joining us and sharing your insights. You were certainly a thought leader in this space. We’re so grateful that you shared your wisdom with us today, and we look forward to continuing the conversation. So thank you.

Thank you for listening to Candid Care brought to you by M3. Connect with us at m3ins.com for access to more resources, more insight and to join the conversation