[MUSIC PLAYING] NICK LANYI: First essential element-- and fortunately this is in most crisis plans-- is the team. Who's on the team? What are the roles and responsibilities? Who's doing social media? Who's doing media relations, et cetera? And that is something that most organizations have in their plan. The next four essential elements sometimes are hit or miss. 

You need scenarios to plan against. A lot of organizations have generalized threats in their plan, like bad weather. And you want to have, hurricane that destroys one of our facilities. That's something concrete that you can actually plan against. 

The third element is, who are the key stakeholders for that scenario? And don't just list them. Think about what they're going to be concerned about if that crisis happens. What are their questions going to be? What are their concerns going to be? Because that's what you really have to address in the plan. 

And then the fourth element is media message materials. A lot of times in a plan, there is a holding statement. And that's about it. That's not enough. You're not going to have time to write up Q&As, difficult Q&As, talking points, background materials. You have to do it and get it approved before the crisis hits. 

And the last element is, in some ways, the most important. And it's a narrative. What you say during a crisis has to be consistent with the story you tell about your brand before the crisis and after the crisis. If it isn't, if your voice changes, if you start acting a lot differently, nobody's going to believe you or trust you. So you've got to think about that narrative and weave it throughout the plan. 

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