Liz Nable 0:02
Let me start this episode by saying this. when shit hits the fan in your business, you're going to want someone like my guest on today's show, Sally Branson all wood on your side. Sally is a crisis management and reputation specialist. And before you say 'yeah, but only big businesses need someone like Sally'. Think again. Sally hates the word spin. But it rhymes with win. So I'm using it today. She's an expert in any crisis in your business, including internal challenges, like cashflow issues, or a team culture crisis, too bad Google reviews and negative media attention. And Sally says small to medium businesses need crisis strategies and skills now more than ever, selling has over 20 years of diplomatic military government not for profit and corporate experience. Her resume reads like a who's who of some of the most powerful personalities and profiles in Australia and around the world. Sally has advised the most senior Australian politicians, both Australian and American senior military officials, including members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the USA, she has advised the Australian Government cabinet and ministry when she was senior press secretary to the Australian Prime Minister at the time, Sally has planned and managed Public Affairs programmes of significant scale risk and geopolitical importance. She is now the Director of Sally Branson consulting, where she offers both proactive and reactionary management strategies to clients. Iconic global brands and organisations rely on Sally during their darkest time of crisis. She finds solutions and remedies that are timely, effective and results driven. Sally has undertaken significant work to create positive institutional change through crisis response. Unfortunately, we can't name those companies here. Because, the irony, is no one wants the world to know when they're using a crisis consultant. Sally also specialises in reputation management and leadership planning. She's worked with high profile individuals experiencing significant reputation damage. Sally provides strategic planning for individuals to manage and grow positive public profiles. Sally knows how to turn the most catastrophic situations in your business into incredible opportunities. She's amazing to watch in action, and you're going to love learning from her in his killer episode of the potty. Enjoy. Hello, I'm Liz Nabal. And you're listening to enable my business, the podcast. When I first started in small business almost 10 years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. You see, my background was in the media. I had spent 15 years as a television news journalist and reporter working at several major networks in Australia. And then as a freelancer in the US and around the world. I spent years dividing my time between working long shifts on a news desk and travelling the world chasing stories. It was unpredictable and exciting. Until it wasn't anymore. I decided I wanted to live where I was in charge of what happened next. And where I was working to build my own empire, not someone else's. I also never wanted to work a midnight new shift again. Now, I don't have to. There was a lot I had to learn about running my own business. But one thing I already had in the bag was how to get media coverage and free PR. I knew what the media wanted. I knew the secret formula for what made us and I knew how to leverage those organisations to build my business, get more exposure, and ultimately make more sales. During my decade of building my business, I have managed to get featured in almost every major news outlet in the country. I've been interviewed on television countless times had personal profiles written up in women's magazines, done point of view pieces for large newspapers, and been listed in top 100 List women in business and in my industry. And I've never spent a single cent on PR. I took that knowledge for granted until it dawned on me one day that I could teach what I knew to other businesses, let them in on the secret and they too could build their businesses leveraging the media and gaining free PR they could use my insights in the industry and my behind the scenes experience and take their business from Best Kept Secret to well known brand simply by following my formula. Welcome to enable my business the podcast Hello Sally and welcome to the enable my business podcast.
Speaker 2 4:42
It's such a joy to be here because I'm a subscriber so
Liz Nable 4:48
subscriber honestly, you are like I just was learning a bit about you before we hit record and you've just got this like litany of amazing places you've worked and people you've advised And can you just tell our listeners a little bit about kind of your experience and what you specialise in now and sort of the view of the benchmark moments leading up to now,
Speaker 2 5:11
of course, so my area of speciality is reputation. So, I'm a reputation specialists, but also I'm a crisis manager. So I fix problems. But I'm really committed to talking about how problems can be seen in the future and putting plans in place to make sure that when a crisis happens, which will happen crisis can be all sorts of things that you really well prepared and confident for a crisis. So somebody, a lady rang me up, maybe about six months ago, and she rang up and she said, Look, I've heard that you're the EFF up. I'm not gonna swear.
Liz Nable 5:45
I think you can swear on this. Yeah. Okay. So
Speaker 2 5:46
you're the fuckup fixer, I've fucked up and I need someone to fix it. And I was like, that's what I do. I fix backups. So. But I'm also really committed to talking about how to make sure that when a fuckup happens, because we're all human, we all make mistakes, that you've got a really good pathway to deal with the drama. So that's what I do now. But my background, I've got a over 20 year history in government, military and not for profit. So I've advised prime ministers, I've advised ministers, I've done a lot of work in female enterprise, and around franchise work and around building women in business. So I do a lot of mentoring in that space as well. I do media training. I'm a media commentator on policy and public affairs. So I my real crisis skills were develop, though I did almost a decade with the US embassy, and my speciality became by pure accident, defence relationships. So it was just me and 100 Marines, and I was in charge of making sure that nothing went wrong, but I would No, you know, aircraft, helicopters, I've sat in helicopters for weeks and used a helicopter as an office. I've catapulted off an aircraft carrier every day for 10 days, that was my commute for 10 days. And I've even climbed a rope ladder down an army warship into the middle of the ocean. And let me tell you, that felt like a crisis. To me, the lovely Navy person who was holding the end of the rope just kept saying, Sally, like go just just calm down. Yeah, just like, ma'am, ma'am. Just let go of the robe. So that felt quite tense. But I specialise in crisis, i and i love solving problems. So if there's a crisis at the other end of the forest, when we're deep in it, it's very hard to see the path path, it's hard to see the trace of the one and a wood for the trees. But I specialise in the end result and the best pathway to get there.
Liz Nable 8:01
I just love that. And I find what you do so amazing, because there's so many different facets of this, that a lot of small to medium business owners, which is the large majority of the audience here, I think. And some friends and family might not think that crisis management or reputation, you know, your your skills as a reputation expert would apply to them. Because they're too small, they're not significant enough, and have big enough revenue, that I'd have a massive team. But obviously, from my media background, and with your expertise, we know that that is so crucial, even at a granular level, and it can move your business, you know, move the dial on your business, you know, it's amazing way. Yes, please. And
Speaker 2 8:39
you touch on that so well, because I think that crisis management, there are so many myths around crisis and what a crisis is, it does small to medium businesses a disservice. Because they think a crisis is something that only happens to a big business, it's slappa Medibank cyber attack or an octa cyber attack or it's an accident, something happens overnight. And in a space of half an hour, your entire businesses ruin your you can't monetize, you can't operate in a normal way. But that's really not what we see, we see more that a sudden crisis, and they are very rare, and they're very hard to plan for. But there are still things that you can do to make it better and make things not as bad as they could be. But what we see what I particularly see is creeping processes, or slowburn crisises, where there's lots of all indications along the way, and then all of a sudden, it stops your ability to monetize. It means so for me, I had a small business contact me a director of a small and medium business. And she said, we want to sell our business. What are our crisis points and I said your cash flow that's across it's in a business she's your cash flow is really poor at the moment. And that is a crisis. If your end result is selling your business, so for me there is there are all of these little crisis is happening across small and medium enterprise all the time. And they just build up and build up and build up. And then one day, they're too much and they feel like a sudden crisis. But the issue is they're not a seven, seven crisis they've been happening for a long time. And the mythmaking around crisis means that small business owners, franchisees, and small to medium enterprises aren't prepared for a crisis. So when they do happen, they can be business ending the reality they shouldn't be.
Liz Nable 10:35
So you deal with not just PR and media crisis, and those kind of reputation. verticals, but you deal with crisis within businesses as well.
Speaker 2 10:45
Yeah, so I identify, I can't fix the financial crisis, because I'm not an economist, but I identify where the risks are, and what the steps and because in the end, most cross have a front facing, you know, there's lots of symptoms, but the accident, it's, you know, like this is where you see the blood in a business. So this is where, and they can be big and small things. So some people think a crisis might be a cyber hack. And the reality is cyber hacks are happening all over the place, but for a business across US, for them could be a bad Google review. And the bad Google review could be a shipping issue, or a supply issue, which we saw a lot of in COVID. So they're out of the business owner's hands, but is actually how they deal with that front facing public facing crisis. So it might be an organisational crisis. But what is the public effect, and it's an on effects, reputation, and there's all different types of so the genesis of crisis is the slow burn the creeping all the sudden, but there are different types of crisis. So it could be a financial crisis, that's cash flow, it could be a organisational crisis, that's that you haven't got your HR policies in place, you've had three sexual assault, or sexual harassment complaints, and you haven't dealt with those three. So that's a pattern. And then someone goes to the media and says, three instances have occurred in his business, I haven't done anything to stop it. So there are lots of different crisis within a business or a franchise. But how do you so identify that and then I say, if I was to happen, what are the next steps, and if those steps don't work, what he expects best steps, and I find small to medium businesses are more and small businesses are more agile dealing with crisis, because they haven't got the loads and loads of layers of lawyers and 15 different directors who have to clear off on a statement. So small businesses can benefit better than most,
Liz Nable 12:46
let's talk about some of the crisis, some examples of the most. So obviously, media and NPR podcasts, let's talk about some of the reputation crisis or anything to do with the media or public perception of our business. Because obviously, I teach, you know, SMEs, how to build the reputation as industry experts and leverage their business using the media to grow. So what are some of that maybe one or two, maybe three of the most common things you see, like you were talking about that Google review before? And how would you kind of advise a business on the next steps of or some of the basics that people need to know about handling a crisis that concerns a reputation or the media,
Speaker 2 13:21
of course, so this is, is greatly because I think something like a Google review can really put a spanner in the works that can really damage customer confidence, obviously, because that's the point, but also the business owners confidence around their delivery. And you and I've spoken about this before about how that a bad Google review can really keep you up at night and feel really personal. And sometimes in a crisis, one of the biggest issues I see is that people feel like they if they just don't talk about it and let it go, it might not happen again. And so let's just leave it there and not act. And also because sometimes in a crisis, people panic, and so they can't act, they don't know what the next best step to take is. So for me, it's always about action steps, you can always take an action step to address something. And it might not be the most obvious action step, it might be going and seeing a psychologist to help you sleep at night. So you're not laying awake, worrying about your business and then making mistakes in your business or giving you the confidence or seeing a business coach or speaking to someone like us who can say these are the next best steps. So even in a crisis, it's just about getting the right advice, and then taking action. So I'm seeing a lot of Google reviews at the moment and negative Google reviews for small and medium businesses. And some of them are false reviews. But we all know that it's really hard for Google to take them off. So if they just sit them so I think one bad Google review is fine. To feel starts to feel smoky And three is a little fire. And so you need to act to put that fire out because then it will grow and grow and grow. I've got an example at the moment of somebody who did the wrong thing by a client in the public space, and has sat on the issue. They've been contacted, they've been contacted on social media, they've been contacted, but they've set on the issue because they're afraid to be authentic. They're afraid to say, We fucked up. We need to take some steps here. They're legally afraid. They're like, Oh, what if we they leave ourselves open? Well, that's why you need good legal advice. When you're when you own your business. It's always good to have someone you can go to to trusted legal advice. But equally, the problem is now building up to a really big problem. It's on tick tock. It's in national maggot, ma'am. Newspapers and business newspapers. And you know what, it could have been stopped and headed off at the past, with a personal written apology to the client via email, not admitting any severe liability, but saying I'm sorry, we fucked up. But because they didn't want to take any action. And I'm too scared to take action. And they didn't bring me until three weeks after the event. Now, it's massive, and it's massive on a media scale. So there's something like that. Another example. And I see this happening more and more, because we've all got access to social media. And we can say something boldly on our stories, and then panic and delete it, but not realise that people screenshot or they save their stories, and that it is there. So particularly in fast moving consumer goods, I've had an issue where a client has gone out and said, I've got a special I've got this amazing special because they wanted to move from stock stock. Here's an amazing special, get online. And you can buy as much stock as you want for the price you name. Oh, without any caveats around, but includes shipping. And also, this is the minimum cost price. So unfortunately, then someone saw it and shared it to an industry group that needed the fast moving consumer goods. And so all of a sudden, they were completely inundated, inundated, it would have cost the business hundreds of 1000s of dollars in stock, and in shipping. And so they had to step back. And I think sometimes the firt because it was a panic situation, they then got online and started talking and get on their stories. But they didn't have a solution. And they didn't have something else to offer or they didn't have terms and conditions. So talking about it again, made the problem worse. So unlike that not apologising and not responding to a Google review, this person did the opposite and spoke before they had an action plan in place. So it's such a fine line. And that's why I say think about what your worst case scenario is for your reputation for your business, and come up with a few steps. If this happened to me, if I got a bad Google review, what would I do? What are my action steps, because we all like to see people taking action. And so we all like to and people want their businesses or their service providers to take action and to be seen as taking action steps. Equally, they like authenticity. So sometimes in a in a in a crisis, we get so scared that it's hard to be authentic. And so that's why if you've got a plan in place, and you can say this, what if this happens in my business, or to my personal reputation? What could happen from there? So what are my steps I would take in each instance. So crisis planning becomes like any PR, or business or marketing or budgeting planning.
Liz Nable 18:45
Yeah, there's so much good stuff in there. Because I was I was gonna ask you in your first example about, you know, responding to Google reviews personally and getting onto those really quickly. And also like stemming that blood flow of, you know, that negative PR that can get out there when you make a mistake, either on social media or in the media or you're portrayed negatively in the media for whatever reason. I'm a massive fan. I'm not a crisis experts. I don't know what you think of this. I'm a massive fan of transparency. I'm a massive, massive fan of saying we did the wrong thing. Or we've had this case, or we made a bad deal. We you know, whatever. As a consumer, I love when PS bolt and they're honest, any human,
Speaker 2 19:31
I am here, and it's not that I love seeing other people's dramas I do by any means. And people say oh my god, how do you cross his PR like, do you just love drama? No, I can't stand drama. I want to protect people from having dramas. So I see dramas all the time. And one thing time and time again. And this is about being a female crisis manager. There are very few female crisis managers, I'm sure Listen, I have both run into these sort of people in the past who say Oh, this spin doctors It's 2023, we can see through Spin, spin doctors, if someone comes to you and says, I'm going to fix this problem, I'm a spin doctor, I can spin it, show them the door, hang up the phone, because our customers and clients, and the general consumer and audience are so savvy now, we can see through bullshit, we don't want it, we want authenticity. I actually say that on my webpage. What sets us apart is authenticity, we tell the truth, and we look for the greater good in crisis management. So often in big crisis and reputation crosses. In the past, it's been about spinning and deny, deny, deny counter attack, that was one of the first lessons I was told by someone it very early in my career was you just deny, deny, deny, and then you counter attack, I still see people using that technique. It's outdated. It's a masculine technique to fix a problem. And this is why I bang on all the time that my industry, the CrossFit industry has its own crisis of reputation, because people think this is what a crisis manager does. I fix things, but I fix things in an authentic way, that this is another thing that people just cannot get over. When I say, crisis can be the greatest opportunity, the growth massive, it's an opportunity, if you want to scale your business, the first thing you should do is do a crisis plan. Because you can see all of where there could be a drama where there could be an issue, what you want to improve on. That gives you a really good basis to scale and to grow across classes where you can learn is a great opportunity. We all know that because we've all fucked up in the past. So a crisis and haven't we learned from crisis. But I will say that an even better opportunity for a crisis for growth is planning for a crisis that hasn't happened. Because you can see the pathway forward. So you don't have to go through the crisis to have the growth you can grow on your daily business journey.
Liz Nable 22:07
What about when, say, for example, a real life example, let's use F 45. As a as an example, they've certainly had some problems in their head office, and they're getting a lot of negative press. And I know a lot of franchisees are feeling the the the byproduct of that negative press members leaving and cancelling and to fix everything, then. Yeah, yeah, they're the losers in all of this. How can a small business or franchisees, generally speaking, do they have control of negative media? Do they have control of their personal reputation? And how how, what is some of your tips you could give to control at a local level and continue your business no matter what problems are happening in your head office,
Speaker 2 22:49
this is where I come back to control the controllables. So as a franchisee you haven't got control over everything that's happening on on a national level or from a headquarter level. And I've seen this before, I've worked with people before in this exact space with a really similar example. And they felt so powerless, because they felt that everything was going through head office, and they've signed contracts of what they could and couldn't say, I'm I will never say look for a loophole in a contract, but look at ways where you can think outside of that contract. So as a local franchisee, your membership or locals, they live in the same community as you. So this is where I say they're planning for a crisis, when even beforehand it's so vital. So make sure you're sponsoring some local events and saying, oh, it's Sally from your local F 17. You know, I'm obviously not saying anybody's name. It's Sally from the franchise, sponsoring the school, fete or sponsoring. So look for opportunities where you're still linked that are still fit in with your contractual obligations. But I will say that there are still some things you won't you still own yourself, and you still own your local relationships. I say two of the most important things around crisis planning, and around when you're in crisis is who are your relationships, and who are your allies. So as somebody living in a community, you build allies naturally, if you're providing great service, no matter no matter that you are running a franchise, if you've got good relationships with your local media, if you've got a good social media profile, they are all buffers for what is out of your control. Have you got an ATM that you control? In some franchises, that's not the case. But if it is, make sure you're really active in your ATM, you don't own your Facebook, you don't own your social media. You don't only tick tock, but you do have other other avenues to communicate. Now that might even be really old school like local print, newspaper. Do you know the local editor? Is there a local radio journalist who were the influential people in your company? You worry that you want on your side, don't wait until you're in a crisis, build those relationships now. So even in a franchise or franchisee arrangement, there is still opportunity to protect your own relationship. And it's vitally important because as we've seen, that is a great example of when things start to go poorly on a national and global scale. How do you protect yourself on a local scale? Because in the end, it's all local? What are your relationships that matter? You know, someone in in Dallas, Fort Worth isn't paying your membership, it's someone who lives in the street around the corner from you. So how do you protect that local reputation? And how do you build your local relationships.
Liz Nable 25:42
And that's what I feel, I don't know how you feel about this is I teach franchisees or you know, independent small business owners, that building their reputation and their story, you know, so Sally from F 17 is, she's a local mom who kids go to the local, or like, it's not a big international market that's got heaps of cash. And so if you're building that profile, as you go along, people start to think of the business as you, it's you and your husband, or you and your family, or you and your team, or whatever. And let's just
Speaker 2 26:15
call this your 100% list. And this is a thing like a tip that I would give to somebody who's in a franchise is to set up your own social media. And when you're doing your five minutes of VDF, 17, this is what we did in class today. This was our, you know, around the world or our la session, then get on your own social media and start tagging, you know, build your own profile. It doesn't have to be completely separate. But you know, give a bit of you behind the scenes, oh, my God, I'm running out to work. I've got two lunchboxes to make today, this is the class I'm doing, then we're doing this, this is what you know. And so I think about that a lot where you can personalise a brand, when there are bigger forces that play a. And so I do, I often have individuals as clients, and they come to me and, and some of them have already got really, really high profiles, but they're not the right hope, high profiles, they're known for something that isn't their key. I always ask them to walk in. So say you're a politician, and you want to become an actor. So to what end? What do you want to achieve? So how do we look at your reputation? And how do we move into this space, and it all comes back to relationships, and personal relationships, and we've all got control around the different and I don't care what anyone says, we've got an E commerce business. And today I got a message from from a client from the E commerce business and they said, I just love our personal chats, I'll just really appreciate we don't have personal chat. She says my stories, and she comments on my stories. And in this day and age, that is building relationships
Liz Nable 27:58
and love or hate social media. My brother bangs only hate social media.
Speaker 2 28:03
I've got I've got a social media to pardon. I've got a brother who bangs on about
Liz Nable 28:09
that I you know, you're obviously you curate your feed to show you what you want. So mine is awesome is small business owners and people like yourself and I love I love that community that I have on my little Instagram feed. Yeah. But I think love it or hate it that that is where the relationships are made. And that's where people feel like they know you and your biggest differentiating factor as a business owner, whether you have a business where you're the face of the brand, or you are not, or it's just a business name. That is what sets you apart from your competitors. People know, at my fitness studios that my husband and I are the owners they know that you might not know me in the coffee shop, they know me at school. That's what no one can copy that. No ran that no one can. It's my business and I run it the way you know I do and they identify with that's what brings them myself and my team, my instructors. That's what brings into the studio, not the name, the name might initially google google the name or whatever. Yeah, name because of myself and my team and the way the business has relationships. How, what about talk to me a little bit about your touch on this before we press record? What about if people have influences working for them on social media and talk to me about that, because I know, thankfully, I haven't had that problem yet.
Speaker 2 29:26
It's massive and it's happening more and more and more and more. We're seeing it so often. And it's funny because I was very lucky said You know, you've had a brother who doesn't like social media, I was very anti Tik Tok. I just thought that it was time intensive. But I've started doing a tick tock that he's just about if you're a brand looking for a brand ambassador or if you're an influencer, looking to monetize what you need to be aware of, and be careful of when you're a brand. So your brand on that space is your behaviour, how you show up. So if you're an influencer Sir, and you want to brand ambassadorial partnership with someone who believes in ladybugs, for example, you are not going to get that if you're talking about how you've just been out for a run, and you found some bugs on the ground. And it was such a lack of feeling of, you know, just satisfaction when you squash that bug under your foot. If you're not aligned with those brands, or if you're engaging someone like an influencer, and they've got a history of saying things that don't align in your brand, the warning signs, when I think particularly for businesses with using influencers and doing collabs it's so important. I know you had Jess Rufus on from collaborate, Soros. And I just think she's extraordinary and doing an hour of work. It's so important to get your legals crossed off. So have a two page contract. With the terms of engagement, that's really important. If you're dealing with big things, my ecommerce brand, I just do giveaways, I don't ask for anything in return. If they love it, they can share it and it's a low cost item. So I don't need a contract with them. Because if someone with 100,000 followers shares it, and I get a few sales off it, that's great. If someone gets it and doesn't use it, it's really no skin off my back. But you find putting a lot of time and effort and money into that partnership and making it a formal partnership. It has to be formalised so make sure you've got your legals in place. But what I would say and I've been saying this quite a bit is look for the three look for patterns. So if you're looking to employ an influence or engage with an influencer, look for patterns if something happens one, so if they've had a negative experience with the product, I would look for that once and once is once is okay, because everyone has a negative experience with the product every now and if you say to it start to smell smoking. And if it's three, it's fire. When you write negative
Liz Nable 31:54
experience, what do you mean? So
Speaker 2 31:57
generally, if you're looking for an influencer? One who will injures
Unknown Speaker 32:06
right, that's that's the
Speaker 2 32:07
one thing so if they're complaining about their coffee of the morning, or if they're complaining about their kids being little Shi teas, we all have those days. But is this a pattern as they build a profile on negativity? And if they have stay away from them, because human nature isn't attracted to negativity, we love a bit of drama. And it does take 25 Good Google reviews to counteract one bad Google review. But if you're looking for an influencer, look at their patterns of behaviour, are they always negative, if they are stay away from them, because they might give you a sandwich compliment, I liked this product. This I found shitty, but I liked this other bit about it as well. People are going to remember the negative middle, comment in the middle. So go back and look at how they engage with other brands. And if you see warning signs stay away, it's not worth it. So look for patterns in how they behave. So if they're being if they've got a brand partnership, and the promotion of that isn't great, I would stay away from them. Also, back to the point least you made about authenticity, if they don't say it's a brand sponsorship, or if it's a gifted product, stay away from them as well, because you want to be authentic with your customers and say, this is part of our marketing tool like many other clients, and like many other brands, we use influencer marketing, because it is an established way to to market in 2020 through three so if they're not being authentic with gifts, or sponsorship, I would stay away from them as well,
Liz Nable 33:41
in terms of traditional media, for SMEs, which is mostly who I deal with, what are some of the things that can go wrong with pitching the media or with how the media can perceive what we do? Well, how can we get caught off guard?
Speaker 2 33:56
Oh, it's, it's actually quite easy. The thing is, like I'm a big fan, and I think you and I think really nice in similar lines around this is just have a go ring, local journal or send an email, find out who writes your favourite story on whatever blog and send them an email and introduce yourself. But make sure you know who you're pitching to. So I've worked in commercial PR before and I'm in a little group of so you know that sort of women, PR media, practitioners, and we talk all the time even we see pictures or people or come to us and they don't know what our audience is. So I had someone asked me to do something the other day and it was so far away from anything I've ever spoken about or done. I was like, Well, I don't know who I am. So I'm not going to engage with them. Very, very strange. Actually. I was like, Oh my God, what right and I was like this is so far away. So then I have a negative association with them and I'm not going to do anything else. They asked for me because they haven't done the research. So on a pitching perspective that can go wrong. The top piece of advice I think Lizzy would give as well is know your audience and know where you're pitching. But things can go wrong in traditional media and traditional media is really scary. And I do a lot of print and TV and radio work. And I still get really nervous because I think, what am I see something I don't know. So know your stuff. Don't wait, get into an area, that's not your area of expertise. So that's the babysitting dog barking in the background. I'm sorry about that. Don't wait that don't wait into an area. So if you want media attention, but you have a hydraulic pump business, and someone asks you to talk about sub water downs, that's not your area. So say no to the media, because sometimes it's better to say no, but if you own a hydraulic pump business, and someone wants to talk to you about the current conditions of online sales, and new participate in online sales are fine, go ahead and do that. So make sure that you're in an area that you have knowledge of that you're not just doing it for media. But if something's gone wrong, so someone's come to your business, they've had an accident on a piece of machinery, it's a slow news day, and it's the front page of the local paper, that is a crisis for your business. So that is a significant crisis. So my piece of advice is, again, before the crisis happens, make sure you know the editor of the local newspapers name, make sure you know your local journalists, go to networking advice, advance in your community, as much as oh my god, I hate networking events, go to them, so you know who the key players are. So when something goes wrong, you can mobilise your allies. So if something happened in your business, and are going back to New Media, and that's if something happened, and this happened to someone recently, in the last few weeks, someone came in, and they had an ideological difference with something that someone was stalking in their shop. So they were far, right. And it was a book about transgender children. And so they went and wrote a bad review about the shop, they hadn't shopped at the shop, they just walked into the shop, and they wrote a bad review, and created a fake profile, and then wrote multiple bad reviews around the shop is promoting children.
Liz Nable 37:28
Hmm, yeah, someone would do
Speaker 2 37:30
terrible. So they've you know, and as I said, the person spoke to me straightaway and said, it's one bad review, we know who it is. So just, you know, see what happens. And sure enough, in the next hour, there were seven bad reviews. So what they were able to do was input on their social media. And in their DMS, this happened to us, and this is why you're seeing all of a sudden, if you google this, you will see these bad reviews. These are fake reviews, this is the background, we're really upset by this because this, these are our values as a business. And we are meeting them every day. And we stand by these values. So authenticity, truth, telling, and being really clear on what your values are, and addressing it and addressing it through an ATM. So sure enough, anyone who'd shopped online or in that shop and was on their ATM and had a good experience straightaway, got on because it's a personal story. It's affecting them in a negative way. Got on and left a five star review for them. And in a genuine way left a five star review. I shop here because you know, they have great products. The service is great. We love the family who run it. So they had allies without really even knowing it. And all it took was I said to them, send an ATM and explain what's going on to your customers. And sure enough, within 24 hours, they had you know that if they had five bad Google reviews, they had 500 Good Google reviews. Oh, good story. And you know what's really easy to do when you've got your relationships or you know who your audience is? Yeah,
Liz Nable 39:07
I love that. What about? Here's an example. When we first started our business, we had vast Studios, which is a dime a dozen now, but we were the first ones 11 years ago. trailblazers, trailblazers. So we had a lot of media and we generated a lot of our own media through my experience, you know, in media, and then obviously, there was some interest anyway, we had a situation where we had like a, you know, one of those weekend lifestyle shows approached us and they wanted to, they had a male host who wanted to come in and do a story about, you know, our workout, which at the time, we were trying to grow brand awareness. Our biggest kind of challenge at that point was trying to help men see that anyone could do this workout. It was really just a take on Pilates and it was great for the core strength and balance, flexibility, etc. But we were only getting women which is, you know, half the half the population and we knew we could double our revenue.
Unknown Speaker 39:58
You could do more or the other half.
Liz Nable 40:01
So they came in, we thought they were coming in to make it this positive story about men doing a bar workout. And I was there obviously on the day, and they all came in. And they were wearing tutus, and they were taking the piss. Right? Yeah. And I know, as a media expert, that that is exactly the opposite of what we wanted that story to be. But at that point, it was out of my control, because the story was gonna go to it wasn't like a good kick them out, like, you know, obviously can't
Speaker 2 40:30
say sorry, this isn't what we signed up to it. Yeah. Was it a paid? Or was it a
Liz Nable 40:35
no, no, not paid. And I did go in and say, Guys, this is not, you know, we're not here to like poke fun at the workout. But that was obviously,
Speaker 2 40:43
you, you had the confidence to do that. Is that your background? They were very have the confidence to do that.
Liz Nable 40:50
And they knew that I was unhappy with it. But at that point, it was a bit beyond Mike, I couldn't clear narrative anymore. The producers had decided what they wanted the story to be. What advice would you give, you know, not that specific situation specifically. But generally, if you see that narrative skewed, and you've given the information to the journalist or spoken to them on the phone, what can you control the narrative? And obviously, you can't completely control the narrative. But are there ways that you can help the outcome of that story, something that's positive
Speaker 2 41:21
100%? Do you know I've got a five year old and a six year old, and what we say in our family all the time is, there is always our walk. And they both notice as a solution. Because no matter what it is, even if it is the very worst case scenario, there are solutions to keep moving forward. Now, something like that, and I will use that example. So an 11 years ago, your social media profile might not have been as high as it was. Now I know. 11 years. God, I think we're even using Instagram where we No, not
Liz Nable 41:54
really. Yeah, but a little bit. Yeah, we do. Now you're not like we are
Speaker 2 41:58
now. So if it happened now, I would take that footage. And I would try and refine it, I would go on all of the that the places that I have a platform for so my social media, my ATMs, my webpage, my blogs. And I would say I would share the clip, a little bit of the clip, I wouldn't share it all. But I would say you know what, some people think this is funny, and we get why they do. But the reality is Men's Health is a really serious topic. And this is why we're committed to providing a safe space where men can feel healthy, where men can feel empowered and strong. And it's not just for girls, and it's not just for ballerinas. And that's how I would change that narrative on all of the on all of the platforms that I own. So there's always a new way to reframe it. And in crisis. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I think being a mom of little kids is a really good reminder for me in crisis that you know what a crisis flu I just turned five year old. We've already had eight teas this morning. What a crisis to adjust turn five year old is a really micro crisis. But there's still steps that you can take to mitigate and reframe it. And I always think in across it. So how do I reframe that?
Liz Nable 43:10
And it just I think you've got to be resourceful and resilient.
Speaker 2 43:14
Resilient is massive. Yeah. And massive.
Liz Nable 43:18
And spending weeks, you know, mulling over the Google review, and doing nothing about it is not going to help that
Speaker 2 43:23
doesn't help. And what did they say resilience is a muscle. So the more we think about it, the more we use it, the better it gets. And unfortunately, it's just about putting your boots on and getting in there.
Speaker 3 43:34
I so loved our chat. I could talk for hours, but I don't think our podcast listeners will be listening to oh my god, I've got I'm at the supermarket this
Liz Nable 43:45
good stuff in there. Thank you so much for your time. It was such a pleasure talking to you. And hopefully we'll see you again shortly maybe a second episode or Instagram Live or something like that. I know
Speaker 2 43:58
that we should do an Instagram Live and we can do some workshops. People can say this is my process. And yes, how you know one of my steps forward,
Liz Nable 44:06
I love that you guys can DM me and these underscore Nabal if you think that's a great idea, and I'm on to it, I'm down. Thanks, Sally.
Speaker 2 44:14
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be on the other side of podcasts.
Liz Nable 44:19
Thank you for listening to this episode of Nable My Business. If you've loved it, please share it on Instagram and Facebook for your friends. I'm all about listening and learning from you my audience. So please pop a review on iTunes and let me know how you're enjoying the show. I'd love to hear from you. So if you have any questions, email me at Liz at Liz Nable dot com And if you want to know more about what I do, head over to Liz Nable dot com. I truly hope this podcast is a game changer for you. Whether you're a small business owner, a franchisee you have a side hustle or you're just starting out. This is where you truly begin to build your own empire and the Life Of Your Dreams.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
