A CEO responded to my outreach with: ‘Why do you assume I need a crisis communications consultant?’
The question reveals a common misconception. The best crisis advisors aren’t firefighters. We’re architects.
A firefighter shows up when the building is burning. An architect helps you design the building so it doesn’t burn, and if it does, so the fire doesn’t spread. Those are different engagements at very different price points, and the second one actually works.
Less than ten percent of my client work involves dropping everything to assist in an active crisis. The other ninety percent is preparation: building messaging frameworks before they’re needed, mapping vulnerabilities before they become exposures, training executives on how to handle hostile rooms before they’re in one, stress-testing scenarios before the scenario is real.
The strongest client relationships I have started during peacetime. We built trust. We mapped the organization’s risk landscape together. We developed messaging. We practiced scenarios. When crisis eventually arrived — and it always does — we weren’t strangers scrambling to understand each other under pressure. We were partners. I knew their business, their key stakeholders, their media environment. I could tell them exactly what to say and what traps to avoid before they stepped in them.
This is why the savviest leaders build relationships with crisis advisors when things are going well, when the brand is strong, when there’s time to think clearly. Not because they’re expecting the worst. Because they’re smart enough to know that preparation is the only form of crisis insurance that actually functions when you need it.
The CEO who blocked me after my response is out there making a different calculation. I hope it works out for him.