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Here today with John David on the Vision Pros podcast.

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Please John, tell me about your vision.

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Thanks so much for having me on your show.

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My vision focuses on working with businesses

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to help them through their trickiest times.

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I've been in my career as a publicist for several decades

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and we were largely with my clients playing offense,

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trying to get media coverage, things like that.

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And today we're really looking on the defensive side

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when something happens to a business

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and they're dealing with a crisis,

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dealing with something that happened,

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how do you weather that storm

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from a communications objective,

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from a communications perspective?

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And my vision is to grow my business,

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to become more of a go-to person,

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to help companies that are dealing

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with difficult situations.

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Okay, so I know in your bio,

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you talked about fail to plan equals plan to fail.

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And that one really struck a chord with me.

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Would you mind going deeper into that?

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Sure, sometimes it's a bit of a trope, right?

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To be quite honest with you,

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but it does read really well.

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When it comes to dealing with a crisis situation,

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you don't have to know exactly what's going to happen.

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You can't predict when something's gonna go wrong.

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You can't, and you know,

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in every crisis situation is a little bit different,

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but you can lay the foundation

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so that you can respond appropriately when the time comes.

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And that's simple things like having a media policy

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in place with your business.

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So if media outlet calls and your employees know what to do,

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that you have everybody's contact information available,

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simple and easy,

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that you can reach out and reach all your people.

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And then that you also kind of game out

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what the worst case scenario is.

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And that could be, you know, apropos for today,

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where we're talking, you know,

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on a day of a massive cyber outage in the United States.

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What's your plan?

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Do you have a plan for if you have a cyber outage

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like happened, you know, on today,

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and how do you communicate with your customers?

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What's your worst case scenario?

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Those are actually,

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it's actually a really typical thing that's happening lately

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are these cyber outages.

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You know, what happens if there's some type

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of corporate malfeasance in your company?

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What happens if there's some type of litigation

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against your company?

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What happens if your CEO or a high level employee

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leaves either on purpose or accidentally?

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So there's a lot of things that you can do to plan.

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So you're better prepared if you have to deal

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with the communications crisis.

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Yeah, it's unfortunate that things like that

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have to be prepared for, but in today's society,

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it's almost necessary to keep those in frame of mind,

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just in case something bad happens to have a plan.

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So I'm curious about getting into PR

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and communications like you are, how did you get there?

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Where did your vision come from?

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So I began my career, I studied journalism in college,

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and I started in the public relations business.

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I worked for a PR agency right out of college

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and have been serving as a consultant for 30 years.

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And I've found, you know, what's happened

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in the traditional PR industry is, well, you know,

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the internet shifted the earth, right?

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And so everything, it's been shifting

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and it's continues to shift,

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and now it's AI is shifting the earth.

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And it was the internet, it was social media shifting,

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everything, it's in a constant state of change.

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And so for me, what I realized I had to do with my business

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and what as a consultant is I have to provide services

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that are fairly unique to me,

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and that cannot be, you know, is simply commoditized.

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In other words, I would love to be a copywriter, right?

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But it's right now, there's no living in being a copywriter,

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at least not in my field, for example.

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And the AI is, you know, AI is changing that even more so.

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But I love to write strategic messaging and you can't,

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you know, AI can't do that, at least not yet.

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And the other thing is that having experience

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in the communications world is a good thing.

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So knowing how to deal with situations,

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having seen some stuff,

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that's the other thing that's important

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is I've been around the block

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and I've seen different things happen.

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And I've had, you know, one of my clients was,

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you know, a Ponzi schemer tried to take over

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one of my clients' businesses.

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I've seen, you know, where there were instances

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where there was litigation

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that could end up destroying a business,

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dealt with, you know, workplace violence,

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dealt with just all manners of things.

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And a crisis is relative.

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So, you know, one company's, you know,

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I kind of say there's like a,

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one company's sort of nothing situation,

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it could be an existential thing for another business.

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So it's all relative.

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And so I've tried to build my business on, you know,

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so that I can, that my vision is that my,

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I'm offering services that are not like

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easily commoditized.

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Understood.

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So looking at a business that is mainly revolving

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around crisis, what gets you out of bed every morning

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to keep doing this type of thing?

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What is your why behind doing it every day?

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I think the, you know, it's,

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it's my why and one of my clients says, you know,

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says, you know, you love this stuff.

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And I don't, you know, obviously I don't love seeing

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my clients in crisis, but I, to me,

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I'm looking at a situation and seeing how it's going

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to play out and trying to figure out the best way,

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the best path forward.

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You know, to me, it's very exciting to deal with that

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because it's a fluid situation, it's brand new,

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it's different.

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And so you have to have, you know,

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you have to have a plan that makes,

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that you have to have, just be prepared to think these,

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these things all the way through.

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And so, you know, they typically, you know, move fast

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and that, and it's exciting, you know,

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so that's what gets me, you know, gets me going about this.

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Sometimes, some people are kind of terrified of this

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and rightly so, you know, for me, I mean,

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part of what makes it interesting for me is that, you know,

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most of my clients, I have relationships with them,

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but I'm not in their building.

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And I'm not, it's not my, you know, it's,

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it's, I can be objective and I can give them, you know,

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sound advice, cause I'm not in the building.

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I'm not worrying about my job.

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I'm not worrying about, you know,

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how I'm going to pay my rent or my, if I lose my job

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or if this happens, if that happens,

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or if I'm culpable for something,

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I'm just trying to help them get, you know,

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do a better job with their, with their business.

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That's what gets me, gets me going.

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It's interesting because similar to what I do,

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I produce podcasts, so I'm always behind the scenes.

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It feels like your job is also somewhere in that same vein

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where if we don't hear from John,

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that's a good day type situation.

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You know what I mean?

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Well, yeah, I know.

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I mean, obviously if you don't, if I'm not,

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if things are okay, if I'm not involved, right?

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So yeah, there's certainly,

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there's some no news is good news there for sure, for sure.

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I mean, I typically do not, I mean,

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I can sort of take that sort of forward role

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and serve as a spokesperson and I've done that before.

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But, you know, part of what I'm trying to do is

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in many cases, I'm trying to make a crisis situation,

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kind of make it go away.

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Sometimes the, sometimes there's information that gets out,

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something happening with a business

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and it's just not true.

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And so, but somebody's jumped on it and somebody's,

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you know, a reporter listened to somebody, to a person

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and that person said something that's sort of true,

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but it's not completely true.

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And, you know, that you, you know,

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and that's actually one of the more, most rewarding things

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and for me is kind of killing a negative story.

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And, you know, those are sort of,

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those are like really kind of harsh kind of terms,

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but killing a story, it's typically just this industry term.

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But, you know, the getting the, you know,

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getting a media outlet to realize there's no news here.

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This is not what you think it is.

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You think you're onto, you know, the next great,

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you know, Watergate type of thing.

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It's not.

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And let me explain to you why.

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And we, you know, we kind of make the problem go away

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and that's the best.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions

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as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is gonna get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show

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and thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision

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and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.