A brand that’s taken a lifetime to build can unravel in a day. At Sharp Minds, we specialise in safeguarding businesses and organisations of all sizes against potential crises. Our expertise lies not only in preparation but also in orchestrating strategic communications when challenges arise.

Senior management and leaders embroiled in a crisis have learnt the hard way what happens when the unthinkable becomes reality. When an accident results in death or injury, a failed takeover causes the share price to plummet, or toxic food, medicines, or drinks lead to mass hysteria, all attention focuses on who’s to blame.

Every day, organisations run the risk of being affected. The fact that we live in an age of transparency means that no company or organisation is immune. However, a crisis doesn’t have to spell disaster.  Swift, positive action can limit damage effectively. Additionally, efficient communication can transform a crisis into an opportunity. The way an organisation communicates during a crisis can be make-or-break, as we’ve seen in numerous national and international examples. Ironically, the transparency that many senior managers find challenging is precisely what enables a company to project openness—a quality stakeholders value and trust most.

The importance of a crisis communications plan

The days when companies were only answerable to their own shareholders are in the past. Now, stakeholders are not only more numerous; they are also more inquisitive and expect to be fully informed.  Consequently, a robust crisis plan is no longer optional—it’s essential. While no organisation is immune to crises, the art lies in effectively managing them and potentially turning them into opportunities.

Key elements of successful crisis management include:

1. Preparation: Develop a proactive plan before a crisis occurs.
2. Speed: React quickly to control the narrative.
3. Transparency: Communicate openly with all stakeholders.
4. Efficiency: Deliver the right message, to the right people, at the right time.

Stakeholders and the public judge a company by how it handles a crisis. Prioritising human interests over business concerns often earns companies a second chance. To protect your reputation:

• Establish a competent crisis communications team.
• Define clear internal communication protocols.
• Identify key spokespersons and their roles.
• Determine appropriate timing for press releases and public statements.

At Sharp Minds we excel in helping organisations navigate these crucial aspects of crisis management, ensuring they’re prepared to face challenges head-on.

Why invest in a proactive crisis communication plan?

Having a plan can control a crisis and control is the name of the game. The core principles of effective crisis communications are – concern, relief and reassurance.

When you find yourself in a crisis communication situation you have one goal: to protect the reputation of the organisation by communicating the right message; at the right time; to the right people.

Responding quickly and with confidence is the only way your business can seize control of the communication and turn it to your advantage. Look on it as a wise investment.

The essential elements of a clear and concise, proactive crisis communication plan are:

• Authority and sign-off procedures
• Clear messaging guidelines
• A defined audience that this messaging needs to reach
• A designated spokesperson
• Timing strategies for the communications
• Internal communication strategies

What makes a good crisis communications team?

Your crisis team needs to be small, agile, alert and reachable. It needs to consist of individuals who have absolute authority and the confidence to direct board members when necessary.

When Sharp Minds develops a proactive crisis communication plan, we typically begin by meeting with the board, founder or CEO. Our crisis professionals engage all the C-level executives who may be part of the future crisis team.

Securing buy-in from all parties is crucial, though often challenging. In this situation, our crisis advisers normally highlight to the board:

• What PR is, and how it differs from advertising
• What a crisis is
• What possible crises could happen to the company and how that might appear to the press
• The bottom-line cost to the business
• The long-term damage it could do to the organisation
• The available solutions that can save or generate revenue
• The importance of everyone’s commitment

By emphasising these points, we ensure that all stakeholders understand the significance of crisis preparedness and the need for a unified approach to crisis management.

Who do you want on your team?

You will need a minimum of two spokespeople. The CEO, owner or ultimate stakeholder, ideally the person who, with guidance, will make the calls and define the actions. Ideally, this is someone who doesn’t report to anyone else in the business.

Plus, your lead in-house communication professional and then your PR agency team, such as Sharp Minds. This helps to provide a breadth of reach and one key contact point (normally your account director).

Managing the impact on your reputation

A strong reputation is a valuable asset during a crisis. Companies known for their positive contributions to the community and impeccable track records often receive the benefit of the doubt in challenging times.

Building a good reputation is a gradual process that begins with defining your company’s core values:

• What image do you want to project?
• How important are ethical standards to your organisation?
• What is your approach to staff, suppliers, and profit?

Get the core values right and it is relatively easy to devise and implement a strategy that aligns. However, consistency and creativity are needed to maintain and strengthen these values in order for this image to become a part of the corporate strategy.

Your ‘how to handle a crisis’ checklist

• Don’t stand by idly waiting… do something… take swift action
• Always repeat the same message
• Call the crisis team and the crisis-communication team together immediately and sequester them
• Evaluate the situation. Identify the public groups and stakeholders affected
• Decide which strategy should be followed
• Determine what you want to communicate to the outside world; if possible, determine who the opinion leaders are
• Prepare a plan and carry it out. Inform those who should be informed
• Centralise all incoming and outgoing information
• Understand your public groups and speak their language
• Give information quickly and clearly. Calm everyone down
• Respond to negative reporting with a consistent message
• Be flexible and creative
• Think long-term
• Keep the reputation of your organisation at the forefront of your messaging

Based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, Sharp Minds Communications offers brand development, digital marketing, offline marketing, and public relations to businesses across Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Greater London.

Sharp Minds has made it to the final five in the Best Care Marketing Team
category for the Leaders in Care awards. The shortlisting showcases our expertise in the sector –
for over a decade we have helped care providers and sector suppliers improve
their commercials and achieve their business goals.

Here’s why…

Within less than 6 months of starting work with Autumna, the UK’s largest later-life care directory, we identified an opportunity to create a groundbreaking campaign to spread awareness for their digital Dashboard for Accelerated Discharge (DAD), a unique solution for finding appropriate care options for elderly people stuck in hospital – quickly. This campaign alone secured a digital audience of more than 120 million. 

Spotting the intelligence gap

We began by conducting extensive research to discover what had been published in the arena and the intelligence gaps that could provide an opportunity for headline-winning thought leadership. This identified that there had never been a report on care providers’ experiences of the hospital discharge process. We therefore crafted a questionnaire for providers to determine the effectiveness of the current system, which was sent to the Autumna database.

The findings from 568 responses provided empirical evidence for the first time that the hospital discharge process is failing, giving a national overview as well as regional results, which revealed a postcode lottery for elderly patients waiting to be discharged from hospital. 

We turned the findings into a compelling, detailed, evidence-based 40-page report to communicate the findings effectively, project managing the design to create a report that is visually exciting and accessible. 

Tailored press releases for the national Tier 1 press, care trade press and local media (with bespoke versions for the 10 different regions), were sent out under embargo for the August bank holiday to optimise the silly season. 

The report was covered by The Times, The Independent, The Standard, BBC, ITN, Tier 1 trade press and more than 100 local newspapers around the country, creating new focus on the failing hospital discharge system.

Debbie Harris, Managing Director of Autumna shared: “Sharp Minds have played a key role in ensuring the challenges that the social care sector faces with hospital discharge are being heard across the country, and that they are being brought to the attention of the government.”

Reputation boosting

Other successful campaigns we have conducted have enabled Autumna to launch a new service to its core, care sector audience, as well as bringing the brand to a wider audience by securing coverage in the business and Tier 1 press. 

An exclusive negotiated with The Telegraph on Kent County Council charging families for acting as care brokers was the first time Autumna had featured in the national Tier 1 consumer press. 

Through effective news-hijacking, we have created additional opportunities for Autumna, cementing its reputation as a go-to commentator. 

This exceptional success has been possible through a combination of our astute PR expertise, extensive knowledge of the care sector and rigorous onboarding to understand Autumna’s business goals, challenges, opportunities and expertise.

We will find out if we’ve taken the title at the black-tie awards ceremony in National Conference Centre in Birmingham on Tuesday, 8th October.

If you are looking for support with an award application, please get in touch.

Based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, Sharp Minds Communications offers brand development, digital marketing, offline marketing, and public relations to businesses across Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Greater London.

‘Award winning’ helps take a brand to the next level, adding credibility and getting attention across channels. Managing Director and award ninja, Siobhan Stirling, shares her tips for taking the title and maximising the opportunity for marketing and PR.

Is applying for an award worth it?

You may turn your nose up at them, but awards bring benefits, adding value on many levels:

• Moral booster for the team
• Multi-channel marketing and PR opportunities
• Boost recruitment
• Help open doors to new markets, new clients and new investment
• Great opportunity to take stock and reflect on all that your team has achieved – this may seem the least important, but it’s something that we’re all too often poor at doing. Awards can provide a great lens to appreciate what your brand has achieved in the last year.

If we post award success on Sharp Minds’ LinkedIn, we get around ten times the engagement as other content. When we meet business associates they always comment ‘I see you won another award.’ Amongst the hum drum of mainstream business content, a team togged up in black tie stands out and gets noticed.

Choosing which awards to apply for

Award success can help fuel business success, but simply being in it isn’t enough to win it – you also need to demonstrate to the judges why your brand, team, campaign, project or initiative deserves the crown.

When I first judged awards, I was shocked at how poor the average application was. You don’t need to invest much effort to be ahead of the pack.

Before you start an application, there are a couple of fairly axiomatic checks to make – but from judging awards, not everyone does them: make sure to check that you can match the criteria for the title you want to go for, and consider if the award is relevant and can add value to your business:

• Can you demonstrate the qualities/outcomes the judges are looking for?
• Can you back this up with supporting evidence?
• Will you be able to go to the award ceremony (a requirement for some awards)?
• Is it a title that will provide additional credibility for the markets, partners and investors you’re trying to reach? Some paid awards have devalued the currency slightly, but there are still plenty of awards that have genuine clout.

If the answer to all of these is ‘yes’, go for it. But realise that you need to invest time to ensure you tick every box (scrutinise the criteria closely to make sure you demonstrate each one).

How to write a winning award application

Researching previous winners and analysing how and why they might have won, will give you a helpful benchmark for your own application. Make sure you:

• Demonstrate your points of difference: how do you outpace the competition? What do you do that is different or innovative? How can you evidence this?
• Tell a story, rather than just stating facts, to make your application as memorable as possible
• avoid cliches (being ‘passionate’ about what you do doesn’t evidence how you are ahead of your field or add value for your clients)
• Use evidence: how can you demonstrate growth (turnover, profit, staff numbers, new services, bigger offices); how you deliver for your clients (measurable Return on Investment, client loyalty, percentage of word-of-mouth referrals); expertise (qualifications, keynote speaking opportunities, leadership roles within your industry)?
• Make the most of the word count: if the limit for an answer is 300 words and you only submit 75, you’re probably missing an opportunity to shine – or you’re entering the wrong award.

And don’t leave it to the last minute; it takes time to gather supporting evidence, such as client testimonials.

Maximising award benefits – whether you win or not

Whether you win or are a finalist, the key benefits of an award lie in the marketing and PR opportunities, so have your strategies in place to leverage these before you find out if you have made the shortlist.

Awards offer opportunities for multi-channel promotion, so utilise all of these if you make the shortlist, on the day of the award-ceremony, and then if you win:

• PR: to trade and local media – note that if the award is run by a media titles, competing titles will not cover them
• Marketing: Brand channels, including social, website, newsletters, digital signatures

And, of course, make sure you splash your winner’s logo on future communications, including business development collateral. It’s an objective endorsement as to why you are better than your competitors – so make sure your prospects know about it.

If you are looking for support with an award application, please get in touch.

Based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, Sharp Minds Communications offers brand development, digital marketing, offline marketing, and public relations to businesses across Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Greater London.