It’s a new year… a time for new beginnings and to set new goals for ourselves and our businesses to achieve. Countless new year’s resolutions have been made and, by now, many have already been broken. (A key reason why I didn’t even pretend to resolve to exercise more and eat better again this year.) The one resolution I did make – and will keep – though is to protect myself and my business better. It is what we’re committed to making sure our clients do, as well.

In today’s 2/47 digital world where everyone has an online platform and audience, every business must have a solid, approved, and ready-to-go crisis communications plan before a potential crisis hits.

The plan should seek to contain and minimize the damage and control the message before someone else (or the crisis itself) controls it. If your clients are like ours, their first response will be: “What crisis? What would have to happen before we need to implement this plan and won’t we have advance warning so we can pull it together then? We are a smaller local business, so what can happen to us?” The answers are: “I don’t know, no, and a lot.”

The crisis doesn’t need to be catastrophic in size, like the recent LIRR train crash or Cuisinart having to recall 8M food processor blades at the start of the holiday baking season, to cause major harm to a company’s reputation and business. Sometimes small issues can demand the crisis communications plan be activated at a moment’s notice.

For example in the past year, one of our clients faced unforeseen but problematic service outages, which spurred customers to become vocal on social media about their inconveniences. Another introduced a new product line to less than rave reviews by an influential blogger which threatened the viability of the fledgling brand. And still another client deciding to delay announcing a deal they had completed and filed had the ‘other party’ announce the news first and not in a favorable light for our client. Certainly every business, large and small, faces the threat of data breaches.

Each situation called for a quick, decisive, and proactive response. The facts needed to be disseminated. Clients, customers, members, employees, stakeholders, and key influencers needed to be reached, engaged and reassured. Media needed to be provided with current and correct information. Constituents on social media needed to be calmed and their misinformation minimized. Delays of even just a few hours could have caused deep harm to their businesses and reputations.

Thankfully, we were able to jump into our crisis mode and respond to each situation immediately and effectively.

So, what does a crisis communications plan need to include? There are a few basics.

• First, it needs to identify all the possible scenarios that can impact your business negatively and have a plan(s) to address them.

• It needs a leader. Who will lead the communications plan and decide when to pull the trigger?

• Who will serve as spokesperson? It’s imperative to identify the one — and only one — person for this role. This designated person must be accessible 24/7 for the duration of the situation.

• The plan must articulate how to reach all impacted constituents with the right message and action plan. It must do so no matter what the obstacles are, such as interruptions in power, technology or unavailable executives. Specifics will vary depending upon industry and crisis faced.

Even if you have a plan, the execution of the plan and timing are critical. You need to know when the pull the trigger. Don’t jump the gun if there is no problem, but don’t delay either if there is one. Proper timing will help ensure you do not create another problem by botching the handling of the first. Then, follow-through.

Like other business plans, the crisis communications plan must be updated regularly. People change jobs, technology changes, stakeholders vary, and all must be addressed in the plan. In addition, as new programs and products are rolled out, make sure you anticipate new situations. Always play the “what if” game. What if something went wrong? What would we say? How would we disseminate the information? What’s our back-up plan? What’s the chain of command for messaging, approvals? etc.

It’s not too late to make this new year’s resolution. When the unexpected arises, you’ll be thankful you did.