Reputation Management: Through the Lens of PR

[00:00:00] Surbhi Dedhia: Hello, Evan. Welcome to the Making of a Thought Leader podcast. It is absolutely my pleasure to have you here today.

[00:00:06] Evan Nierman: Good morning. I'm excited to talk with you. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:10] Surbhi Dedhia: You're most welcome. Evan, you've done so much work around PR and crisis management and I, I felt like you would be a perfect guest to talk about reputation.

[00:00:22] And but before we get into all of that, I would like for you to spend a couple of minutes just talking about yourself, what you've been doing and what's the latest with you.

[00:00:33] Evan Nierman: Oh, my gosh. What's the latest with me? Um, well, I'll give you a little bit of background. I don't like to talk about myself too much.

[00:00:41] So I don't want to go into too much detail. I'll give you a quick and dirty of where I am right now and what's going on. And then if you want more specifics, you can ask me questions. So, um, look, I'm at the helm of Red Banyan. 12 years ago we started this enterprise. We're working in, um, a dozen different countries through the years.

[00:01:03] We've helped literally hundreds and hundreds of clients. We've got a team of about 30 people spread out all across the United States in every time zone. And we're involved in really two types of engagements. One is the high stakes and crisis reputation work, which I know is really the focus of what we're going to talk about today.

[00:01:24] And then also a critical mass of clients who aren't necessarily having any problems, but they just want to communicate more effectively. They want to accomplish their business goals, and they're looking for us to advise them on what are the things that they can do or say in order to advance them toward their Organizational objectives.

[00:01:44] So I tell you, I get up every day excited about the work that I do. You know, we're super involved in the day to day with our clients. And at the end of the day, we want to win and we want to move the need for them and their businesses. And so, happy to chat more about sort of what that looks like and the kinds of things that we're doing wherever I can.

[00:02:04] Obviously, when you're talking about a crisis situation, oftentimes we can't get into too much detail about who the specific client is, but there are plenty that we can talk about. Yeah,

[00:02:14] Surbhi Dedhia: absolutely. All right. So, you know, when you're saying that, uh, coming, the organizations, they want to know how they would want, how they should be communicating and more often, uh, you know, a thought came in my head saying that, Hey, look, this digital age or.

[00:02:29] Your perception precedes everything else, right? So that's, that's the angle of reputation. And in this environment, how do businesses consistently build? I know everybody talks about you must do this, but how do they consistently build? And of course, maintain building their reputation.

[00:02:50] Evan Nierman: The great question.

[00:02:51] Consider this. Statistics indicate that in your lifetime, you'll have the opportunity to interact face to face in real life. With something in the neighborhood of 10, 000 people. Now for someone like you, who's, you know, out there in the world, Surbhi talking to people all the time as part of your business, maybe yours is slightly higher.

[00:03:14] Let's give you the benefit of the doubt. Let's say you meet 15, 000. We're going to increase it by 50%. Now in the world, think about the billions of people that have access to the internet. So I make the argument that how people perceive you online, your digital footprint, and your online reputation may be a lot more important than what people think about you in real life because you are going to interact with far more people passively who come across your social media feeds, who listened to your voice on a podcast, who see you on TV.

[00:03:59] Who see a Ted talk. So what companies need to understand as well as individuals is that you have to play an active role in curating and shaping that content and making sure that you're findable online and that the billions of people all the world over that they're getting a view into you that is positive advances your message and puts you in the proper light.

[00:04:28] Really critical to understand. And the way to do that is in a word engagement. You have to be engaged. You have to be willing to communicate because if you're hoping that people will come upon you that they'll find you that they may stumble upon that they may form an opinion about you. Well, that's going to be a risk.

[00:04:51] The best way to ensure. That they find out what you want them to find out that they see the side of you that you want them to see is you have to take an active role. You have to shape perception because perception is reality,

[00:05:04] Surbhi Dedhia: right? Absolutely. I think I really like that idea of you have to shape the perception because it puts the control in your hand instead of, on a third party that is, that is fantastic.

[00:05:17] And that actually is a segue to my next question is about reputation, uh, and how it builds trust. So you are controlling your reputation by building a perception into the digital world. And today trust plays a huge part into how businesses want to do business with other people, especially in the online digital cross border world.

[00:05:42] So. In this situation, how can companies leverage PR as a function to create and secure that trust amongst organizations

[00:05:53] Evan Nierman: Yeah. Well, trust matters because people want to do business with people that they like and that they trust. So if you are not able to engender trust, No one is going to want to do a transaction with you.

[00:06:08] No one is going to want to hire you. They're not going to want an ongoing business relationship. Think about it. If they don't want also a personal relationship with you, if you're someone who they can't trust. So trust, as you mentioned, is absolutely a global currency. And it's one that everyone needs to invest in because the ROI.

[00:06:31] Trust is exponential because it is really the foundation upon which business is built. Now, a misperception that people have about PR crisis management reputation. Protection, is that. We are spin doctors. We are there to do reputation repair. We're coming after the facts to try to clean up that something bad has been broken in the news and you have to respond.

[00:07:03] That's a very negative. It's a very reactive posture. You're waiting for others to do things and then react to them. Whereas I think most organizations would be much better served being proactive, being positive, them taking the initiative. And that's where PR and communications come into play. If you're sitting back and you're waiting for the podcaster to approach you with an invitation, or you're waiting for the TV station to just Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning stumble upon your company and decide that you're an expert and want to talk to you.

[00:07:39] It's never going to happen. Those types of things happen. Marketing opportunities happen. Business happens. Perspective client meetings happen, if you're willing to put yourself out there and that means consistently going out looking at the opportunities you have to get your message out there. It's your digital footprint.

[00:08:02] It's what's on your website. It's what you're saying on social media. It's what you're putting out into the world. And so this notion that you can somehow sit back and be reactive, that's a losing strategy. We live in a hyper. Connected digital age where people have way more information at their fingertips.

[00:08:21] You know, we've all got this thing in our pocket, a smartphone. It's always with us. You Google someone instantly, and now it's become easier than ever to connect with that person. You find them on LinkedIn. You find them on Twitter. X, if you want to call it that now, find them on threads, find them on Facebook, DM them on Instagram.

[00:08:42] We have infinite numbers of ways to connect with each other, but it's all predicated upon organizations and people being willing to engage. Right.

[00:08:54] Surbhi Dedhia: Absolutely. And you were saying about, the reactive way and proactive way. There are these two distinctions that you made. So just to unpack that a little bit.

[00:09:02] what happens is everybody is digital. Okay. People think I have a LinkedIn, um, uh, profile. I have a threads profile and whatever. They, they think that itself is active enough, but what probably they miss out on is that engagement bit, which was so correctly pointed out. I think it was. Bullseye that if you're not going to engage with what you have created, you may miss out the opportunity because there is so much noise happening anyways.

[00:09:31] There are so many other people who have taken on this opportunity to engage already. And if you, it's almost like missing the boat on, um, not engaging and just sitting there waiting for opportunities to fall in your lap.

[00:09:46] Evan Nierman: Not going to happen. And like you said. There's so many people out there. There's so much noise out there that sadly, you know, there's a saying in English, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, which is another way of saying it's the loudest people who get their voices heard doesn't mean they're the best qualified.

[00:10:07] So you may be the number one in your industry, you may have a product that's better than your competitors, but if they're out there telling the world about it and you're not. Well, they're the squeaky wheel. They're the one that's going to get the grease. They're going to get the customers. They're going to get the attention, the positive PR.

[00:10:25] So unless you want to seed the battleground or seed the marketplace to your competition. You have to be in it and you have to be in it to win it.

[00:10:34] Surbhi Dedhia: Yes, absolutely. Okay. I'm going to shift gears here a little bit and say that, look, okay, I want to, I understand what all you say. Okay. I want to create that profile.

[00:10:44] I'll, I'll engage. Uh, and what if I do something wrong and what if, I'm not saying the right words and I attract negative, negative attention rather than positive. So I'm getting into it as per what you said to, to build a reputation. But what if it goes completely the other way? What happens then?

[00:11:07] Evan Nierman: Then you call Red Banyan and we swoop in like Batman. And we come and help you save the day in all seriousness. Uh, yes, you can call us and we're happy to chat with you and we'll, we'll advise you on, on what the next steps are. Um, but if you don't call us, then what you need to do is again, back to the, what's the currency here, trust.

[00:11:30] You need to speak with a trusted advisor. It may be your crisis PR firm. It may be a crisis manager. It may be your attorney. It may be just the smartest business person that you happen to know. It could be a trusted family friend. Um, when you get into an issue where you're getting negative press, some of the same approaches that we were just talking about in terms of being willing to be proactive and engaged and get your message out there, that's true in the best of times, but during the worst of times, it's even more essential.

[00:12:05] And here's why. When you're in a time of crisis, a spotlight is shining on you. Okay, that is a scary prospect for most people because they're not prepared in advance for when the scrutiny comes, but it's not just a place to get tripped up or to be caught or, um, fooled by the reporter. It's actually a platform.

[00:12:31] It's a chance where you, even if you didn't want to be, you have suddenly become the squeaky wheel. The attention is on you. So I actually view The flip side of crisis as opportunity. And so a company or an organization that finds itself under fire under scrutiny in the news, they have a unique window of opportunity to get their message out.

[00:12:55] And so that's why a lot of times people think that effective crisis management is something that happens in the hours after the newspaper prints a bad story or the blogger does his tell all with a disgruntled former employee or the podcast comes out. Actually, the best crisis management work is the work that's done in advance.

[00:13:19] Because then you've gamed out. What are the scenarios that the organization is most likely to face? Where are the biggest holes? Where are the skeletons in the closet? Do you have a crisis team designated? Do you have a spokesperson who's been designated? Do your employees know what to do if a reporter approaches them?

[00:13:39] Now, the answer to most of those questions is no. Because companies tend to think, well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It could happen, but it might not happen. Therefore, I don't want to invest in it now. But the smartest organizations are ones that recognize that we live in an age where a crisis is not just unavoidable. Sometimes it is inevitable. We are all going to face a time where we get media coverage or media interest or something happens in our organization that puts us into a precarious situation. It's those who plan in advance and have a plan in place and have gamed this out, have designated the right team.

[00:14:24] Then You're not making it up on the fly. You're not scrambling around to find yourself a crisis PR firm when you're already in trouble. You've already got them. You've got an established relationship with them. You've got them on retainer. You know that the second you call them, they're going to be able to spring into action because they know you, they know your people, they know your issues.

[00:14:45] Surbhi Dedhia: All right, true. And , having a crisis plan in place makes a lot, a lot of sense, but there are companies who are smaller in size, there are people that sometimes are just getting onto this whole Proactive digital, uh, reputation building at this stage. They may not have the whole thought process of having a team in place and hiring an agency for that matter.

[00:15:10] But I think what you said that you have a plan in place. So for example, what should the employees say when a reporter approaches them could be a part of the organization's handbook? Is that where they should be? Yeah. So, so things like that.

[00:15:27] Evan Nierman: It could either be part of the handbook or it could be just part of the training that the organization offers to employees and it could be a standalone.

[00:15:35] Some organizations have a media policy as part of their handbook. Many of them do. We, in fact, have one as part of our own internal communication with our team is we have guidance and a media policy. Most organizations would do well to to look at their employee handbook and make sure that if they don't have a media protocol and a media policy, they need to quickly assemble one.

[00:16:02] That's right.

[00:16:03] Surbhi Dedhia: Absolutely. I agree to that. In fact, um, you know, even though my organization is pretty small, I do have a media policy as a part of the handbook because it just helps to know what to do, even if it is like very, at a very top level, you know, not all the details, but even if it means by how do you participate in social media, for example, what you say, what you don't, even if you're dealing with vendors, a copy of it could be, you know, part of a brand guide where Where they know if they're representing you in certain ways, they would want to adhere to the policy.

[00:16:36] So I think that's a very important point. You know, now that we're talking about crisis and about how people could manage it. You have probably like so many examples. So I'm curious to know if you could share some examples of crisis that you, I mean, obviously, which is whichever is shareable. But if you can share some examples.

[00:16:59] Evan Nierman: Yeah, I mean, look, every, you know, a question that a lot of people have is, is first and foremost, what is a crisis and a crisis to one organization may not be considered a crisis to another organization. So, for organization, a. They may view a negative one star review on Google as a crisis situation because they've never had a negative one star review and they only have a limited number of reviews, whereas a company that sells, you know, 5000 ring lights.

[00:17:33] Per day on Amazon gets a one star review. They don't care because they've gotten plenty of those in the past and they have a critical mass. So there's no one size fits all. And there's no one single definition that applies to every organization. The types of crises that we help companies navigate run the entire spectrum.

[00:17:53] So on the more mild side. We're talking about disgruntled employee blogging about the company giving negative glass door reviews that are not true, saying things in public forums on Reddit threads that are not accurate. Posting a video venting against their employer. That would be on the more mild side of the crisis spectrum.

[00:18:18] And then on the more salacious side, it could be, you know, the call that came in yesterday where a guy had his email and his WhatsApp hijacked and someone was extorting him and telling him that they were going to release his private messages and his personal photos, unless he sent them. Cryptocurrency, what about the call that we got for from the apartment complex where there was a murder suicide in one of their buildings, very high end building, it was very important to them that this story not get out into the media.

[00:18:58] The fact that, you know, they're a luxury property and then you've got things like guns going off inside that that could be bad for real estate values or occupancy rates investigations. By the United States government convictions, indictments, arrests of employees. These are in the more serious category and we're dealing with situations like that all the time.

[00:19:25] Cyber security breaches. The stealing of materials by clients or by employees. All of these are types of crises that we have to navigate. And then, you know, every once in a while we get involved in a crisis that's really of national or international importance. And so just this past week, I was, I spent the entire week in Washington, DC because our client is the government of Niger.

[00:19:54] in sub Saharan Africa. And so the democratically elected president, President Bazoom, was actually held hostage by armed captors from the very force that was supposed to protect the president. So they built up this force over time in order to prevent a coup d'etat from happening, a junta, and the very people who were charged with protecting the president ended up taking him hostage and throwing the future of that country into great turmoil and doubt.

[00:20:30] So this past week we were advising the ambassador on what he should be doing, what he should Be saying helping coordinate opportunities for him to get his voice out in the media and trying to amplify the calls from the democratically elected leaders in Niger to make sure that that went out across the world and ultimately came all the way back to their own country, because the people aren't necessarily getting the real facts and the information from the people who were behind this push. So that's an example where you're talking about a crisis of. Existential nature that could bring and topple an elected government. So from my perspective, I have one of the most interesting jobs in the entire world.

[00:21:17] When I get on the phone with someone, I never know quite where the conversation is going to take us and what they're going to need our help with. But what I can tell you is. You know, there's a misperception out there that a crisis PR firm or people who do what I do. We only work for bad guys and get into trouble because they do improper things.

[00:21:40] And I can tell you for a fact that is. grossly unfair to the many people who are falsely accused and the organizations that wind up getting negative exposure or false accusations. They're good companies and good people who find themselves in challenging circumstances. So from my perspective, the opportunity to utilize our expertise in that arena and to be a support.

[00:22:07] For these good organizations in a time of need. It's very rewarding work and it makes you feel excited and, and. grateful when you get up to work every day.

[00:22:18] Surbhi Dedhia: Right. And so when you sharing examples, which are of milder nature, not such existential like the Niger government. what kind of pReventive mechanisms do you use? How do you, how do you intervene and how do you help the organization in this case?

[00:22:34] Evan Nierman: Well, it's all connected to this entire conversation here and the, the key points that we're making. So it's about engagement. So on let's, let's just zero in to give somebody some real concrete takeaway value from this conversation about Glass door or other review sites. So the answer is if you do get a negative review on one of these sites, you have to respond to it.

[00:22:59] You should not leave it unanswered. And the reason is many people, despite the fact that let me let you in on a little secret, Surbhi, not everything on the internet is true. Just let that sink in for a second. I'm sure that's a shock. Being ironic. I know, I know that you know, there's a lot of BS stuff, things that are fake, false, not real, manipulated, et cetera.

[00:23:25] And it's only going to get harder by the way, moving forward. Now that we've got AI and visual AI and deep fakes. So that's a whole nother topic, but when we're bringing it back to this question of review sites, for instance, so that people can understand what can they do, you can't control what every employee is going to do or say, especially when they leave and they're no longer your employee, so they go online and they may say things about your organization, but you cannot afford.

[00:23:55] To let those false accusations go unchallenged. The reason is many of the people who are going to come either to come work for you as an employee or they're considering doing business with you. They're going to look at your reviews. And if you've got negative reviews and people are saying terrible things about you and you're not correcting the falsehoods. And you're not challenging them and you're not advocating for your own reputation. It's too easy. People can read it and go, Oh, wow, that sounds like a really bad company. I believe what they're saying because most people just take what they read and they go, Oh, well, that that's their experience.

[00:24:35] That sounds really bad. But if the, if you just invest a little bit of time and effort to set the record straight. And here's something to understand, you're never going to win back over the trust and you're never going to win over and convince the disgruntled person who said negative things about you online, but that's not why you respond, you're responding to the millions or potentially billions of people who could access Your Glassdoor page or Google reviews, et cetera, and you want to speak to them, not the disgruntled person.

[00:25:09] And so it all comes down again to being engaged and one of the other ways to prevent because you can't prevent the individual down the road from saying something bad about you, what you can do proactively is to every time you do have an employee who's very happy. Have them put something up, create a critical mass of good news, good reviews.

[00:25:34] I'm not saying that you should, you should ask people to say things that aren't true, quite the contrary. But if, if you've got employees, current employees or past employees who feel like they've had a good experience with you. Well, then make it easy for them to share their experience so that people get a balanced view when they go online and they're not zeroing in on the negative, which oftentimes grabs people's attention.

[00:25:59] If I told you that our company had 27 five star reviews and three one stars, what are you going to click on first? No one's done what it's human nature. So the best way to safeguard against that is to invest the time and the effort to build up your reputation so that when the haters come and they inevitably will that you're able to dismiss what they say and say, look, we've got all these other people.

[00:26:23] This is who do you want to believe? The vast majority of the people who say this or a couple of people who are naysayers. All

[00:26:29] Surbhi Dedhia: right. All right. I think the perspective is great because you're not talking to the disgruntled person, but actually to the masses that are from here on the future.

[00:26:39] So you're really investing in it by engaging. That's fantastic. All right. I'm very curious about the book that you recently released- cancel culture curse.

[00:26:49] Evan Nierman: Oh, you mean this book?

[00:26:50] Surbhi Dedhia: Yes. This book and tell us about it in brief because we're talking about crisis and we spoke about it and I think I've read the reviews on Amazon.

[00:27:00] It's really interesting.

[00:27:02] Evan Nierman: Thank you. So yeah, this is my second book. The first book was called Crisis Averted and I wrote that in part. Because I kept getting questions like the one you asked me, what's a crisis? How do you define crisis communications? What are some examples? And that book, I just decided, you know what, if I write a book about crisis PR and I explain it, and I tell lots of stories, then when people ask me, I'll just say, oh, here, just read the book.

[00:27:26] Um, this though is different. This book, the cancel culture curse. Um. I wrote this book because I've seen what's been going on in society in terms of de platforming people and cancelling them and trying to silence people with opposing views. And I felt, thought to myself, you've helped so many people who've been victims of cancel culture.

[00:27:51] Besides the impact that I can have on their lives. I think that it's worth it for me to try to impact the broader discussion around this phenomenon of cancel culture and explain to the world what it is, define it, its elements, and help people understand the true life consequences. The human impact that comes when someone decides to cancel someone else.

[00:28:15] And it's a book that I wrote because I want people to understand how scary it is. I want them to understand how it could happen to any single one of us on any given day. And so we have to be prepared. And moreover, as a society, we have to make sure, you know, this took root in the United States. It's become very prevalent here, but we've seen it.

[00:28:37] Jump across the pond. Um, there are Western European countries where this is underway a little less at the moment in the Middle East. But my fear is that this phenomenon could go global. And I want to do everything in my power to make sure that we cancel cancel culture.

[00:28:54] Surbhi Dedhia: Yeah, from my perspective, what I felt like is that it is your point of view. And as a thought leader yourself, you are making that known to your wider community and getting them to understand when it can hit. A lot of time we just feel that we, we don't know this concept and we just, we are so ignorant that it can, as you said, it can occur to us any point in time.

[00:29:18] And if it is only awareness that you're building through this. I think it's a really phenomenal.

[00:29:24] Evan Nierman: Well, thank you. I mean, look, at the end of the day, if it prevents a couple of people from turning into what I call cancel vultures, and those are the people who cancel other people if it makes them think twice before they attack someone else and they campaign against them.

[00:29:41] then writing the book was worth it. And if there are people out there who take comfort and they're able to use it as a playbook and a guide, and it gives them some strategies that we know work to help them avoid being canceled or to rebuild their lives if they are, uh, then it was worth it. Absolutely.

[00:29:59] Surbhi Dedhia: Absolutely. That's, that's phenomenal. Evan, this has been such an interesting conversation. So many great ideas, perspectives that you've shared. How can the audience get in touch with you?

[00:30:10] Evan Nierman: Yeah, well, there's lots of ways, um, and I encourage people to reach out. I read all my own email and. I like to engage with folks, you can, you can get information about the book and about cancel culture by going to cancel culture. com. If you want to get more information about red Banyan and the kind of work that we do helping organizations and individuals, you go to red Banyan, uh, B A N Y A N. com or you just Google us or Google my name, Evan Nierman, and you'll find us and you can also find red Banyan and me personally on various social media platforms, LinkedIn, Twitter slash X threads, Facebook, Instagram. You name it.

[00:30:52] Surbhi Dedhia: Wonderful. Anyways, I'll be leaving all these links in the show notes below. So it's easier for anybody who would want to get in touch with me. So thank you again, Evan. This is really nice to talk to you.

[00:31:04] Evan Nierman: Great to talk with you too.

[00:31:05] And thanks again. I'm glad we could do this...