Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Stephen Wenner. And today I have the pleasure of having a great friend of mine on our show. This is my buddy David Oates. And it's going to be a great segment today because we're going to be dealing with crisis PR. Bad stuff. What happens, right? So thank you so much for being on the show today.

Speaker 2: It's always good to hang out with you, my friend.

Speaker 1: Last time was radio and that was a while ago.

Speaker 2: It was. You're right. That was almost, actually it was over four years ago when we did that with a couple of other guys.

Speaker 1: We're not dating ourselves. Not so much. Right. So I want to have a conversation with you about what our audience needs to be aware of when it comes to things going sideways. Right. But before we do that, there's always an interesting story. You used to work for one of the biggest employers in the world, the U.S. Navy. I did. Right. And I'd love for our audience to understand what you were thrown into as someone who was dealing with crisis management, PR, especially in different parts of the world. Yeah. This is part of your story.

Speaker 2: I'm blessed with having the opportunities. And at some point early in my Navy career, when I started as what they call a surface warfare officer or a ship driver, combat and engineering roles, they give junior officers these part-time or collateral duties. And mine was the public affairs officer. And it was one of those moments you have, you know, and I hope everybody gets this opportunity, whether it's in their mid-20s like me or later on in life where you sort of have that aha moment. You're like, oh, my God, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life. I found it. And it encompassed so many different things and facets that I was interested in and I felt I was good at with some refinement. I wound up then getting to the opportunity to request a lateral transfer to a Navy public affairs officer role. Took me 30 times. So perseverance is everything, right? Big, huge packets to D.C. Got selected. They put me through a two-month essentially PR immersion school, almost like an accelerated. Master's program and then back out to the fleet. But to the question is, early on, I think I was a full-time Navy public affairs officer for about four months. I'd done a couple of things with the Marine Corps and media relations and exercises at Camp Pendleton. And then out of the blue, I get a call saying, pack your bags. You're going to Haiti for six months.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: And the shock of that and saying goodbye to my wife on short notice was. Sure. Jarring. But once I got into that country, there's 500 service members or civil humanitarian operations. And literally the day I landed at Port-au-Prince Airport, there was a rescue mission going on led by the United States at the request of the Haitian government because a civilian ferry overturned with 300 souls on board that perished. So I'm literally leaving the airport, going to the military compound. Dropping off my sea bag, getting into a vehicle with an Air Force journalist who was going to be working for me. And we had about an hour north to the site of the overturned ferry. And there's CNN and New York Times and the Associated Press and Reuters and French Press Agency. I'm a new spokesperson. And the commanding officer looked at me. My counterpart who was leaving is like, great. Welcome on board. What do we do? And I'm like, no. And I'm like, uh, I'm not exactly sure. Let me think about this for a minute. And you just, at that point, there was no other choice to make but to move forward, right? Let's just, let's do this right. Let's get a message out there. Let's talk about what we're doing. Let's see if we can get some of these service members who are active in the rescue operations to talk through that. And you just have to give it a shot and give your best effort and try to be as transparent and open and honest about what you're doing to allow the story to be told. In the manner it should be told. Sure. And that was a great lesson to learn is to not be afraid of a situation. And sometimes it's okay to make it up as you go along, as long as you have sort of, some core values of Transparency, empathy, action in mind. And I learned that at the ripe old age of 27,

Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. And you were immediately thrust into a major world event.

Speaker 2: Scared out of my mind. I still remember looking at that with these seasoned reporters and not sure exactly what to do, But sure. But I'm glad I went through that. through that experience because I think it's a bedrock in some cases of what I was able to do in the service a couple of years afterwards on the aircraft carrier forward deployed operations. But then, you know, now for 20 plus years in the private sector, working for a whole bevy of

Speaker 1: organizations, big and small and crisis matters. And that's what I wanted to move into because you got thrust into a situation where all of a sudden you're having to share a message to the world about what just took place. And having all of that, including the years post that event, everything that you've learned. Now, when you're working with different companies over here, what or when are you being called in so people can understand what is crisis management? When is the right time? Why should I call David?

Speaker 2: Yeah. So crisis management and specifically a reputation crisis issue, a crisis management issue. An event that causes an organization's brand into question with either their employees, their customers, their partners, if they're a nonprofit, their donors, something along that line usually occurs because an unexpected happened and it throws people off. They don't now understand what this organization is and more to the point when an organization fails to look like that they're responding quickly and properly for that audience to try to allay the concerns and fix whatever the issue is. That can unravel pretty quickly. Sure. And ideally, I like to get brought in when the situation is developing. Yeah. A crisis, generally speaking, with few exceptions, right? And we've seen the mass accidents and others. They don't necessarily happen overnight. It's not a moment's notice. They are slow, percolating issues, whether it involves an employee matter or a customer service matter, or there's some operational issues. Something is sort of developing, or at least people are starting to internalize it. Yeah. Internally question, generate concerns. That's the time I'd like to be involved. Sure. But to your point, nine times out of 10, I get the phone call, I get the text, I get the email when the house is figuratively, if not literally, on fire. Right. I can still help, and I do, but it takes a little longer and it's a little more expensive. And especially in this day and age where everybody, because of our mobile devices, is a broadcaster, you don't have all day to respond. You don't have till through the weekend. You, in many cases, have an hour. Yeah. Because somebody, when I get called at that moment, already has set a narrative to a public that is putting the organization or the entity or the individual on the defense. Right. And if you don't get involved in the conversation in the short order, it becomes that much more difficult to reset the narrative. And again, it can be done. It just takes more time and costs more money. That's just the reality of it.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. So again, as these companies are also slowly developing. Right. And becoming an issue. Yeah. I would assume, just on personal experience, that these companies hope that it just goes away.

Speaker 2: Right? Yeah. I get that a lot. Right. And that's why I don't get the call in. Hey, we think we've got it handled. Right. Or we want to keep it. We're hoping that it just dies down. Well, hope's not a strategy. There's a news flash for you.

Speaker 1: Exactly. There's an unfortunate, within human behavior, that if we avoid it, maybe it'll disappear.

Speaker 2: Right. We are so pain avoidance. Yeah. And the problem is, is that in many cases, particularly. Yeah. In many cases, particularly in a matter where you're not in control of communications. Right? Yeah. Everybody, again, is a broadcaster. Yeah. Because of the mobile devices. All we're doing in those instances is deferring the payment of pain. And by the way, when it gets deferred and you're late to the game, you have to pay that pain point with interest. So it's, you know, the adage that your mom said, rip the mandate off quickly. I like that. Get in front of that. Right? Or remember when you do something that you weren't supposed to do, or you were delaying your program. Your parents told you, go fix this or go clean your room. I've already thought of like 20 things in my head. We would spend hours, I would spend hours avoiding that. And your parents would say, if you would just spend half the time doing what you're supposed to do. I know. And of course, we all don't, don't we?

Speaker 1: And that's the way the ball bounces. So another question that I think the audience should be very aware of is, how transparent are they with you when you walk in? Because as human beings, we want to be defensive. We don't want it to be something that we did. Yeah. So are you finding that they're trying to sweep it under the rug a little bit? Or are you truly encouraging them to, I need to know the whole story?

Speaker 2: Yeah. And what do you find? I appreciate that question. The answer is, I have to get the full story early on. Otherwise, I can't be as much help. And it doesn't mean because maybe there's privacy issues or there's, you know, regulations like health privacy regulations or things like that that you can't disclose everything. But I sign confidentiality agreements with clients or individuals to get the full story. Oftentimes, I'm hired by the attorney. So the conversations are privileged. They're an attorney-client confidentiality. But if I don't understand where the pitfalls are and where the opportunities, then it becomes not as effective when I come to a decision and a solution for them in rapid fashion. Right. So, and I say this to the general point, though. The goal for any organization is to be as open and transparent and empathetic and action-oriented as possible. I don't care what the organization size is, the matter at hand, the industry, the audience that they're trying to convey. Showing empathy and action in as transparent of a manner as you can is vital in order to get back to normal operations as quickly as possible. Sure. That's my goal. It's to try to allay any further damage. Sure. Give them an opportunity to restore that brand reputation. But get back to normal operations so they can make money or continue on their nonprofit service or things like that. And if I can't get there, it's usually a situation that I figure that out pretty quickly and I go, you probably need somebody else to do that. Sure. But I'll say this. This is the one thing that I will leave on this topic. It's my responsibility to provide those leaders, my clients, a safe space. They have to understand. And it's my job to convey that, that I will be on their side. I'll give it to them straight. I'll tell them what needs to be happening. Sometimes I'm not trying to make this good. I'm just trying to make this less bad. Right. But know that I will do as much as I can if you're open, honest, and transparent and willing to fix some things. Yeah. If you're responsible for that, we will get you through this. The ones that I toss back into the ocean are the ones who want to use me as a human shield. Sure. Sure. They can't necessarily be very introspective or are completely devoid of reality in a situation. And look, I've dealt with some organizations that their reputation was being called into question unfairly. But more often than not, my grandmother was right. Three sides to every story. Yours, mine, and the truth.

Speaker 1: Wow. I like that. So a couple more things before we wrap this up. When it comes to how you're talking to these people. Because I want to explain a little bit about Dave, which you might not know. Former president of his Rotary. Involved in Rotary. One of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. Dave comes in to try to help. Legitimately, you're there to help. Yeah. So when you're dealing with a company that may be struggling to call you in. And we talked about this before we sat down. What does it look like when the company is avoiding or taking time? Again, that pain avoidance, right?

Speaker 2: They don't want to make any sort of overtures that give them... But what does it look like? The problem with that, to your point, is the absence of saying anything gives the audience a perspective, a perception, even if it's a misperception, that you don't care or you're incompetent. And either one is bad. Because not only do you give audiences the false pretense that you're just not going to be bought into. You're just not going to be bothered with them and you're unfeeling. You're going to also allow somebody else to fill that dead air. To create a narrative that is not yours. And exacerbate your misstep by not engaging. So very, very infrequently do I tell audience, do I tell clients, you shouldn't say anything at this point. Right. It's 90% of the time you need to say something, at least in some form, and do it quickly with empathy and action.

Speaker 1: And before we wrap this up. I don't want you to think this is like... Right. A big world event where there's a nuclear crisis or something like that. This can happen to anyone or any company, regardless of how big or how small. So why don't you let our audience also know who should be reaching out to you? Because some people might think, oh, I'm not big enough or this doesn't really make sense for me. But who is the ideal audience?

Speaker 2: I wish I could tell you that there is a archetype. It could be the local mom and pop shop. It could be the five person nonprofit. It could be the Fortune 1000 company. Any organization of any kind. Any organization of any size. Anywhere. Reputation can go from hero to zero in an Instagram post. That's the reality.

Speaker 1: And are you willing to have a conversation with anyone? Because again, I don't want the audience to be afraid to reach out to you and think, oh, it's not big enough.

Speaker 2: Yeah. If you Google me and you get to my website, I offer without any sort of obligation, you can set on my calendar a 15 minute conversation. I am happy all day long to talk to as many organizations who've got a matter that's keeping them up at night. I love what I do. And I love helping good people and good organizations who find themselves in a bad situation to talk how they can communicate their way through it and get back to normal operations. And if I do that all day long, the money will come in where it needs to be. But if all I do is create good karma, I'm a happy man.

Speaker 1: Again, one of the nicest guys I know. Appreciate it. David Oates, thank you so much for being on the show. It's been a pleasure, my friend. Thanks, man. All right, guys. See you next time. Have a great day. Bye. Oh, that's a good one. That was a good one. That was a really good one. .