Monthly Archives: February 2024

Read the Room: Preparing for your next speaking engagement

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Sweaty palms and a microphone in hand, you are called to the stage for your presentation in front of hundreds of your colleagues. You wrote your speech word for word and studied it diligently but as your nervousness grows, those words you meticulously studied begin to vanish. Panic. Anxiety. Is there more you could have done? As in all things, preparation is key.

Power in preparation

A successful speaking engagement is rooted in the right kind of preparation. While writing a speech is an important part of the process, simply putting words on paper could leave a public speaker high and dry on stage. The reality is a memorized speech is full of recollection and verbal landmines, stumbling and missed content. When preparing for your next speaking engagement, consider the following:

  • Focus on key messages: Rather than memorizing a speech, consider the key messages or the main points the speech conveys. Talking points serve as a speaker’s safety net and help pull them back to their main points when stumbling occurs or they veer off on a tangent. Key messages should include the main idea of the speech, how it relates to the speaker and their organization, as well as the audience and high-level content points.
  • Follow a formula: Be sure to make your point, provide reasoning or statistics that support your point and consider offering an example to help the audience visualize what you are saying. Telling a story is often easier for a speaker to recall compared to memorizing theories, data or intellectual arguments. Finally, be sure to drive the point home again at the conclusion of your remarks.
  • Practice makes perfect: Reading your speech ahead of time can be helpful, but nothing compares to giving the speech on camera or in front of colleagues, friends or family. Avoid speaking in front of the mirror as it only serves to distract. Speaking before a friendly audience helps with both familiarity with the topic as well as speed of delivery, your body language, your intonation, articulation and more. Play the recording back afterward to self-evaluate and ask for honest feedback and direction from those who are invested in you making a great impression up on the big stage.
  • Engage with your audience: Audience engagementis crucial to a speaker’s success, but it rarely ever just happens. Speakers must prepare for what some call crowd work; engaging the audience as part of their presentation and considering potential outcomes. In addition to the fact that audiences do not want to sit through a lecture, engaging with the audience can help them remember your key points. Storytelling, adding a little humor, polling the audience or low-pressure activities can be great ways to garner audience attention and prime them to listen attentively.
  • Have a backup plan: When all else fails, speakers should be prepared with a backup plan. Comedian Jo Koy saw firsthand what happens when you do not have a plan at the 2024 Golden Globes when his monologue fell flat. His jokes about Barbie and Taylor Swift left him in hot water and his only fallback was to blame the writers. While the Golden Globes is a much larger stage than your average business conference, all speakers should be prepared to pivot. Consider how an audience could respond to all aspects of your speech and have a plan to pivot to a safer topic should you lose the audience.

Public speaking is among the most common societal phobias, but it can be overcome in many cases, with effective practice and preparation. Comprehensive preparation can instill the confidence a speaker needs to be successful on stage. Speakers are selected for the insights they offer. Come prepared for the stage with key messages and a solid plan of action to make sure your messages are conveyed in way that engages the audience and leaves them wanting to learn more.

I Hate to Tell You This: The Dos and Don’ts of Breaking Bad News

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In business, we can’t escape bad news. Whether the topic is layoffs, poor earnings, a deal that fell through or any number of business or workplace challenges, communicating a negative outcome is sometimes as difficult as living with the outcome itself. There is no silver bullet to best communicate bad news, but it is the responsibility of business owners and spokespeople to manage the impact of that bad news on stakeholders and the business.

Communicating internally

When communicating bad news to your team, it is important to remember that for some, the news can be upsetting. Keep the following in mind when communicating bad news within your business.

Do: Be clear

A bad news announcement is stressful under the best of circumstances. A confusing announcement only makes the problem worse. When communicating, take extra steps to avoid generalities and include whatever specifics can be shared to ensure the news cannot be misinterpreted. For example, rather than saying “layoffs are expected,” consider “Due to economic conditions, we are planning to reduce the number of staff in our New York office by 15% by year end. The specific roles impacted by this decision are still being considered, and we expect to know and share more details by the end of the quarter.”

Do: Provide resources

After bad news breaks, team members will have questions. Consider putting together a FAQ or other fact sheet that managers and team members can turn to for more information. Also, consider giving your team members access to leaders who may be able to best answer common questions.

Don’t: Sugarcoat the news

Don’t belittle the intelligence and maturity of your team members by utilizing flowery language. The first instinct to soften the blow of bad news can be useful, and compassion has a part to play in delivering bad news. However, being overly sweet can come off as disingenuous.

Working with partners

Bad news will usually impact more than just your business. It often impacts the businesses and clients with which you work. For example, downsizing can reduce your capabilities, leading to partner concerns about being underserviced. When planning for bad news, consider the following as it relates to your partners.

Do: Be proactive

The people and businesses that work with your company expect they will be kept in the loop about news that impacts them. If a staff reduction is planned, they should hear it from your business first — not from news headlines or via the gossip mill.

Do: Plan

Communicating with partners involves more than just messaging. It involves timing. When preparing partner-related messaging, ensure all materials are developed before an announcement. Depending on the nature of the news, it may be beneficial to communicate with partners before sharing with the public. However, the time between the two announcements should not exceed 24 hours. Any longer risks a leak and losing control of the message.

Don’t: Overshare

While being proactive is important, it does not mean a business should share every detail of a bad news announcement. Businesses need to tailor partner messaging to only include information that pertains to the partner. If a partner has questions, schedule a time to speak with them one-on-one after the news breaks.

Talking to the public

Sharing bad news with the world can create opportunities for error, misinterpretation and even crisis if not handled correctly, especially in today’s world of instant digital communication. That said, when sharing bad news businesses should work through a medium like the news media or their website. When working with these mediums, keep the following in mind.

Do: Be Transparent

Generalities and vague comments create doubt. At worst such vagary provides opportunities for bad actors to take bad news and make it sound far worse than the reality. While being open about bad news can be painful, it is far better to keep control of the facts and remain transparent.

Do: Be Responsive

Public response to a bad news announcement could include anything from a reporter on a deadline or a social media post. Regardless of the source, responsiveness is critical for managing a negative announcement. Just like transparency can help reduce the chance of misinformation about a negative announcement, responsiveness can ensure facts and truth remain at the center of the conversation.

Don’t: Lie

You will be caught. It may not be immediately, but it will happen. Misstating facts and hiding critical information are sure ways to not only lose the trust of the public but create new problems as well. This goes for guessing or speculation, too. When announcing bad news, stick to the facts.

While these tips will help to better manage the impact of bad news on a business, they are all focused on mitigating the potential damage to the business and its reputation. There is no way to fully negate the impact of bad news. However, by following the above tips businesses can better survive delivering bad news, and work to grow in the long term.

Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word

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Giving your public relations team a seat at the table early in a situation can mean the difference between successfully navigating a potential reputational crisis and falling victim to embarrassing, costly and ruinous public backlash against your brand via social media and the press. One just needs to look at the now nearly infamous Kyte Baby incident, where CEO Ying Liu delivered a cringe-worthy and awkward TikTok apology in January, to see how harmful it truly can be to fail to consider strategic counsel from a seasoned PR advisor. This was in response to the company’s termination of an employee’s request to work remotely while her adopted newborn was in a neonatal intensive care unit.

While the underlying issue at Kyte Baby seemed connected to parental leave policies, the decision was viewed by consumers as antithetical to the company’s mission and values. Under the title of Kyte Cares, the company’s website reads in part: “At Kyte Baby, we have dedicated our company to helping babies and families find comfort for more than a decade … we understand the importance of family and recognize parents’ vital role in nurturing and supporting their families.”

The controversary swirled as enthusiastic fans of Kyte Baby’s products learned of the employee’s termination and complained to the company and online. Ironically, it was Liu’s awkward and stilted apology that brought the company out of the shadows of social media and made headlines around the world.

A Failure of Consideration

It would be a mistake to discount Liu or her decision as ill-considered. She is a working mother and entrepreneur who also happens to hold a doctorate in economics. Also, the tone of her original video apology, where she asked the employee in question to forgive “how her parental leave policy was communicated and handled,” would imply she was advised on how to respond.

What happened was a failure of consideration. A failure to consider what the decision to terminate would say about the company, and a failure to consider how Liu’s response to public backlash would be presented and received by that public.

If there was a PR professional advising her to act as she did, that person should be fired. If there was no PR professional advising Liu alongside of the company’s attorneys, then the fault lies squarely with Liu and the company’s fundamental inability to live its mission in a way its loyal customers might expect.

My guess, and it is only a guess, is this matter was seen as a legal issue and addressed accordingly. What it lacked was someone in the room, steeped in the brand’s mission and reputation, who would have played devil’s advocate both on the decision to dismiss the employee as well as gaming out any potential blowback from the apology. Had a skilled PR professional been in the room from the start, Liu would have been advised on the optics of dismissing a new mom with a sick child from a company founded to help moms navigating health issues (skin conditions related to fabrics) among their young children. Further, had a skilled PR pro spoken to Liu when her original apology was scripted and planned for wide distribution on TikTok, Liu would have been strongly advised to take a different approach.

Instead, Liu made a decision that matched the company’s (then) policy on parental leave. Liu made a legally appropriate CEO decision to follow company policy but failed to be the empathetic mom who founded the company 10 years earlier to help other moms.

Why PR Needs a Seat at the Executive Table

Liu is only the latest example of organizational leaders – C-suite and others – who failed to look beyond policy or legalese. In the same month Kyte Baby made headlines, a former account executive for Cloudflare, an IT company, recorded and posted to social media a video of her termination over Zoom by two human resource professionals she had never met and who didn’t know her. That company’s CEO also went on a social media apology tour, calling the video “painful” to watch and noting the way the matter was handled was inappropriate.

Organizations large and small make mistakes. Having trusted counsel – both legal and others – consider and review decisions that can impact the brand is vital. Moreover, the rules governing the workplace have changed and continue to evolve. Not only are people making space for their work in their homes and having to integrate that work into their lives beyond 9-to-5, but we are also in an era where the aggrieved can turn to social media and expose former employers who act in bad faith – real or perceived – to a firestorm of negative publicity. And, frankly, a lot of organizational leaders are getting it wrong.

Having a communications professional as part of the decision matrix can help. Whether in-house or an outside consultant or agency, these are trained professionals whose jobs are to consider every decision, message, social media post and internal memo through the lens of the organization’s reputation. It’s an invaluable service when you consider the alternative: Kyte Baby is navigating an ongoing boycott while trying to share positive news about their new parental leave policies. Cloudflare blew up on social media for the wrong reasons and may struggle with recruitment of vital talent as a result.

Lawyers are excellent advisors. They protect their clients in the court of law. Public relations professionals focus on reputational threats and protect clients in the court of public opinion, which is where consumers tend to decide where and how to spend their money. Both must be in the room where decisions are made.

X For Businesses: The Unanswered Question

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Elon Musk dominated headlines throughout 2023 after purchasing Twitter in the year prior. Musk purchased the social media platform with bold promises to advocate for free speech, to prevent bots and misinformation and to create the “everything app.”

Since taking over, Musk has made good on his promises to make changes, but those changes did not all yield positive returns. Since taking over, Musk has overseen widespread layoffs, as well as controversial decisions to outsource content moderators, rebrand Twitter to X and introduce a monthly subscription model. Under his direction during the first year, the company’s ad revenue dropped a minimum of 55% year-over-year each month and lost about 13% of its daily active users.

Not surprisingly, X’s viability for brands as a valuable social media tool is being questioned by organizational leaders, as well as their marketing and communications teams.

Is X worth a place in your social media strategy? Let’s look at a few considerations for business leaders reevaluating their brands’ activity on X. 

  • Time spent vs. ROI: Twitter since the beginning has been dependent on real-time interaction. In the last year, the platform has undergone significant security and algorithmic changes, which have resulted in fewer impressions and engagement on posts. This has been particularly true for those who chose to opt out of the paid subscription model. Regardless of the type of account, X as we know it today requires a significant time investment of diligent posting and interaction for even a chance at climbing user feeds.
  • Public trust concerns: Musk’s public intention when he bought Twitter was to encourage free speech and prevent misinformation. However, Musk has struggled to uphold these promises and has taken heavy criticism in the media related to the spread of misinformation on the platform. Taylor Swift, for example, was recently a victim or misinformation on the platform when AI-generated explicit photos began circulating the platform as reported by The Wall Street Journal. The potential implications of a violation of public trust for X users, coupled with controversial statements made by Musk, have prompted businesses and corporations to reconsider their connection with X.
  • Changing features: In Musk’s endeavor to make X the everything app, the company has made considerable changes to platform features. For example, when displaying links, X now removes headlines and makes clickable links less visible to limit linking outside the platform. For most businesses, social media is used to direct customers to a different place, whether that be the company website or a blog post. Limiting access to such links could diminish any return for businesses utilizing X.

The attention around X should serve as a reminder to business owners, that a social media strategy should always be evolving and that they should regularly evaluate engagement across all channels. Some platforms, or a company’s current strategy for a certain platform, may no longer be serving them well, and new resources and features are always popping up.

LinkedIn, for example, now offers articles and newsletters for users to post longer form content. Showcasing a business’s expertise and their leaders’ insights in an article could hold more value than posting small snippets on X.

Social media is an investment of time in understanding and establishing business goals that are supported by a platform’s capabilities. To get the most from social media, business leaders and their social media managers must understand how social media platforms could work to their advantage or diminish their investment as they evolve.