Hopefully your small business is never hit with controversy - but it can happen and we want you to be prepared.
This week on the Small Owned Business (S.O.B.) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are discussing how to handle negative publicity and why it is important to take it seriously.
We discuss the event that inspired this episode and how important it is to assess situations carefully, respond thoughtfully, and create a proactive PR crisis plan to maintain a good brand reputation.
Have you heard about the Zachary's Daiquiris situation? What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments!
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Chapters:
00:00 Thank You For Listening & Please Leave us a 5 Star Review
02:24 Understanding Negative Publicity for Small Businesses
04:00 Local Controversy: Zachary's Daiquiris
12:50 Assessing the Situation in a PR Crisis
19:49 Crafting a Thoughtful Response
36:23 Creating a PR Crisis Plan
42:28 TLDL: How To Handle Negative Publicity
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TikTok Profile That Broke Story: @sarahebaus
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Vivian: I would rather know upfront all of the details even if they're bad, instead of being caught with my pants down, figuratively not literally. Okay, because that's another PR crisis in itself if you're caught with your pants down.
*Intro* Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the SOB Marketing Podcast. SOB as in small owned business. We would never call you guys names. Before we get started, Vivian, just a little bit of housekeeping.
Guys, why haven't you left a review yet?
Vivian: What's going on?
Chelsea: What are you doing? If you're listening to this podcast, please, pretty, pretty please leave us a review. It helps us get in front of other small business owners. We're here to share all the marketing information that we have. That's what we want to do. Also, if you have a topic you want us to talk about, please let us know. You can email us at help at theseasonmarketer.com. You can leave a comment on YouTube or on Spotify. You could even DM us on social media. We're across multiple platforms at The Seasoned Marketer.
And y'all, please don't forget we do have the TLDL section. Too long, didn't listen. So if you are stretched for time, you don't have time right now, we get it. Go listen to the TLDL section. I'll give you a little summary. Then when you do have time, come back and listen to the full conversation.
Vivian: All the way through.
Chelsea: All the way through because you don't want to miss any of the details that we give you today.
Vivian, what are we talking about today?
Vivian: All right. So today's topic is one that's extremely important because you guys know we want to just prepare you. Okay. We hope nothing controversial or bad ever happens in your small business, but the likelihood that as a small business owner, you are going to be in a position where potentially you have to defend something you've done or something your employee or team member has done. There's a high possibility of that, right? Especially with everyone walking around with camera phones and all that good stuff. So today's topic is what to do in the event of a public relations PR crisis. This one's interesting. We're going to start the conversation, just because I do think it's important to understand where Chelsea and I, what we were thinking when we came up with this topic, because it's a real life example of what potentially could happen to a small business owner because none of us are immune to criticism, critique. That's not a bad thing, you guys. It's just the way things are.
So we want to be sure that you feel confident that if anything were to happen down the road that you could proactively not just sit on your hands but be able to address it and move on. And not have it, you know, pull your small business under. Yes. All right. That's a really good point. Yeah. So Chelsea, go ahead and tell us what kind of spurred this conversation between you and I. What brought this topic up?
Chelsea: Oh yeah, absolutely. So recently here in downtown Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, we had a little bit of controversy.
Vivian: Shocking.
Chelsea: I know, right? A new business opened up on King Street. Was it on King Street? Okay. So a new business opened up on King Street. It is called Zachary's Daiquiri's. So a little bit of background on Zachary's, Zachary's they are an alcoholic slushy company. That's what they're doing. It's kind of like Wet Willy's 2.0.
Vivian: Yeah, so for reference, Wet Willy's back in the day here in Charleston. I think they also had one in Columbia, South Carolina, maybe a couple other places. But it was a place where a lot of us college students used to love going because it was a nice bang for your buck. You could go in there, of course, being over 21, right? Got to keep things legal around here. You would go and it was kind of a mix between a nightclub. They had music and stuff.
Their big thing was they had an entire wall that had slushy machines on the back of the wall and all different flavors, all alcoholic. They did offer non-alcoholic, I think, options, but none of us were there for that.
Chelsea: Yeah, obviously.
Vivian: Chelsea, I mean, you went there.
Chelsea: I went there when I turned 21.
I didn't get a slushie, I got jello shots.
Vivian: Of course you would.
Chelsea: But that's because before that I had gone to, what's the burger place in Columbia? In the Vista, on the Vista? I can't remember the name of it either. I'll add it to the video because I'll figure it out later on. But they have alcoholic milkshakes, so I had a milkshake. So didn't want a slushie, so I just did jello shots.
Vivian: I mean...that tracks. So what's interesting though is, so for anyone, the reason we bring up the Wet Willys is they, I think they have since maybe gone out of business, but because it was kind of a concept that was already known here in Charleston, Zachary's Daiquiri's, that is what they intended to do. They have their own brand, they're reality stars, so they're on Southern Charm.
Chelsea: Yeah, you know more about this than I do because I don't, I don't follow television in general. But yes, they are reality stars. They're on Southern Charm. The owners of Zachary's Daiquiri's.
Vivian: What they were doing is bringing an elevated version of this like slushy theme to Charleston. Great idea. When you look at the decor of the facility itself, it's very cute. We walked past it. We were in downtown Charleston not too long ago. We walked past it. It was a really cute concept and very well done. Now the controversy comes in.
Chelsea: And here's why we didn't stop to enjoy an alcoholic slushie when we walked by. We just went, *whispering* you know, we just gossiped.
Vivian: We passed.
Chelsea: So opening day slash night.
*Insert from TikTok video from @sarahebaus*
The bouncer starts walking down the line and goes, "Hey guys. There is a new dress code as of right now." Okay. And she stops next to the one group of black men. Stops next to them, doesn't look at them, but stops next to them. That's where she makes the announcement. "No Jordans. No ripped jeans. No athletic pants." Describing this group of men.
*End of Insert*
Chelsea: The controversy is: one, hadn't brought up dress code for most of the night. Two, there were multiple white people in the restaurant that were not in dress code.
Vivian: So a couple things that I want to bring up.
Chelsea: Go for it.
Vivian: Dress code is not a unusual thing in downtown Charleston. There are a lot of small, there are a lot of businesses, especially restaurants that say, hey, once 7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m. hits, you have to be dressed a certain way. That's not up for debate. Every small business has a right to do that.
The other part of it too though that I think played a big part is the way that people found out about this whole interaction was that there was a girl who lives in a neighboring town who has a decently large following on TikTok and she took to TikTok and was telling this story because she happened to be in line after these gentlemen who were pulled aside and said, "hey, we're not going to allow you to come into the restaurant or into the place of business because of your attire".
She took to TikTok. She relayed what happened and this is where the controversy ensues and the reason that Chelsea and I had this conversation with what you do when you're in a hard position to have to, not defend yourself because some things are, let's remove that part of it. It doesn't matter if you're defending or not defending what you're doing. The thing is the way you approach any type of negative publicity is extremely important.
Chelsea: You have to address it.
Vivian: Yes. Part of the thing I want to bring up here is the TikToker did say that there was an actual video that somebody had videoed. She didn't have it, but someone else in the line had captured video of this interaction. What kind of played into this becoming a much bigger controversy than it should have been is the fact that when social media gets involved and lots of people start to come in here and give additional commentary, you have to allow them to give their commentary. You can't, you can't go attacking them on random stuff.
Not just that, but understanding that because of social media and because everybody does have a camera in their hand nowadays, there's proof and evidence of, for example, when they shared their professional shots on the official Zachary's Daiquiri's Facebook page and Instagram page, it showed people that were wearing ripped jeans.
So that's the whole thing. If the rhetoric is around a dress code and then you continue by uploading photos of people in said clothing...
Chelsea: That's against dress code.
Vivian: That's against quote unquote dress code. It just doesn't, things don't match. That's why this blew up and snowballed.
Chelsea: Well, I don't think that...there were a lot of things that went wrong for this to blow up.
Primarily it is. Yes, it was like a controversy. Yes, maybe that shouldn't have happened. I'm not commenting on that. We're talking about the response that the owners gave, because it was crazy.
*Excerpt from Owner's Response*
Chelsea: This is a small excerpt from the owner's response that was posted on the actual business page.
"In the past few days I have been asked to make a statement, apologize, and address outlandish allegations about my business on social media-allegations that are not only entirely false, but extremely harmful and discriminatory.
Our grand opening was this past weekend & as you can see it was full of happiness, celebration & enjoyment. A wonderful time was had by all walks of life, ethnic backgrounds, and genders, simply here to have a good time.
To be accused of racial profiling by a non POC young TikToker is very 2025! ...
To the trolls, have fun, but Iโll block your a** if what youโre saying isnโt true.
And no, this isnโt an apology because we did nothing wrong. We have a dress code and itโs enforced AFTER 8PM. If you donโt like the way we do business, DONโT COME." *End of Excerpt*
Vivian: Yeah. So maybe let's now interweave or talk about what we are telling people to do whenever something happens. OK, so you get a little bit of negative publicity.
Maybe someone goes to TikTok and has had a bad experience at your small business and they start telling a bunch of people and everyone starts chiming in. So what's the first thing that we think people should do?
Chelsea: So the very first thing you want to do is assess the situation. Don't say anything yet. Don't be reactive. Don't be defensive. You need to really figure out what's happened. Find all the pieces. For example, you hear about this controversy about the dress code. Maybe don't upload video and photos of people not in dress code.
Like if you had stepped back and assessed the situation, you would have seen maybe I shouldn't share these photos, right?
Vivian: Yeah, well, and I think because what you're doing then is you're aggravating. Here's the thing. It happened. All right. It happened. Part of what happened opening night, because as a small business, if you're about to open your doors for the very first time, you're drumming up business, you're getting press releases out there, you're telling everybody and their mama about the fact that you're about to open your doors. Okay, you do this well and it creates excitement and people show up. Okay, that's a big deal. That's exactly what you want. Well, now you've had something that's going to taint that a little bit.
What I would do, they had hired a photographer to capture the moment in the night and also to help them then put together an album that they could share on social media to let people know, hey, this is now an option in downtown Charleston. To your point, there's got to be, when you assess the situation, if I were her and maybe let's talk about what she did that kind of was not what we would have done.
Chelsea: Yes. Primarily and number one is responding way too quickly and being very defensive about it.
Vivian: So basically what she said is she, she then took to, I think she had a TikTok account and Instagram account for sure. She then took to Instagram and TikTok herself, uploaded a video and basically said, this person lives with their parents. They just want attention, the limelight. Therefore they're out here attacking. That's not how things went down, you know, this and that. At the end of the day, that's not, you're right. Had she stopped, assessed the situation and not been reactive to it, then she could have at least bought herself a day or a morning.
I understand the need for everyone to be like, well, hey, you you need to respond to it quickly. You do, but respond to it in a timely manner. Okay. Not addressing it is not an option. Waiting a week is not an option. You could wait 24 hours though. Okay. That's not, that's not wild crazy. If it takes you 24 hours to get your head straight, to say something and to craft something that is going to be appropriate, is going to resolve the issue and is going to leave people at least feeling decent about your small business. Give yourself 24 hours, that's okay.
Chelsea: Absolutely, and also you can say, hey y'all, we've heard about this, we're still gathering all the information, but as soon as we have a response to give, we will share it with you, but we want to make sure that we have all the information so that we make educated decisions.
Vivian: I would love to hear y'all's opinion about this down in the comments below if you agree with us in this situation, because we, the thing is I personally have had experience with this where I've worked for an organization that a lot of times does get some type of publicity and there are times where it's not stellar. So then you're left thinking like, okay, what exactly do I have? What are my options? Right? What do I have to do? But I do think that to your point, I love the idea of maybe saying noted. Give us time to gather information and then put a response out there. I think people are okay with you not flying off the handle and just saying, we see your concerns, we're going to address this, and we want to be sure we have all of the information at hand to address it appropriately.
Chelsea: Yes, and we see a lot of big brands do this because it works. Like, I'm not for big brands, okay? I'm obviously a small business girly, but there are things that brands do. They do it for a reason.
This is one of those things that I would take a page out of a big brand's book. Textbook, yeah, book. Thank you.
Well, I didn't want to say big brand's book.
Vivian: It's BBB.
Chelsea: Exactly. It sounded so strange. Take a page out of there and just say, give me some time to do the research and I will respond accordingly.
Vivian: Yeah. So great first step, assess the situation.
Chelsea: Just please, please, please don't say, oh well this girl lives with her parents.
Vivian: I'll tell you, that is really to me what rubbed me the wrong way about the whole way that they handled the situation. It was this in particular that really got me because I think what it does is it suddenly shows and I understand it is your livelihood. I understand that it makes you upset if somebody is accusing you of basically being racist and you're saying, I'm not, right? Okay. But you have to divorce that feeling, right?
You have to sit back and think about it and say, okay, if somebody's perspective was this while they were standing in line, and if other people have also come to the table and said, yeah, I saw it and I agree, then you have to address it and you have to give credence to what they feel they saw, right? Especially when you have video footage, when you have pictures, when you have stuff that is there for everybody to see.
All right, so next step, you assess the situation if you do one of two things, either you say, hey, we acknowledge something happened, we're looking into it, or you buy yourself 24 hours, give yourself a little bit of time to not be reactive, then...
Chelsea: Don't try to lie, don't try to cover things up. First off, lying, in my opinion, never works. Someone, they're all, anyone in any situation will eventually find out the truth, in my opinion. And if you're in a controversial, like if you're in controversy and you try to lie, there are people who are trying to prove that you're lying. I can promise you that. So if you lie and then you get caught, you've ruined your reputation. You've ruined your brand. Be honest. Do not try to lie.
Vivian: It creates, let me make a practical pitch for it, it creates less work for you. Okay, look, it's so much, like, I don't know, this is why I don't understand when people lie and trust me y'all, in college, I knew quite a few people that did this, okay? They kept quite the charade going. I always thought to myself, that's a lot of work. Like, why would you want to spend that much time? The thing is, if you look at things factually and just say, okay, here's the situation, something bad happened, something not ideal happened, even if let's say this whole situation was misinterpreted, somebody else was lying, then I think you still come to the table and you just speak to the facts, okay?
You take and acknowledge what your part in this situation was. I think she would have been better off coming to the table, buying herself 24 hours, and then when she did hop on TikTok or whatever, or actually she didn't even have to release anything. That's the thing I don't understand is why not just do it on the business page? You don't have to release anything. I get it that you're the owner, but do it on the business page. You're still managing the business and you're heavily involved with that. So have it come from the business, right?
I would have just said like, you know, we apologize. During all of the hype and the excitement of launching this grand opening, we did not prepare our team members, our staff, we did not equip them well enough with the information on what the dress code requirements were going to be, which is why later in the night when we switched the dress code requirement or when we switched whatever, that's on us. We didn't communicate to our staff early on in the day, like, be sure you're looking out for X, Y, and Z. We want to have a certain dress code when people come in here.
Also, you didn't communicate that to people that were going to be attending. If it is a requirement that people are going to have to dress a certain way to come to your establishment, it is your responsibility to make sure that all of the communication that you're putting out there, all of the Facebook posts, all of the flyers, all of the invites that you're sending out, all of the emails have this information included. That's the onus, the onus on the business is that, the communication part.
All they had to do was basically say, you know, we failed miserably on communicating appropriately to our attendees, to the patrons, and also to our staff. We didn't equip our staff well enough with knowing what we wanted to do when it came to this.
Chelsea: So in the response, as you just heard Vivian say, you are explaining the situation. Here's what happened, you are explaining what went wrong specifically, what we're going to be doing to fix it, how we're going to be responding to it, what we're going to change in the future so something like this doesn't happen again.
That's a big part too that I want to stress and I don't want you guys to forget about because great, you've apologized, how do I know you're not going to do it again? You need to address that.
Vivian: Yeah. That's also when I was just talking about how I would have addressed it, that's also keeping my fingers crossed that they weren't trying to do anything that was inappropriate, like racist, right? So benefit of the doubt, I'm sitting here thinking maybe that's exactly what happened. They were, you know, busy with everything else, there came a time in the night where they were wanting to switch to a dress code and I don't know, maybe she just had not relayed that. They had not relayed it to the bouncer who at the time or they could have switched shifts. Somewhere there was a lack of communication, even if the lack of communication just was in the sense that they had not put the information out there about any dress code.
Other thing is, and I think you and I had talked about this too, Chelsea, is it could be that she could have, and this is, I know right now we're talking about the PR aspect, but I don't understand how as a small business owner, why, if you were not enforcing a dress code from the beginning, why would you not just let it slide that night? Then later on come back in the next night, update your social medias and do all that and just say like, moving forward, we're going to have a dress code and here's what's not allowed. Okay.
Also, I mean, I don't know what their beef is with Jordans. Like just say sneakers, just say tennis shoes, just say, I don't get it. Okay. Yeah. So that's part of the stuff that plays into this big miscommunication is instead just be very clear about what it is that you're...
Chelsea: Yes.
See, I'm not going to lie, Vivian. I understand your perspective. I understand that you're saying it's a miscommunication. You come from the corporate world. You're like, this is probably what happened. I'm not going to lie. I feel like the bouncer was racist.
For you to say no Jordans allowed specifically, rubs me the wrong way.
Vivian: Well, no. I want to make a point here because I think that's valid. I get it, y'all. I'm a rosy kind of girl. You know, I want to think the world is full of more positive things than negative things.
If you're doing something malicious that's not right it should be confronted. I believe in that, and so
Chelsea: Well then Vivian, let me ask you this. Let's say a small business owner is dealing with an employee who is not aligning with their views and the employee does something like this how do you respond to it then?
Vivian: You fire the employee.
Chelsea: Well, no, yes. That's the correct answer, y'all. Yes, you fire the employee. But in the response, because I'm saying you need to respond and you need to release a statement.
Vivian: Let's say it was absolutely racist and what would then the verbiage be?
Chelsea: Yes, because I wanted to make a point that the verbiage needs to be clear, it needs to be concise, and it needs to be non-accusatory.
Vivian: Yeah, so it basically says, we apologize that there was an incident that happened on the day of our grand opening that inappropriately targeted or inappropriately focused on a group of people that we should have let in and we didn't. I think taking accountability and responsibility for that, because at the end of the day, listen to me, you are a small business owner and yes, you hired that person and yes, that person did not do the right thing. However, you are still the small business owner who hired that person. So they are a reflection of you.
Chelsea: Even if they're not, if they don't align with your vision and stuff like that. They still were a part of your brand. They're still a part of you.
Vivian: Yeah. Well, it's just like you go to a restaurant and you have a server that's not nice. That's mean, that's whatever. They are a reflection of that restaurant.
Chelsea: Now when people ask, did you like that restaurant? No, it was rude. The service was bad.
Vivian: The thing I would say then is you come out and you say, hey, this was not right. Then you also tell them, to Chelsea's point, what was or has been done in order to prevent it from happening again. We have retrained our team members to do, to be sure that they're aligned with what our core values are and to be the best representation of this business because we are warm and welcoming to everybody and we want everybody to feel welcomed here.
Or you say, hey, that person was out of line. They are no longer representing this organization, this company, and we've ensured that all of our team members are going to appropriately interact with patrons who are coming to our business.
So I do think there are two different types of languages you would use here. But I think at the end of the day, being honest is going to help because you're not going to trip yourself up. You are just going to be matter of fact about what it is that happened. You own your part in that. I think it also goes a lot further with people, with consumers. I am much more prone to give somebody the benefit of the doubt when they admit that they did something that was unexpected or something that was incorrect and therefore they are working on it or they've changed something. I'm more prone to give you a second chance than if you blatantly just say, this did not happen that way or we're not responsible for that.
Then I'm like, okay, well great. You can't even take responsibility for something that's like...
Chelsea: Can I say, y'all, it doesn't matter if your business was wrong or not.
Yeah. The perceived view, the perceived view of all of your potential customers is that you did something wrong. That's all that matters. Whether it was wrong or not, whether you did it or not, it does not matter. It is the perceived view of others.
Vivian: So I just want to make, and thank you for bringing that up because that's what I was going to say earlier when you were talking about, let's say someone did do something on your team and it wasn't you, but it was somebody else.
All right. I'm not saying that we live in different realities, but what I am saying is that the other thing that makes this super complicated and really odd to me is that she very quickly, the owner went out there and basically said, this didn't happen. Okay. But you weren't there. Okay. So unless you physically were present, or if you have cameras on the outside of your building that caught the entire interaction from every angle from A to Z, you cannot tell me this 100% did not happen the way you said it happened, because what you're doing is you're relying on other people's story of what happened. I don't know about you guys, but I use this as an example all the time. If you've ever been in a car accident, you know that let's say you have four people involved in a pileup. What are you going to get? Four different stories. That's just how it is.
You have to be able to take that information and just say, OK, let's think about this from what actually let's be honest. What actually did happen? Can we take people's account of what they say happened and give credence to it? Can we see if there is nothing that basically argues with it or disproves it.
The last thing that I'm going to say on that note too is, I just want you guys to realize Chelsea and I just the other day we were downtown. We walked past this place. Very cute. I was like, that looks very inviting. It looks like a nice place to hang for a little bit. Then we are like, no, we can't do that, because we feel like now if we were to do that, somehow you would be, supporting a bad decision that somebody made?
Chelsea: Yeah, but not even that. Honestly, it's just that everything that the owners did has rubbed us the wrong way to the point that we're not willing to support that business.
Vivian: To your point, it's not the actual thing that happened at this point. It's their response to it. Today's conversation, if anything, we just want you guys to understand that sometimes the response is even a bigger indicator to people of what type of business you're running and who you are as a person, than the bad thing that happened.
Chelsea: Yes, big on the who you are as person because we haven't even brought up her husband. Correct. The other business owner. He released a statement. Very accusatory, very reactive, very angry that also, I want to say, never takes accountability for anything.
Vivian: If it's not hairy enough, her husband is black. Okay. I think maybe that's where he was like, I'm not racist. How could I be racist? But that to me is at the end of the day, the thing is you guys weren't there in line. What somebody is saying happened and the people that were pulled aside and said like, you're not going to be allowed to come in because you're wearing Jordans and you have holey jeans on.
Then the next day you're releasing videos of some people with frayed jeans on and Jordans, right? I mean, that's the part where it's not, at this point you should just know they're not talking about you individually as a person. They're talking about something that happened in your establishment. So therefore the conversation, the PR part of it should have been centered about the action, not about, you guys are accusing me of something that I am not.
Okay, well, no one is saying it's you. You weren't the one out there pulling people. Your wife wasn't out there letting people in or not letting them in. It was a team member, and it was something that happened at your establishment. Just stick to the facts, be honest, and just speak to that.
Chelsea: Yes. Yes. Your response should be focused on what happened.
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Chelsea: Y'all, a great thing you can do to try to prepare for these kinds of situations, which I know you don't want to prepare for these kind of situations. You want to assume that you're never going to be in this type of predicament. You can't guarantee that you will or won't be. Best thing you can do is to create a plan ahead of time.
So that means knowing ahead of time what you're going to do if you end up in controversy. So that's, I know that I'm going to release a statement first asking for people to stick with me while I research the incident, while I gather more information, or it might be, you know what, I'm going to try to assess the situation and gather as much information as possible within 24 hours so I could release the response in 24 hours, know which one you're going to do.
Who is going to be responding to the negativity? Are you going to have a spokesperson? Is it going to be you as the small business owner?
Is there an emergency contact or a PR person that you want to handle all of the communication, all of the feedback that you get, stuff like that. Just creating a plan. Very important, Vivian, also creating a plan that's based off of your business's philosophy.
Vivian: Yes, what I love is it's never too early or too soon. The best time to look for, you know how they tell you the best time to look for a job is when you don't need one? So the best time to look for a PR person is when you don't need one, okay? Just keep a pulse on what's available within your price range if you were to ever need somebody to help you craft a message or a response to something bad, okay? So just kind of in the back of your mind, know like, oh, I would probably reach out to this person or I know another small business owner that has worked with this agency before, this company before and they've had a great experience with them. So that's always nice as far as preparation.
The other part is I do think that clear communication plays a really big role here. What I mean is, you guys just be sure that you have clear communication with anyone that's representing your team, your business. If you are a solopreneur and let's say that you are hiring people virtually, okay? Sometimes if you hire a virtual assistant or somebody that's not working with you inside the physical location, but you're outsourcing, remember there's still an extension of your business, right? So if they were to do something, it'd be the same thing. So be sure that you always have clear communication with anyone that's representing your business. Even if that communication is after an incident happens, you pull them aside and you're like, hey, I need you to be very honest with me about what transpired because I would rather know upfront all of the details, even if they're bad, instead of being caught with my pants down, figuratively, not literally, okay, because that's another PR crisis in itself if you're caught with your pants down...
You know down the road and so making sure that you're clear to team members if something were to happen in a situation that you want all of the details upfront so that way you can make a good decision about how you want to approach and tackle this and then one of the other things that you mentioned.
Having a mission, vision, values for your small business can help to shape the way that people are also representing you, right? As an extension of your small business. What I mean by that is, something like this happens when I'm the owner, part of what I'm communicating in my response is that my vision for this small business is for it to be an inclusive space for all people to feel welcomed. An apology to say, I'm sorry that we had any part in doing something that doesn't align with that, right? That made somebody feel excluded. That's how I probably would address that. But having those things ahead of time mapped out can really, really help.
In case you guys don't remember, think we had talked in a previous episode, Chelsea, about values in particular. One of the things that as a small business owner, I think you have to do is you have to ensure that your team members feel confident in portraying and making decisions on behalf of your business that are aligned with those values. The only way they're going to do that is if, I don't want to say that you brainwash them, but kind of brainwash them into understanding what's important to you and what's a priority. Had that maybe been the case, maybe the response would have been this bouncer saying like, hey, I understand it's opening night and maybe we didn't relay what the dress code is but moving forward, dress code is going to be X Y & Z. Who knows what actually happened and how that all went down because we weren't there either, but it would give people I think a good chance of appropriately and positively representing your business. That's what I was trying to say, representing you.
Chelsea: Vivian, do you think we're ready for the TLDL?
Vivian: I say let's do it.
Chelsea: Okay, let's do the TLDL. So, as a small business owner, we're not saying that you're going to get hit with controversy, but you could experience a PR crisis. So, what do you do in this scenario? What to do in a PR crisis? For one, beforehand, you should have a plan. Create a plan of what you're going to do.
You want to assess the situation. You're going to be honest. You're going to use clear, concise, non-accusatory language, and you're going to take action. Those are the three, four, those are the steps. Those are the steps. Those are the things that you need to do to help your consumers feel comfortable with you again after a crisis.
Vivian: Absolutely. Well, you guys, thanks for another wonderful conversation around this. We would love to hear your takes, your thoughts. Let us know if you had heard about this controversy before and if you would handle it any differently.
Chelsea: Vivian, if you live in Charleston, I'm sure you've heard about this. I've had three different people come to me and be like, oh my God, did you hear about? Yes, I did hear about it. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about what they did wrong.
Vivian: That's right. Also, don't forget you guys, if you have not subscribed to this podcast, please do so right now. And as always,
Chelsea: Go be the best SOB you can be.
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