Crisis Communications

When doors start dropping off planes mid-air or your favorite online retailer gets in touch to let you know your personal details may have been compromised, it’s tempting to think you may have done a better job handling that crisis were you in their shoes.

But how well-prepared are you really to manage the many crises that can come up during the planning and delivery of your race? Anything from a late delivery of medals or an unfortunate slip-up on social media to a full blown race cancellation.

That’s what we’re discussing today with my guest, PR pro Meg Treat of Treat Public Relations. Meg has been on the podcast before, discussing DIY PR strategies for race directors, and in today’s episode she joins me once more to discuss crisis communications, that is, what you should and shouldn’t do when a crisis hits. 

How early should you look to communicate the situation to your participants and stakeholders? How should you go about doing it? And is the much-revered total transparency approach your best bet out of a tricky spot?

In this episode:

• Crises big and small: what constitutes a crisis?
• Are social media making crises worse and more frequent?
• Navigating safely around the culture war minefields
• To comment or not to comment: does acknowledging a crisis make it worse? 
• Getting ahead of a crisis: how early should you start communicating about a potential crisis?
• Turning a crisis into an opportunity
• Are there lesser or "almost" crises you can ignore?
• Balancing financial loss against reputation loss in a race cancellation
• The importance of a well-thought-out refund policy
• Showing empathy towards your participants when something goes wrong that may affect their race
• Taking ownership gracefully and staying out of the blame game
• Writing a crisis communications plan

Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.

You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.

You can also share your questions about some of the things discussed in today’s episode or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.