CRISIS READY – HOW TO BUILD AN INVINCIBLE BRAND with Melissa Agnes

Audio production by James Ede, Be Heard

Our guest today is Melissa Agnes. Author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World, Melissa is a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection.

Melissa’s area of expertise is something that most of us don’t enjoy thinking about. She works with organizations to explore questions such as: What will happen if things go off the rails and we find our business in a major crisis situation? Are we ready for the worst? Do we have what it takes to handle a crisis in an effective manner? Can our brand and our reputation survive a major crisis? And most importantly: Is there a way to prevent what’s preventable?

After a recent crop of scandals—including Uber, Volkswagen, Wells Fargo, and Boeing, just to name a few—companies and boards have started to emphasize shaping a healthy culture as a way to reduce risk.

If you and your company want to create an invincible brand, make sure you don’t miss this conversation.

Episode Highlights

In this interview, Melissa and I discuss:

• Melissa’s early cultural influences
• How she found her calling and where she found the strength to pursue it
• What helped Melissa persists through the most challenging stages of building her business
• How she defines crisis and the key differences between an issue and a crisis
• What is crisis readiness and why you can throw your crisis management plan away
• How to identify your high-risk scenarios
• What were the first telltale signs of Uber’s culture crisis
• Examples of a crisis well managed and how to emerge from a crisis stronger than before

Listen to the interview in the player below or on iTunes. If you like what you hear, please leave a review, and it may be featured on a future episode.

Audio production by James Ede, Be Heard

More About Melissa Agnes

Agnes sits on the Global Advisory Council for The Institute for Strategic Risk Management (ISRM), an entity established to create a global center where practitioners, academics, and policymakers come together to share information and help progress and promote the underlying understanding and capabilities associated with strategic risk and crisis management.

She is the editor of the Crisis Ready Blog, the host of the Invincible Brand Podcast, a contributor to Forbes, and a go-to source for the press, with recent coverage including The Wall Street Journal, VIBE Magazine, USA Today, and many others.

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Books and Studies Mentioned in this Episode:

Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World by Melissa Agnes

Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You: A Journal (Do One Thing Every Day Journals) by Robie Rogge and Dian G. Smith

“PwC’s Global Crisis Survey”