Pretending your organization is immune to crisis leaves you vulnerable to situations that, if not wholly preventable, are manageable with responsive, incisive action. Within many organizations, a divide in communication exists between the C-Suite and shareholders. The long-lasting impacts of crises are often due to missteps in PR rather than catastrophic events. Working with a PR firm that understands shareholder perspectives for strategic communications in Toronto can help with crisis prevention.
Regardless if you’re recovering from a recent incident or considering your crisis response strategy for the first time, a vulnerability audit is the ideal starting point. During this essential first step, an experienced PR firm may be able to eliminate future crises by identifying areas of vulnerability in your organization.
A vulnerability audit also allows you to think critically about future incidents without the stress and pressure of being in the midst of a crisis. Leadership can meet with their teams, discuss best-case/worst-case scenarios and develop strategies and responses.
Both internal and external communications can create or worsen a crisis when there isn’t a designated team handling messaging for your organization. Leadership at various levels may feel comfortable speaking extemporaneously to the media or shareholders regarding even innocuous issues.
Unprepared statements can create crises in messaging and snowball into more significant incidents simply because a corporation doesn’t have a designated communications team to address specific issues.
Your team should include an experienced PR firm, as well as members of the C-Suite and other leaders from within your organization. Designated team members handle media and shareholder relations during a crisis to prevent miscommunication and mixed messaging.
Individuals in corporate leadership may feel as though they’re qualified to speak to the media because they’re comfortable with public speaking and want to be the face of the organization. But without pre-existing media relations and PR training, leadership can create misunderstandings with the media leading to confusion, frustration, and anger from shareholders.
An experienced PR firm, like Kingsdale Advisors, will develop proactive media relations, so your organization has existing relationships with journalists when you need to take charge of messaging.
Thinking through future crises and developing responsive messaging without the pressure of the public eye and shareholder concerns allows your organization to prepare for the worst-case scenarios methodically and logically. If there is a crisis in your future, you’ll have a well-reasoned plan to guide you.
A crisis communications plan also enables you to see pitfalls within your organization that could become incidents in the future. You have an opportunity to be proactive about your messaging to shareholders.
The difference between nimble organizations able to prevent, manage, and recover from crises and those who can’t is the outsourcing of strategic communications. A PR firm with experience in crisis prevention and management can implement responsive processes for your organization before a crisis hits.
You can minimize the long-term effects with strategic internal and external messaging. Kingsdale Advisors sets itself apart from other PR firms because we understand the shareholder perspective. Give your organization the tools to prevent and mitigate future crises with strategic communications.
Since 2015, Kingsdale Advisors has provided more PR support for proxy fights and contested deals than any other public relations firm in Toronto. We customize our financial and investor communications services during your organization’s most trying times by crafting deft, prompt messaging that resonates with your board. You can count on Kingsdale Advisors to deliver strategic communications support when every second counts.
PR is just one of the services we provide to corporations across North America. Contact our team for advisory support and strategic communications based in Toronto.
