Crisis Communication Training
Training for leaders and communications teams who have to inform, reassure and lead under pressure. We prepare you for the moments that define reputations—before the cameras arrive.
The Red Team approach
We use decades of experience covering politics, criminal justice and business, a deep network of working journalists, and a Red Team process that attacks your message before anyone else gets the chance. Sometimes you cannot head off adverse coverage. Often you can get ahead of the headline. The difference is almost always speed.
Today's news cycle demands a fast, accurate response and visible accountability—while your context still has to break through the noise and reach the people who matter to you. We train you to do both at once, in the same statement.
What you'll learn
Six capabilities, practiced out loud rather than explained on slides. Every module ends with you saying the words, on camera or on the record, and hearing what landed.
Lock in the core message and avoid the traps that turn a hard day into a permanent headline. Complete sentences, no jargon, nothing you would not want quoted alone.
Decide who hears what, when and how—employees, board, investors, regulators, customers, families, then media. Staff should never learn about their own organization from the news.
Stay calm, concise and credible under hostile questioning. The usable answer is about eight seconds long, so we practice until yours is that short and still true.
Build a workflow that lets you act in minutes rather than hours without sacrificing accuracy: who drafts, who clears, how long the loop takes, what goes out first.
Rehearse realistic scenarios with your own team so the first real test is not the actual event. Incomplete facts, a live clock, and a written score afterwards.
Frame accountability, outline the action you are taking, promise a follow-up—then keep it. Staying out of mud fights is a skill, and so is knowing it is fine to say no.
Custom
We come to you. A half or full day built around your actual risks, your actual spokespeople and the questions you would least like to be asked. On-camera practice, playback and a candid debrief.
Rehearsal
Ninety minutes to three hours, no slides, no audience. Decision-makers in the room get a scenario with missing facts and a deadline, and we score what happened against your written plan.
Ongoing
Training that does not end when the room empties. A standing line to strategic counsel for the next difficult statement, the next reporter call and the next decision that cannot wait for a meeting.
Immersive
For entrepreneurs, founders and thought leaders, our sister brand runs multi-day, studio-based bootcamps in Washington, DC—intensive media training, on-camera practice and crisis drills in a real TV studio.
Proof
At Furman University, tailored crisis communications training and a tabletop exercise put university leaders and campus police in one room with a scenario that had incomplete facts—and a clock running on it. Findings and recommendations followed in writing.
Where this fits
Training is one part of crisis readiness. These pages cover the plan it tests and the counsel that carries you through a live event.
What happens in the first hour when a situation is already live, and what we build with you before it is.
See the serviceWhat belongs in a crisis communication plan, how often to review it and how to test it properly.
Read the guideBootcamps, coaching and workshops for business owners, speakers and authors who want earned coverage.
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