Invincible Brand with Melissa Agnes – Details, episodes & analysis

Connection is at the heart of any good crisis communication strategy.  

However, we’ve all seen leaders attempt to connect with their audience with all the right words, and yet something feels… off. 

While a Crisis Ready Hindrance is often blocking that connection, understanding near and far emotional enemies is a powerful tool to help you overcome those Hindrances to resonate and connect in meaningful ways.  

Within this podcast, which is the audio version of a recent Crisis Ready blog post, Melissa Agnes explores how near and far enemies give leaders and crisis communicators the language to better understand why some attempts at emotional connection fall flat, and to better resonate with stakeholders in critical moments.

Links:

➡️  The whole article can be found here, on the Crisis Ready Blog.

➡️  If this message resonates with you and you'd like to truly master the art of crisis communication and leadership, enrol in our Crisis Ready® Course, which is the first step in becoming certified in crisis comms.

Make no mistake: AI absolutely will affect crisis communication — and crisis in general, for that matter. Recently, my friend and the queen of PR herself, Gini Deitrich said something that got me thinking about predictive AI even further: Could AI predict the emotional escalation of a crisis… before it begins to happen? This episode explores this concept and what it could mean for the crisis communication industry.

This is the audio recording of a blog post, written and narrated by Melissa Agnes, and published to CrisisReadyInstitute.com.

Charlie Maclean-Bristol, one of the Founders and Directors of PlanB Consulting, joins the Invincible Brand Podcast to discuss how organizations can get around the lack of certification in the profession of crisis management, to make sure they’re partnering with the right professionals for their company’s crisis ready needs.

If you follow my work, then it’s quite possible that you know of a grievance that has been frustrating me more and more lately. The grievance is that, as a result of the thrilling allure and hype around the crisis management profession, combined with a lack of industry certification requirements, organizations are being put at risk by hiring “experts” who are causing more harm than help. I recently published a video addressing this grievance which sparked an interesting conversation on this subject with Charlie, which I thought would make for a compelling and hopefully beneficial podcast conversation.

• Thoughts on how to make sure you are an “informed buyer”, when shopping for the right crisis ready advisor for your organization and its needs.
• How professionals need to know and accept their limitations and focus on excellence in their strengths, and transparency with their clients.
• What to look for in a crisis management professional.
• Thoughts and observations on where the profession is going and how experts need to keep up with the trends and escalating risks, expectations, and opportunities.

• Learn more about Charlie’s consulting firm
• Connect with Charlie on LinkedIn

Jackie Ford, partner at the law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, joins the Invincible Brand Podcast to discuss proactive legal strategies in your crisis readiness and the practice of compassionate compliance.

In my experience, one of the biggest challenges organizations face is forming a crisis ready alliance with their legal department where everyone is on the same page, understands each other’s different realities and challenges, and proactively supports and compliments one another’s crisis management functions. And yet, once this alliance is formed it is such a powerful asset to the organization’s crisis readiness.

Jackie Ford is a partner at Vorys and has a practice in employment law, privacy issues, internal investigations, and crisis management. Not to mention that she is a brilliant attorney whom I enjoy partnering with as often as possible in the interest of helping our clients strengthen their crisis readiness. Her work, her mindset, and the outcomes she provides to her clients are all testaments to the powerful advantages of creating strong relationships with legal for issue and crisis prevention and management.

In this conversation, Jackie provides great perspective and shares powerful stories to help you bridge these potential gaps and strengthen your crisis ready governance and culture.

• Strategies to get legal onboard for your crisis readiness—in the way they need to be.
• How to reduce risk by always keeping aligned with your organization’s values and culture.
• Strategic ways to help prevent risks, such as acts of violence in the workplace, that go beyond the typical approaches.
• What compassionate compliance is and how it empowers your crisis ready culture.
• Real-world examples of how taking a proactive approach to issue management helps mitigate the risk of lawsuits, legal liability, and escalated risk.

• Learn more about Jackie and her practice at Vorys
• Connect with Jackie on LinkedIn

Nearly ten years after Dave Carroll’s United Breaks Guitars video series went viral and helped change the landscape of issue and crisis management for brands, Dave joins the Invincible Brand Podcast to discuss the impact of compassion on brands and on an organization’s issue management, crisis management, customer service, and ultimately, its invincibility.

• How the world of customer service has changed since United Breaks Guitars.
• How no customer should be seen as “statistically insignificant” – and if that is the mindset and culture within your organization, you have some work to do.
• The customer service paradox: How Dave got ahead of misconceptions and emotional criticism towards his video in ways that increased his trust, likability, and business opportunities.
• The concept of compassionate business – and how it lends immeasurably to your brand’s invincibility.

• Dave’s United Breaks Guitars video
• Zappos’ tagline is “delivering happiness”

• Check out Dave’s website
• Connect on Twitter: @DaveCarroll
• Connect on LinkedIn
• Connect on Facebook
• Check out his incredible music on YouTube

“I have been a digital journalist, reporter and TV producer for the last 10 years. I am interested in merging my skills in breaking news coverage into a career in crisis communications. I’d love to speak with you to hear your thoughts around how I can merge my journalism career into a future in crisis communication work.”

• Your resumé: strategic ways to make yourself stand out.
• How the way you frame your expertise can help you overcome mindset barriers before they become your obstacles.
• Food for thought on whether you need another degree.

• Link to the video I mention in this podcast about the impact of shows like Scandal on the crisis management industry and profession.

Do you have a question you’d like Melissa to answer, and are you willing for that discussion to be recorded in a way that respects your privacy and confidentiality? If so, visit melissaagnes.com to set up some one-on-recorded-one time with Melissa!

William Espey, the man responsible for the voice of the brand that is Chipotle, joins the Invincible Brand Podcast to discuss the challenges Chipotle faced when managing the E. coli crisis in 2015, and the mindset and strategies they implemented to manage the many dynamics of this incident and the reputational impact it threatened to leave on the brand.

Chipotle is a brand that has worked hard and done a phenomenal job at building solid and trusting relationships with its customers. When the E. coli crisis struck, the brand needed to work especially hard to not lose all that goodwill and trust they had earned throughout the years—and the challenges that this crisis presented were complex, dynamic, and emotionally based, proving to be more difficult than the organization may have initially realized.

In this episode, William shares what it was like behind the scenes of managing this crisis. We discuss the brand’s mindset and culture, and how these things helped them navigate through the real-time challenges they faced.

I recorded this episode with William a while ago, before I decided to rebrand the podcast and relaunch it in September 2018, so I’ve been waiting a long time to share this conversation with you and am excited to do so!

• How the emotional connection customers have to the brand amplified the challenges that Chipotle had to overcome, while managing the incident.
• How Chipotle prioritized trust in managing this incident and the actions and decisions they took in alignment with this priority.
• The mistakes they made in managing the crisis and the biggest lessons they learned along the way.
• The impact their culture had on the management of this crisis.

• The Brand Invincibility Webinar Series I mention at the end of this episode.

• William’s LinkedIn profile
• Chipotle’s website

Mike Ganino, company culture expert and author of Company Culture For Dummies, joins The Invincible Brand Podcast to discuss how you can assess and implement a strong culture that will lend to your brand’s invincibility.

Whether your organization is a start-up or has been around for decades, no matter its size, type, or industry, Mike provides insights, strategies, and clear tactics that will help you strengthen your organization’s culture in powerful ways.

Building brand invincibility is not about having a crisis management plan that sits on a shelf collecting dust, but rather requires embedding a crisis ready culture. Amongst other things, this means implementing a culture that is in alignment with your organization’s values and fosters a work environment that is empowering and attracts and retains the best talent. This culture needs to permeate from the top down, the bottom up, and the inside out.

As this is an essential part of becoming crisis ready and building brand invincibility, it only made sense for me to sit down and chat with a leading expert who helps today’s top organizations implement and strengthen an exceptional culture. That leading expert is Mike Ganino, author of Company Culture For Dummies.

• What culture is and how every single organization has one.
• How to conduct an audit of your organization’s mindset and culture in order to identify gaps worth strengthening.
• Strategies for fixing cultural issues, no matter what your position is within the organization, ie.: whether you’re the CEO, a member of middle management, part of the frontline team, etc.
• Specific elements and opportunities to look out for when assessing and implementing the right culture within your organization.
• The three pillars of a strong, healthy, and opportunistic culture that apply to every organization in any industry.

• Order Mike’s must-read book: Company Culture For Dummies

• Interested in working with or learning more about Mike’s speaking and workshops? Check out his website.
• Mike is fun to follow on Instagram! Check him out here.
• Connect with Mike on LinkedIn.
• Follow Mike on Twitter.

In April 2018, shortly after the shooting that took place at YouTube’s headquarters by 38-year-old Nasim Najafi Aghdam in San Bruno, California, the media learned from Aghdam’s father that she had been confronted by Mountain View Police Department officers prior to the shooting taking place.

Before MVPD had time to make this connection themselves and gather the necessary information, news of this fact quickly went viral with the media, local communities, and the general public demanding answers and speculating on what the answers to those unanswered questions might be.

In this episode of The Invincible Brand Podcast, Melissa Agnes sits down with Captain Chris Hsiung of MVPD and Katie Nelson, Social Media and Public Relations Coordinator for MVPD, to discuss the behind the scenes of what happened, how it happened, and the crisis ready strategies that MVPD quickly put into place in order to regain control of the narrative of the incident and mitigate the risk of losing trust and credibility with their community and the general public.

Learning of a serious issue or crisis once it has already gone viral against your brand is a business risk that applies to any type of organization in this day and age, and the tips, strategies, and insights that Captain Hsiung and Katie share in this episode are relevant to all businesses whether you’re a brand of one, a mega corporation, or whether you’re in the public or private sectors.

• How a Crisis Ready organizational mindset prepared MVPD for this moment before it happened
• The Ultimate FOMO moment when Captain Hsiung was “off the grid” on a cruise for the initial 18hrs of the event
• Behind the scenes decisions and discussions
• The strategy of communication: how MVPD rolled out the video footage of the event – and the importance of providing context to what viewers would see in the footage

• The first response statement published by MVPD before they could release the video footage of the incident
• The official response published by MVPD with the video of the incident

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram

The Horse River Wildfire that took place in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, in May 2016, was unprecedented in Canadian history. Eighty-eight thousand people needed to be evacuated in the span of only a few hours, for a month-long evacuation. This wildfire was so catastrophic that its economic impact actually impacted Canada’s GDP.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Jordan Redshaw, one of the communications managers with the recovery task force at the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (a.k.a. Fort McMurray), to discuss his experience in being one of only two people responsible for communicating with the Fort McMurray community, to help 88,000 people evacuate safely. Throughout this conversation, Jordan generously shares his biggest lessons and takeaways from this experience. It’s an insightful and engaging conversation that I know you’ll enjoy!

• The crisis communication strategies Jordan and his team used to effectively evacuate 88,000 people in only a few hours.
• How Jordan and his team leveraged monitoring tools to help expand the reach of their crisis communications.
• The biggest lessons Jordan learned while managing this crisis.
• The after effects that this crisis had on both those who were part of the emergency management and the community at large.
• Jordan’s tips for being crisis ready for emergency management situations within your own community.

Running time: 47:20

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In this episode, I mention a previous episode of The Crisis Intelligence Podcast, where Garth Rowan and I discussed the management of this crisis as it unfolded. Listen to this podcast here.

Author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in This Uncertain World, Melissa Agnes is a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection. Agnes is a coveted speaker, commentator, and advisor to some of today’s leading organizations faced with the greatest risks.

Learn more about Melissa Agnes
Follow Melissa on Twitter: @melissa_agnes

Connect with Jordan on LinkedIn.
Follow Jordan on Twitter: @JordanRedshaw.

I’d like to extend a big thanks to Jordan for the important work you do, as well as for taking the time to discuss your experience and the important lessons you’ve learned with us.