Tom Mueller: 0:07

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a Crisis podcast. On this podcast, we talk all things crisis management and we like to do that by sharing stories from experienced crisis leaders. I'm Tom Mueller. Thanks for joining us. We're glad to have you back with us again today. Hey, if you want to email the show, you can reach out to me via tom at leadinginacrisiscom and would love to hear from you. In fact, we heard from a listener down in Fort Lauderdale, florida.

Tom Mueller: 0:39

Claire wrote in recently and took issue with our attitude toward lawyers. Recently and took issue with our attitude toward lawyers and because we tend to all have a little bit of a negative view of attorneys on this podcast just because of our past life experience. But Claire wrote in to stand up for those attorneys who are hardworking folks just trying to do their best and, claire, we appreciate you sharing that perspective with us and keeping us thinking positively about all parts of our incident management team. So thanks very much for that. On today's show, we're going to talk about how to prepare for a crisis before it ever hits your company or your agency. Our guest is Tiffany Muehlbauer, who has a new book that just launched last week that focuses on some particular theory that she has for helping companies prepare for crisis and to improve branding and positioning in the marketplace. Tiffany, welcome to the podcast.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 1:46

Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here.

Tom Mueller: 1:50

Do you mind just taking a moment and giving us a quick thumbnail of sort of your life experience and what you're about today.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 1:59

Absolutely I would love to. So the last few decades of my life have been heavily involved with public relations and communications specifically for my clients small businesses, medium-sized businesses and even publicly traded companies, for my own company, armour Communications. And really over the years we've noticed a recurring theme, and that theme is that organizations wait until it's too late to try and get a message out, and at that time the message is being written without anything, without their help whatsoever. People will just draw specifically from what they find on the internet about you already. So we've created a little something called the pool theory. So we've created a little something called the pool theory, and the pool theory is really about not about shouting louder in the room, but about visibility. So it's about creating momentum in your brand presence and then when disruption does hit, you don't, because you know, in a still pool even a pebble will make waves, but in a dynamic pool you can drop a cannonball in there and it barely splashes or goes snoticed. So that's really what it is kind of in a nutshell.

Tom Mueller: 3:18

So it sounds like your theory is really about building up that bank of goodwill ahead of time, building up your brand value so that when something goes wrong and, let's face it, good things happen to bad companies all the time. Effort and time to build up that kind of goodwill in your company and brand. What's your guidance for companies as they're setting out on that journey?

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 3:58

Well, a lot of times we are completely overwhelmed as entrepreneurs, we are almost always under resourced, but you don't need more noise around you. It's about finding a good rhythm, something that is you know that you can be consistent with that, you can keep up on a regular basis and just start where you're at, because you undoubtedly have things to say. So you know. Remember that communications is not just about that information flow. It's about building up trust. So it's you know, talking about all of those wins that are happening in your business, no matter where you're at in your business, and finding ways to build that personality behind the brand or the company itself. Because, let's be real, all companies have people behind them somewhere and maybe we will make mistakes, maybe we'll have great successes, but at some point people will start to research what are you about? And you know Google is very revealing, so you can craft what is being revealed or said about you, but if you don't say anything, then the rest of the world is going to create that message for you.

Tom Mueller: 5:06

You know, there's an issue that springs to mind here and that's around authenticity, because you could invest a lot of money and time and effort trying to position your company one way, but if you're, the values don't sort of ring true to how your company behaves. You're really kind of wasting your money there, aren't you?

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 5:25

Absolutely. Authenticity is 100% key and we really say you know, do good and talk about it, Because if you're not doing good things then it's going to be a little bit tricky. I mean, you can be a spin doctor and you can, you know, probably talk good things out of things that aren't great. But if you're already a great brand, a great company with great people and great products, then it's easy to be talked about, right, and it's not about the visibility, isn't about vanity, right, it's about insurance. So, you know, you really just want to build things up when you can, when it's a little calmer, before those storms hit.

Tom Mueller: 6:04

You know, this seems to me like it's easier for bigger companies with lots of resources to put energy and effort and budget into building up that brand value. But you know, most of us are small companies, right, and we have limited budgets. So you know, what's the sort of the pebble in the pool for smaller companies or entrepreneurs that are just starting out?

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 6:31

You know, you can really take just one small slice every week and make a difference. So one of our companies our clients was a government affairs company. They had a lot of history of results. They had done good things, but they were never really talking about it. They didn't have a website, they didn't have social media. They didn't have social media. They didn't really even communicate with anybody outside of their direct client communications and they really weren't marketing their business in any way, shape or form. I mean, they were talking about doing strategic communications for some of their clients, but they were totally not doing it for themselves, which is unfortunately a very common problem when you're an entrepreneur or a business owner, because you often will go off and focus on those other businesses but you often don't come back. So we set up a very simple plan to get them started and it was literally we highlight one client win a month on your website. We do one newsletter that goes out once a month to your key stakeholders and your clients. We do one LinkedIn post a week. That's where we started and six months later they were getting real results. They had people writing, reaching out. Oh, I didn't know, you did those services. I appreciate that you shared this story. You know it was very explosive results for them and they got leads immediately from just a little bit of effort.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 7:52

So it's really not about, you know, immersing and doing 17 posts a week on social media and being present everywhere. Figure out where your audience is present first and then go out to that pool. That's part of what we talk about in the book is really about. Okay, yes, you have to create movement in various spaces, and maybe that's, you know, public relations and having media, or maybe that's joining your local chamber of commerce, but it's about also figuring out what is the size of your business. How big does that pool need to be? And then you know where do you need to be active? Because, let's be real, like you said, we have very limited time and resources every day, so we cannot do everything, and even though we would all love to have unlimited budgets and hire as many you know personal assistants and items, and then just roll that out and be consistent with it, because then people will see it and know where to look for you.

Tom Mueller: 8:58

Well, linkedin seems to be sort of a natural and easy platform to do that, we know. You know the social media space is, you know, is sort of ever evolving and it's, quite frankly, scary for a lot of small business people who, you know, don't understand it well, unless you're a very young entrepreneur starting out Right. And it's like there are so many options. Should I be on Instagram? Should I be on X? What about Facebook? Are there others? So there's a lot of anxiety that can come from all of that.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 9:43

How do you make sense of that for a small enterprise. Yeah, I mean, you don't want that fear to overcome, because no motion at all is a problem. So it's about figuring out who are you trying to reach. A lot of these platforms have various age groups where they're very well linked in. If it's a younger demographic that you're going after, then go to TikTok. If it's you know that 25 to 45 range, predominantly females, go to something like Instagram or Pinterest. Right, every platform has people, types of businesses or you know types of individuals that may fit better into your avatar that you've created for whatever you're going after. So it is a little bit of you know refinement of figuring out where it's good for you to be. But then once you figure out those places, you know again you don't have to be active on like Facebook and Insta and like X, and X is like one of those platforms that you really have to be active. You know 10, 15, 20 times a day posting if you want to make any headway.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 10:47

And obviously most people don't have that kind of you know resources time whatsoever. So you know, sometimes you just you don't need to be everywhere, especially if you're a brand just getting started.

Tom Mueller: 10:59

You know, as I think about resourcing for the social media aspects of it, to me it's always a bit daunting. So if somebody wants resources to do that, they could hire a PR firm or a communications firm to help with that. But is there an efficient way to do that? It just feels like something that might spin out of control in terms of budget and all of that. Are there some guidelines you can put in place to help manage that effectively and not scare yourself?

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 11:33

I know you have a lot of shows where you guys have talked about AI, but there are a lot of resources out there that can help an entrepreneur or somebody with limited resources plan a schedule for calendars, for example, and even brainstorm topics of what they could talk about. Chatgpt is an amazing tool and resource if you, you know, develop some insights in writing prompts and you know how to formulate the right questions to get the right answers right. So, you know, for some people that are really looking for ways to just, you know, speed up their time and really, you know, increase that creative thinking process, a tool like ChatGPT can be great. I think that generally, it involves a little bit of planning and foresight. Even if you're going to hire a social media company, you, as a company or as a brand, should know what it is that you think that you're going to have to say on these platforms, because undoubtedly they're going to come to you and say, okay, so what are your thoughts and ideas?

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 12:30

Platforms, because undoubtedly they're going to come to you and say, okay, so what are your thoughts and ideas? And it's really just about figuring out okay, what am I interesting about? And social media is a lot of it. They just want to see people being people. It's not about selling your products hard, because that generally doesn't sell well in social media, so it's the ability to promote your products without promoting your products right. So for everybody that's a little bit different, but generally it's about not just having a dialogue of like buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff. It's finding ways to tell people about why your products are interesting, or why you are interesting, or why you're doing what you're doing. What is it that makes you unique? And, you know, add some personality to that as well, especially if you're using platforms like TikTok or Instagram, or even YouTube.

Tom Mueller: 13:20

I'm a big fan of Shark Tank the show right for entrepreneurs and of course one of the things you see regularly on that show is companies that have a real social vision, a giving back vision that accompanies their company and of course that becomes part and parcel with the brand. Have you seen examples of that, or clients that have sort of taken that approach?

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 13:48

Sure, To identify with a specific brand, and then it just becomes part of their culture, so to speak.

Tom Mueller: 13:55

Yeah, the sort of, you know, tying your brand to a giving back. Right, there's a sock company that for every pair of socks somebody buys, they're donating one to somebody in a needy country somewhere, right? Or you know the kind bars where you know they're donating money for I forget what they donate for now, but you know that every bar you buy is having some social value behind a company profiting from it. So that feels like a good thing to do, but I don't know, is it easy?

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 14:32

I mean, I've had clients that you know that part of that giving back process is like almost their entire business. Some of them are, you know, very much, nonprofits that just support, you know, acts of kindness, for example, like you know, just randomness, sort of things. But one of them supports women, or like young ladies who are in high school age and encourages them to go out into the wilderness and hike, and that is her business as well, as you know her foundation, and so in that realm you know she's launched a movie from it. She's done all kinds of things to build awareness of the fact that. You know, sometimes young women find themselves in a situation that they think is helpless, even though they have a massive potential, and so she's kind of rescuing these girls that are in hardship situations.

Tom Mueller: 15:18

Yeah, that's so important.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 15:20

Life can be different and you don't have to just follow the path that everybody else takes you and you know she'll take them to Peru on a hike and show them literally you can take it yeah.

Tom Mueller: 15:30

Well, the mentoring aspect comes in there and then just, and the human contact which you know, if you're touching people individually, wow, what a joy and what value you're bringing to that life and that's really terrific. Hey, are there, are there examples that you've seen of company that have made mistakes in this area, and is there an example you could cite from for the rest of us not to follow in terms of how we position and build our brand?

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 16:01

There's a lot of situations that arise sometimes for businesses, and sometimes visibility isn't what you want. So we had a client that unfortunately was in a situation where one of his drivers struck somebody on a bicycle while driving in a corporate truck home from work one day and unfortunately that pedestrian with a bicyclist was gravely injured. This went into the news. It was, you know, kind of a major thing. It became some somewhat of an identification for that business because previous to that they had not built up their reputation very much online at all. They didn't really have social presence. It was an older generation that was leading the company. So when that happened, pretty much the only news about that business that came up on the internet was the fact that someone had been struck by one of their drivers. The person recovered, everything was fine, but it was very damaging for them.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 16:58

So we worked with them to, you know, reestablish a whole thought process of you know how can we get out there and be present without discrediting what had happened? Right, because you know it was a real moment in life that happened and it was a very unfortunate moment, but it was very much a learning experience. At the same time, a generation was switch, was happening inside the company. So, you know, we were really able to pick up and say, okay, you know, things are completely changing in within the structure of this company and so, you know, we just really poured on the the changes that the company company was going through and the great things that they were doing. And you know, not to say that we were trying to bury that news, but we were just trying to bring realization to all of the amazing things that this company was doing, instead of just this one bad thing that had, you know, struck their calendar of events.

Tom Mueller: 17:52

What kind of timeframe do you need to correct that public perception of this thing?

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 17:58

You know it's somewhat variable, but typically it's a multi-month process, not just like an overnight sort of thing. I mean, yes, you can probably find some sources where you can buy your way onto, you know, new sources to flip the story and maybe offer some op-eds and things of that nature. But you know it's a question of resources. In that case, right, if you can, if you have a lot of money, you can do a lot of things.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 18:25

If you're trying to do it dynamically with SEO,

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 18:28

That's more organic. It's a multi-month process.

Tom Mueller: 18:32

Right, it's the advertising program that's out in your face, versus the subtle social media and other communications, building a blog post yeah, exactly the things that can take a little bit longer.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 18:43

They have a longer lasting effect, but they might take longer to go into effect.

Tom Mueller: 18:50

Sometimes, if your company's in crisis, it's worth your while to allocate some money toward an advertising budget to kind of help really push the messaging out there, but that's not a substitute for the longer wavelength sort of good works and authentic activities that your company's undertaking. Hey, I want to jump back to the book here for our last few minutes and just kind of ask what do you consider the most impactful part of the book? Or, if you were going to pick a chapter of that, what would be the you know, sort of the highlight of your content?

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 19:29

Well, I've tried to make the book informative and interesting and relatively reactive. So it's really more of a hands-on tool than just a book to read. It's educational. It has a lot of stories of these types of, you know, real world stories of mostly larger brands, but some of our clients as well. But it also is filled with worksheets and things like that. So if you're in a place with your company and you're not creating hundreds of leads a day or you're not where you want to be with visibility, then we invite you to look into these worksheets and to complete them so that you can get to a place where you want to be with your business.

Tom Mueller: 20:07

All right, I know the book is available on Amazon. Is that kind of the easiest way to get a hold of it? Absolutely, you can also visit thepooltheorycom.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 20:14

That's our website. Is that kind of the easiest way to get a hold of it? Absolutely, you can also visit thepooltheorycom. That's our website, and that's also where you'll find the links to download our free worksheets, called the Starter Toolkit, to get you going with your own pool.

Tom Mueller: 20:28

All right. Well, Tiffany Muehlbauer, thank you so much for taking time to visit with us and best of luck with the new book. Let's hope for gangbuster sales and more business on the backside of it.

Tiffany Muehlbauer: 20:42

Thank you so much, Tom. I really am looking forward to it and, you know, I look forward to hearing from any of your listeners who might have questions or want to tell me about their own experiences building up a pool.

Tom Mueller: 20:53

All right. Well, we'll include a link for how you can reach Tiffany and also a link to the Amazon site where you can buy her book. And that's going to do it for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis podcast. We do thank you for joining us and spending a few minutes of your day with us. We appreciate that and we look forward to seeing you again soon on another episode. Take care.