What's up at Cocomms
08.06.2009: Harvest from the GuruTalk in May: In a crisis, trust is weighed in the balance
Honesty, consistency and repetition. This is how Jon Aarons, Managing Director of FD International chain of PR agencies, summarised his advice for communications to companies sailing in the storms of the financial crisis.
Now it is more important than ever to communicate openly and tell all stakeholders what and how you are doing.
”In a downturn, just about every company needs to rearrange its operations. This spawns uncertainty in stakeholders. The company must take control of the situation and keep all stakeholders up to date on its current status,” says Jon Aarons.
Management has to maintain the trust of employees, customers, partners and investors. Transparency is a key prerequisite to achieving this. All news, be it good or bad, must be reported honestly. In the current situation, stakeholders will understand that bad news is inevitable. The most important thing is to tell them openly what is being done to solve the problems.
”Companies must scrape up every euro and hold on to their clients. Even though silence is golden, in this environment silence is usually interpreted as bad news.”
It is better to communicate too much than too little. And companies must also remember to listen to their stakeholders in order to reach true interaction with them.
Traditionally, companies have seen decreasing communications and marketing activities as a good way of cutting costs.
”Communications is the corporate Tour de France: on level ground and in tailwind it is easy to pedal with the main group, but only the toughest will thrive on the hard mountain stages.”
”The leaders of great companies are always great communicators.”
FD is the market leader in M&A communications. The company is one of the leading business and financial communications consultancies. Jon Aarons has worked in corporate communications since the mid 1980s. He joined FD in 2000. In his current position, he focuses on building communications solutions in the most challenging and fastest growing markets of Europe, Middle East, Asia, and Africa.
Cocomms’ first GuruTalk took place on the 28th of May 2009. The next GuruTalk will be held in the autumn, and its subject matter is change communications inside organisations.
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