Consultant helps businesses prepare for the unthinkable

Disaster preparedness is like making a will. Nobody wants to think about it, but that doesn't make it any less necessary.

Yet after a year full of record-setting floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and mudslides, most business owners still hesitate to create plans that protect their businesses. And as many still picking up the pieces in New Orleans can tell you, if they had it to do over again, they'd make a plan. Nancy Pearl thinks she can build a business helping Northern Nevada businesses do just that.

Pearl's experience dates back 35 years to the beginning of a career in media in Los Angeles. With a degree in broadcasting, she worked with executives to prepare them for media interviews.

"I worked with them on getting to the salient points, presenting themselves on camera, and avoiding nervousness," recalls Pearl.

It occurred to her that most interviewees have more control than they think. "I realized then that if you're prepared, and you handle yourself properly, you won't get sand-bagged."

From there, Pearl began working with a public relations firm that specialized in crises communications, followed by 20 years doing marketing and communications in the public sector, for a transportation agency in Los Angeles as well as for the Regional Transportation Commission in Reno. She also served on Washoe County's Crisis Communicators Council and Y2K Task Force.

She's seen employers and clients face numerous crises and upheavals, from construction site accidents to labor strikes, ownership changes, federal investigations and severe storms. In that time, she has repeatedly seen business owners and managers face the repercussions of their failure to develop contingency plans.

When she made the decision to become an independent crisis management consultant six months ago, she knew she had her work cut out for her. She realizes that she sells something nobody wants to think about. She faces numerous excuses, from "We're too small" to "FEMA will help us."

None of these excuses, she believes, hold water because businesspeople too often don't understand the importance of a plan until they face a crisis.

"Look at last year's snowstorms," she says. "We have floods. Rising gas prices. There are car crashes, family emergencies, computer security problems, theft. Whatever your business is, you've got connections. And if you haven't thought all this through, and developed a contingency plan ahead of time, you could lose time, energy, money and your credibility."

Many businesses take employees on company retreats to encourage bonding. Yet in the same time, companies could develop a well-considered crisis contingency plan. The time frame and costs for Pearl's consultation vary depending on the size and complexity of the business.

She generally insists on working off-site, to avoid distractions, for half-day blocks of time. Some plans can be completed in a few hours, some take a few days.

"It's actually kind of a fun process," she says. "It's very creative,

and you bring in employees from a lot of different areas, who all have different perspectives. It's about anticipating everything that could possibly go wrong, developing a plan to deal with those eventualities, and learning how and when to put the plan into action."

This includes making employees aware that a plan exists, who to call when, and how to communicate the plan to others, including customers or the media. Once the plan is finished, it should be updated about every six months, which takes very little time.

Most likely, the entire plan will never have to be put into action, or things will come up that you couldn't have anticipated. And that's OK by Pearl.

"If you've anticipated 90 percent of what could occur, at least you have pieces in place to help you resolve this other problem, too," she says. "No business, private or public, small or large is impervious to crises. So the better you plan for it, the better off you are."