Your personal and business reputation needs to be solid for your brand. Most of the business owners in your industry will not have a plan in tact, when or if something bad happens. However, it's important to not only promote your brand, but you have to protect it. A way to stand out from competitors, is having a strategy in case someone attack your business. This will allow your audience to keep their trust in you.
1. Be truthful – No matter how bad things get, making things worse. Do not lie under any circumstances. Mistakes are very fixable, but getting caught in a lie is one of the worst things you can do for your brand. It makes you look untrustworthy. And it can be hard to recover from a lie, because you would have to work to rebuild trust, and that is very difficult to do.
2. Get the Team involved – Make sure that everyone represents you all on the same page. The entire team needs to be involved with protecting your reputation.
3. Act Fast – With the internet, things go viral quickly. The longer you are quiet the worst it looks on your behalf. I always recommend to act as quickly as possible. As you soon as you have a good written statement or press release, sent it to the public.
4. Be realistic about it – You can not control what is being said about you. However, you can still have a voice. This is why you have to communicate, especially when you are in the middle of a crisis. Let your audience know that you are still the same company that they put their trust in. Use your voice, and strategize ways to get your reputation back on track.
5. Be patient – It takes time to rebuild a brand. Things are not going to get better overnight. Just do not give up on your business. The length of time it takes does depend on how prepared you are, and the depth of the crisis. However, you should not lose patience and give not, no matter what the crisis is. A mistake that some business owners make is giving up too soon, or letting one mistake or bad review affect the outlook on their business. The key is to be consistent with your communications plan, and being patient with your results.
6. Believe in the quality of your products and services – You know your that the products and services are valuable to your target market. Use that as an angle in your crisis management plan. In all of your communication (press release, article, blog, podcast) let your audience know how your business exists to help them. This let them know you are still thinking about your best interest.
Whether it's a bad review or a blogger attacking your business, you need to protect the brand that you worked so hard to build. If you need help consider hiring a Publicity Virtual Assistant.
