Let me let you in a little trade secret here. There are people in my business, who call themselves media trainers. And there are other people who say I am a pure crisis communications trainer. I do crisis communications counseling. And here's the little secret. There is no difference between how you prepare for the media during a crisis, versus a general story, a positive story, a fluff piece or a ribbon cutting.

Now, the stakes are much higher. The stakes are so high, because if you're off a little bit promoting a new book, or if you're announcing you're opening a new building, and you're not quite right, your sound bites off a little big deal. Maybe you didn't help yourself as much as you could have, but you didn't hurt yourself. But during a crisis, if you're off just a little bit, then you might end up with a quote. I am not a crook. Hey, it's America, of course they'll be frivolous lawsuits, I want my life back, there are certain quotes that can destroy your reputation can define you for weeks, months, years, decades forever.

So that's really the big difference between crisis communications, training, and general media training. So when you're working with an in person, media trainer, or crisis communications trainer, the biggest difference is that when you're preparing for a crisis, the scenarios you practice with are typically involving a crisis. There's an explosion at a factory, there's a fire, there's a bank robbery, if you're a bank, there's something that's awful that's happened, and now you've got to respond to it. So I'm going to walk you through the techniques. Again, it's very similar to how you prepare for a general media interview, but there are some significant differences that we'll cover now.