Cut The Tie | Own Your Success

“Bad Things Are Going to Happen”—Mike Swenson on Why Every Business Needs Crisis Prep

• Thomas Helfrich

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Cut The Tie Podcast with Mike Swenson

What do you do when your lifelong dream career takes a sudden turn—and leads you somewhere better than you imagined? In this episode, Thomas Helfrich sits down with Mike Swenson, a retired PR executive, former journalist, and creator of the CrisisTrak system.

Mike’s journey started with a childhood dream of being a broadcaster, shifted into politics when he became press secretary to the Kansas governor, and ultimately led him to build a nationally respected PR firm. Along the way, he discovered the importance of keeping communication simple, focused, and strategic—especially in times of crisis.

Now in retirement, Mike isn’t slowing down. He’s reigniting his spark by sharing CrisisTrak with small businesses and nonprofits who need practical, do-it-yourself tools to handle the unexpected.

About Mike Swenson:

Mike Swenson is the founder of CrisisTrak and the retired CEO of a Kansas City PR firm he helped build from scratch. His career spans decades in journalism, politics, and public relations—including serving as press secretary to the Kansas governor and directing communications for major corporate and nonprofit clients. Known for distilling complex problems into simple, actionable steps, Mike’s CrisisTrak framework helps organizations of all sizes prepare for and manage crises. Today, he continues to consult, podcast, and mentor entrepreneurs—while enjoying time with his wife, four kids, and eight grandkids.

In this episode, Thomas and Mike discuss:

  • Cutting ties with a childhood dream
    How Mike walked away from his broadcasting career to take a leap into politics—and why it became his “graduate school” in crisis management.
  • The jump from politics to PR
    Leaving government meant leaving security. Mike shares how he navigated the uncertainty, took a pay cut, and launched into building a firm from the ground up.
  • Why strategy beats noise
    The mantra Mike carried throughout his career: communication without strategy is a lost opportunity.
  • The tie he refuses to cut
    Retirement didn’t mean slowing down. Mike explains why CrisisTrak keeps him sharp, fulfilled, and still contributing after leaving agency life.

Key Takeaways:

  • Strategy gives communication power
    Words without clear action and purpose are wasted.
  • Opportunities come when you’re prepared to pivot
    Be open to big shifts—even if it means leaving behind a dream.
  • Crisis planning isn’t optional
    Something will go wrong; the question is whether you’re ready.
  • Keep it simple
    The best frameworks are easy to use, easy to teach, and easy to act on when it matters most.

Connect with Mike Swenson:

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeswenson1/
🌐 Website: https://crisistrak.com/

Connect with Thomas Helfrich:

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cutthetie
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomashelfrich/
🌐 Website: https://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
🚀 InstantlyRelevant.com: https://www.instantlyrelevant.com

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Cut the Tide podcast. Hello, I am your host, thomas Helfrich. I'm on a mission to help you cut the tide of whatever it is holding you back from success, and if you've been here before, you know that you've got to define that success yourself. If you don't, you're chasing someone else's dream, and today I'm joined by Mike Swenson or is it Samson Knight? Remember Dumb and Dumber Mary Swanson? Yeah, mike, mary Swanson, yeah, mike. That's it. It's a marketing trick to repeat your name over and over Mike Swenson, s-w-e-n. Mike, how are you? I'm great. I'm doing great Good to be on Thomas. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you. Listen, I'm excited to hear your ties that you had to cut.

Speaker 1:

Why don't you start, though, with who you are, where you're located and what it is you do? I'm in a suburb of Kansas City Overland Park, kansas and I'm retired now, but I started out as a broadcast journalist. I was press secretary to a governor in Kansas for five years, and then I started a PR firm in Kansas City in the late 80s and ran it until I retired at the end of 2020 and passed the baton, but one of the things we'll talk about today is one of the things that we created. There was a process called Crisis Track. So that's who I am. My wife and I have four kids and eight grandkids, so we keep busy. That is busy, all right, ok, so before we begin, I always like to give the ADHD-er out there something to look at, because they can't listen and pay attention just by listening. So you got to be playing with something. Give them the one link address that they should check out so they can stalk you properly while you're talking. I would say go to my LinkedIn profile first, because I got a lot of crisis content on there. Mike Swenson one on LinkedIn Got it, mike Swenson one and they can link. They can link to the crisis track website from there. Beautiful, um, all right. Yeah, I've been to something.

Speaker 1:

For me, though, um, you know, I usually ask what the kind of unique differences between you and a commoditized type of business Like there's lots of yours sounds just unique by itself. Can you peel the layer back a little bit about what you mean by what you do? Yeah, absolutely. Well, the most important thing we did as a PR firm for our clients was crisis communications, and we created in the early 90s, along with one of our first clients a process to simplify crisis management, because I would visit with clients who had three notebooks up on the shelf about crisis and said when's the last time you read it? You got to blow the dust off. Let's get down to brass tacks. We have five steps and it's simple. It's simple and we created a. I've created some videos that small businesses can do it on their own now. So it's it's simple approach and they should be doing it, because bad things are going to happen. Yeah, and and and.

Speaker 1:

Crisis could be, you know, a cold play concert. Um, could be a cold play concert. To be fair, I don't think that's newsworthy and I and I it. That's, it's memes, but it's like shareholders and their families can have an issue and I bet the shareholders don't actually care as long as they make money. It's, yeah, it's the. It's the worst example. It's the worst example of what social media does to a story. It is. The truth is, it's probably the most genius marketing ploy ever. It's like we did that. Who'd ever heard of Astronomer until this? Right? Or Coldplay anymore, for that matter. That's true. They're selling albums like crazy. Now that's going to make the cut. Just so you know, all right, before we get into your journey.

Speaker 1:

How do you define success? I've always lived by a mantra of there is any communication without a strategy is a lost opportunity, and what I mean by that is it's easy to get up and say stuff and get in front of media or key audiences and just say a bunch of stuff, but what's behind it? The moment I opened my mouth? I hope that I backed it up with some kind of action that's going to take place and allow, allow people to to not just hear what I say but understand what I say and act on it, and I think that's, to me, the most important part of communication.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and, and I, and I think you know as you get into your journey here, identify, maybe you know obviously, how'd you get to here, where you are, and what's been the biggest you know metaphor tie for you to cut to achieve that success. I want to be sports was how I started it and went to Kansas University, went to the J school and and proceeded to work in public radio and then commercial. That was absolutely a blast and um, but uh, my family has always been involved in politics in Kansas and so I was covering the state house, uh, covering the legislature and the governor. And, uh, one day in the Capitol, um, the governor's press secretary walked up to me and said hey, I want to talk to you a minute. He said my assistant is leaving. Don Smith is his name, you know, I knew Don really well. Don's leaving and I'd like you to be come on board as our assistant press secretary. So I I plan on being the next Dan Rather, you know.

Speaker 1:

And so I had a big decision to make and I loved what I was doing and I was just getting, you know, kind of rolling, and I don't think I was going to be at that station for the rest of my life, but who knows where we would have gone. But I went home, we talked about it and I just felt like it was a huge opportunity I couldn't pass up. So I cut the tie of something I'd wanted to do since I was 12 years old and jumped to the other side, as they say in the business. I was 12 years old and jumped to the other side, as they say in the business. I went from being in the media to trying to convince the media to say wonderful things about the guy I was working for, and it truly is a big change. I took two weeks off but literally I walked in the Capitol two weeks later in a whole different role with all the same people I've been dealing with or working with all that time and it worked out. It became the.

Speaker 1:

I always refer to those five years as my graduate school Um and and because I learned so much and that's where my really understanding of how to manage things when they go wrong were, you know, occurred. Because you know, in a political environment you're going to have you have stuff happen all the time, every day, different levels of importance or meaning, but still you got to deal with stuff all the time. So that was good and that set me on the way. And then, when the governor I worked for was term limited, I worked on another campaign. That one was not successful, and that's when I went to Kansas City and started in the PR biz and that worked out a little better. So that was definitely the absolute moment where my life went down a different road. Dive into when you started. That's another shift too, because it's going from you know where's my next check coming from to I need to go kill something to eat it. Talk about, I mean, that's also a tie. That obviously worked out. But in the moment, how did you deal with that switchback or switch to-.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, like I said, I worked on this other campaign, a governor's race it was a guy who's our lieutenant governor and we lost in a very close election, one that I've replayed with a couple of people time and time again over the years. But yeah, I literally woke up the day after election knowing I had 75 days and the governor that I'd been working for put me back on staff to help him kind of close things out. So I had some work to do, but basically he gave me a lifeline to keep the income going until I could get it. And so then I went through a lot of.

Speaker 1:

I actually thought about broadcasting. I thought, well, okay, I could go back into broadcasting. I've done news, I've done production. I go back in and hold my nose and go do some sales. You know, because I, you know I was a journalist but I'm going to go sell TV time to the local grocery store. But I'll do it, I'll think about doing it, because if I do that then I can get on a management track and go down the road and be in broadcasting the rest of my life. So I actually entertained that and talked to a couple people.

Speaker 1:

But then I got a call One of those things you get out of the blue from a woman who'd been on the governor's staff and she was now in Kansas City and she said, hey, there's this PR firm in Kansas City that's looking for an account executive. I said, okay, what the heck, I'll try. So I called and ended up working with this guy. I got hired by a gentleman named Howard Boasberg who was a tremendous PR legend in Kansas City. Many of us he's got the coach, one of the great coaching trees, because I went on and started another firm and I went with him a year. Interesting story.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going in for my last interview with him on this, and this is 1987, okay, or late at 1986. And he's offered me the job and he says it's account executive, the salary is $28,000 and here's your benefits. I said, well, that's great, howard, I appreciate the offer and I'm really interested in it, but I'm making $35,000 a year right now. And he said I understand, mike, this job pays 28. And again, a little cut the tie moment, because 7,000 bucks in 1986, I mean that was a you know what. I'm not quick with math, but that's a fourth of my revenue coming in and that's on top revenue at that time too. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So a small cut the tie moment. But it didn't take me long to realize that's the thing to do and that's what set me on the path that you know. A year later, I went to Barkley and Evergreengreen and started the PR for an external ad agency there.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I think one of the things that take away I try to find sometimes reflective moments is the you don't get those opportunities if you're kind of unaffected or an asshole or whatever. You know, asshole is probably actually a mutually exclusive thing, but if you don't play nice within the communities of what you've worked in, you could be edge, you can be your person, but as long as you, it may affect your next thing, there's no doubt it does. There's no doubt it does, and that's why I'm saying I literally took two weeks off between being a reporter to being convincing reporters to do that, and I'm glad I took those two weeks. At some point I had to walk in the door but all of a sudden I'm working. These are colleagues, the media had been my colleagues and we all covered the same stuff. And yes, we all covered the same stuff and and yes, we were competing against each other, but we all shared in, you know, and and so it was. It was a, it was a process to kind of realize that I'm sitting behind the desk now instead of on the other side of the desk asking the questions. Um and it. It took a little bit and I was assistant press secretary, so I wasn't garnering the everyday barrage that the press secretary was. But after the governor was reelected in 82 and I was involved in that campaign, I was a blast working on a campaign like that and I became press secretary for the second term.

Speaker 1:

What's your probably most impactful moment of your career? Oh, that's hard to pick one, but I would say I'm going to say something that really made a difference. So when I went to Barkley and Evergreen to start the PR firm there, there'd been another guy there that had been trying to start a PR firm and hadn't worked out, and the founder of Barkley and Evergreen to start the PR firm there, there'd been another guy there that had been trying to start a PR firm and hadn't worked out, and the founder of Barkley and Evergreen, a guy by the name of Bill Fromm. Um, and those two didn't really get along. And so, and Bill Fromm had not hired me, the other guy had brought me over.

Speaker 1:

So, uh, I sat down with Bill, so this was like December, in December of 88. And he said look, I don't know you that well, but I've seen you, you've been here a year and you brought in some business. I brought in some revenue and we need a PR firm and I want you to do it. You got to do two things for me, though. I said great, what are those? One, we got to make money. And two, because Bill is a classic entrepreneur, bill said I want you to go get half your business on your own. Now, we, we, we were providing PR for the advertising, his existing advertising clients, but he wanted to see can we start a business? And that was truly an impactful moment because 32 years later, you know it worked and and it's going today.

Speaker 1:

I passed the baton to a woman who's worked with me for 20 years and she's carrying on and that agency I walked in Barkley and Evergreen. It was 45 people in the whole agency. Today there are 900 and they have offices in six cities and so, and that that's the whole company, and so we went out. So at the end of the first year, boom, we'd made money and we had created a program that got us into several businesses right away and got us more than half our revenue on our own, and we maintained that all the way through. Sometimes it was even as much as 60% of our revenue was PR-only clients. So that became a focus for me. It's like that was always.

Speaker 1:

My North star is 50, 50 at least. Well, and it's, it's uh, I mean just from a business model, right, like if you could do that, if you're half the cost, you're doing pretty good, right, right, and you're bringing, you're bringing in revenue that that's not going to come in any other way, you know it's not going to come through the ad agency. So, right, and there's so many, there's so many ad agencies that don't do that. They, they have PR as a service, they don't have it as a as a business. And there there are great agencies in Kansas city where you know, uh, I actually had one guy come and approach me about you know, I'd been at Barkley for a while and had been, you know we'd had some good success and he approached me about coming on board to his agency and he said, well, you know, what would it take?

Speaker 1:

I said, well, I said I really like what I'm doing and I said I guess it would take a you know, this kind of car and this kind of this and this kind of that and this much money. And he goes really, I said, yeah, I'm really happy and I didn't have all those things. But I thought, you know, if he's asking, I'm going in there in a Florida home, yeah, exactly, you pay for and insure, yeah, for the next 50 years, or you have to wash mine topless every week. Either way, it's got to be a guy. When you say that statement, exactly, that's going to make the cut too, by the way. So, yeah, well, no, listen. So I think you know, if I reflect back to right like, do you have the systems in place to do this, as opposed to just send a DM with nothing around it?

Speaker 1:

We, we've become way more successful because people are like, yeah, we get it, like we try that whole, this tech or this tech. It never seems to work. And there's, there's a realization when you, when you say, well, you need to build a, basically a business around your whatever that is, it needs to generate money. We took out a pro like hey, if we're doing it with you, it's got to make money. Like it's not like hey, great. In a similar way, where it's a no brainer to start and as you make money, we make more money. It's like hey, we'll, we'll do it, attribution style, as we get to know and trust you and so yeah, it's. I love that because if you have that, that mindset, then you're, you're both in growth mode. Yeah, I mean it sets you on a, on a, set us on a path who are connected.

Speaker 1:

Mostly, it's like PR is just going to be a service to the and the ad agency will run the account and you, you provide this and this. It's like I would never have been interested in that. That wouldn't. If that was what I had been doing, I doubt I would have been there 32 years because I would have lost interest. So what's the tie that you're struggling to cut right now? Modern day for yourself? Cut right now modern day for yourself. Um, well, I've, I've, uh, you know the the.

Speaker 1:

Another impactful moment at the agency was when we were hired by a, a, a large um and growing uh fast food chain in the early nineties and she, the head of PR, approached me early on. She said I'm really worried. We're growing so fast. I don't think we are ready to deal if something goes wrong. When something goes wrong and in the food business things are going to go wrong it takes one teenager at one drive-in restaurant to do something stupid and it becomes a national brand crisis. And so she brought her team in and we sat in a room for three days that we created this crisis track and the mindset I told you know our, our, our mission early on was what's the simple, what are the fewest steps possible that we got to put together to make this thing work? And, um, so that became an impactful moment.

Speaker 1:

So, okay, so I'm cutting the tie now, in a sense that I've always I always had in my contract whenever I left, uh Barkley, that I could take Crisis Track, the process and the name with me. They will still use it and they do use it, but I could take it with me and use it as well. So it sat there for a long time. I mean I retired at the end of 2020. I was consulting. I got really busy during COVID because I had a couple clients hire me that were COVID-specific. So I'm out there just on my own, which is a great thing.

Speaker 1:

By the way, that is not a tie I want to cut. I only can manage me now. So I'm, you know. Somebody asked me are you going to hire people? I said no, I'm not going to hire anybody, I'm just it's me now. So, but cutting I don't know if it's cutting the tie so much as just me getting off my you know.

Speaker 1:

And finally, about a year ago, I finally kind of worked with some people to help put something together, create a website and take crisis track and begin to sell it and get it out there and offer it. And so I I'm I don't know if it's cutting the tie or but it's just been kind of like pushing myself. You want to do this, so get out there and do it. And sitting here today with you is an important part of just getting the message out that we've got a very easy, we've got a simple way.

Speaker 1:

And there's too many companies, thomas, way too many companies and we work with nonprofits, too too many organizations that just don't think they need to worry about a crisis until it happens, which is the single biggest mistake anybody can make, and we all know that and we've there's countless episodes over time that we know, uh, or you can tell right away when people are handling it or not handling well, and so what, what we're offering here is, like you, you know, you may be a small business, you can't afford to have a PR firm, uh, and and. But here's, here's a process you can actually take and put in place yourself and uh. So I don't know if I'm answering your question, but that's kind of I've been pushing myself to. Finally and finally, I'm really on the road and getting it done, you know, but it's it's added like let's go, you're going to do it.

Speaker 1:

You're not getting younger, you know, yeah, well, that's the tiger cutting. It sounds like right. I'll try to. I don't say it right, just correct me is is you know you're, you've had a great career. You have no interest in sitting around and golf's fun, right, and tennis, all those things, but it's uh, yeah, yeah, it's not enough, um, for somebody who is in the hunt, loves the game and mind is sharp. That's where you want to be, and I don't know about you.

Speaker 1:

I'm 49, but I interact with lots of people that are like 60s, 65s, 70s, that are still entrepreneurs, because they said this one thing specifically, which is I'm never retiring because of this. They said, every one of my friends that's retired has died or is miserable. Yeah, yeah, I know them too. Like realization of a false dream. They were sold um, and they're like and and and. And. I was like, oh my god, they're like, so you stay active. I don't even care if this business like makes a million or just puts 200 extra on my table. It's something for me to focus on. You know, you get on and I'm interested.

Speaker 1:

So you know one of the questions I would ask if you were, if you, if I was you, though, it would make sense because you have more experience. But I would say, is that spark strong enough to keep you going? Because if you can't, usually sparks get you going right away. So if you got to find it, the question I have for you is is it the right spark long-term? Are you hanging on? You really want to do a podcast or something like in sports or something? Get hanging on. You really want to do a podcast or something like in sports, or something to get back on the air? Are you visiting the childhood dream? No, it's, it's uh, this is great, and and I started. I also I'm going to be 70 in September, okay, and I know the people are talking about I have friends who, yeah, they just have it.

Speaker 1:

And I love golf. I play twice a week. That's all I want to play and we play. We play in three and a half hours. We walk, you know we got a. You know got a group of you know six or eight of us that we, you know, end up, but it's twice a week. That's all I want I. But I know people that are out there every day and I'm going. I don't want to do that.

Speaker 1:

No, this is the spark because it needed to be lit and I finally, like I said, I got, and part of it, part of it was I was busy with consulting. I had clients I was doing stuff with on general traditional PR stuff, always some little crisis things mixed in. But, um, but no, this is it. I'm excited and to me, podcasting is uh, this gives me back to Broadway. This is, this is. This is the new talk shows, and a buddy and I, a guy who owned an agency, can't say we started a podcast in Kansas city called Kansas city marketing legends. We're in our second season. It's fun? We're not, you know.

Speaker 1:

Everybody says how are you going to monetize it? I go we're monetizing it by evolution Audio gets, lets us produce, produces everything for free. We got a creative guy who does our look and feel and runs our website, and we've got other sponsors that are helping us promote it. That's how we monetize, so we don't care about making money, but it's fun, you know, and so that's my creative, you know, a little bit of creative outlet. So the but crisis track is is the spark, and I'm I'm on it now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that and that's I mean, that's anybody who's kind of like the question you always ask yourself. If you can't spark yourself in, you have to ask is that really where you want to be? It's an honest question you have to ask yourself because it will not be sustainable if it is not. If you don't have a self-igniting fusion center in the middle of that thing, you're going to burn out At some point. The fuel does run out. I'm spending time on crisis track every day, including weekends. I spend a few hours every day, you know, two or three hours a day, which is all you need to do Just trying to schedule podcasts, doing some work on the website coming up with content that I put up on LinkedIn and you know, but I spend time on it every day. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 1:

If you could go back in time, when would you go back into your timeline and what would you do differently? You know you probably get this answer a lot. I wouldn't do anything differently, but I'll answer your question because and you kind of alluded to it a second ago when you asked me about was this really my spark, or was broadcasting? I mean I don't, I'll never know how far I would have gotten or where, what the broadcasting would have taken me to if I'd stayed, if I'd become an in front of the camera reporter or if I'd been a behind the scenes. I mean, as I learned how to direct, I was dreaming about oh my God, I would love to be the director of a big sporting event, a Super Bowl, a World Series, where you got 25, 30 cameras. So I'll never know, because I didn't take that road. So that would be the only place where I'd say you know, yeah, I I would think about if I decided, if I didn't do what I did, I'd go back and stay in broadcasting and see where it took me. Um, and that's because that was the big cut, the tie moment. Yeah, you know, it's everything. I have an idea that everything happens for you, which is hard to keep your mindset when things are happening to you, and so it's the reflective moments. But you don't seem unhappy, which is beautiful.

Speaker 1:

There was a question probably I should ask today, though I didn't. What would that question have been? Oh, let's see. Well, you might ask me you know what my handicap is now? So I'm a golfer. What is your handicap? Well, my index is like 14 right now. So I'm a little higher. I should be around a 12, but I'm working on it, it's coming down, I am getting my two. You know, the thing is, since I've retired, being able to play through the winter, whether it's out here in California we come out here a couple times a year or just at home. I mean, if it's 45 degrees and sunny, cause I walk, you know we'll play. It's helped, you know it's come down.

Speaker 1:

But I think the question, you know, probably would have been something along the lines of maybe getting deeper into my political experience, just because that was such an important. I know that I said it was my grad school and just things I learned there? Um, uh, you know what's learning out of those five years? And if you asked me that question, uh, I, I probably would have said, um, I learned the importance of a consistent and focused message. Yeah, um, because you, you know, in when you're working for a politician and in a political environment, and even in a law and election years, every day is a political environment. You know when you're in that, um, you have, yeah, now governor's got a bigger, he's got a bigger megaphone, you know, than than say, you know the legislature or whatever. So you've got that advantage, but you've still got to be able to make sure that, um, you have a simple message, and and you have, and everybody's on the same page. So, single, single message, simple focus, um and uh, so that everybody in the organization knows that if on this topic, on topic A, here's what our position is, and you don't, you don't stray from that, and you know you, all you do is turn on the Sunday shows and see that happen all the time. And you also see it happen when they're not staying on message and they float all over the place and and all of a sudden, what they intended to communicate is lost. And so that I took that into the world of corporate and nonprofit PR and helped. We helped our clients understand that.

Speaker 1:

You know, you may want to say seven things about your new product, but let's say two. Let's focus on two. So, what are the most important things? Because, yeah, you may have all these great well, we got, but it's good it does. 27 great things, wonderful. Give me one, give me the biggest one, and let's start there and let's convince people about that one and then you get them in the door, then you can tell them about some other stuff.

Speaker 1:

And that was the hardest thing to convince clients of is is to stay focused, because they want to. You know, it's like James Carville said about Bill Clinton. He asked Bill Clinton what time it is. He not only tells you what the watch looks like, but he tells you about the Swiss village that the watch was made in. And I love that quote because it's so true.

Speaker 1:

And that's the biggest challenge with clients has always been you don't need to say everything. And you don't want to say everything, right. I tell you what that extrapolates to all sorts of things, right? Especially small business owners. I will say that if you can solve one critical problem for a very small group. That small group is replicated all over the marketplaces you need and don't come off that point, stay on it and as your brand brand grows, you have more services. You still should be around a core thing you do, like even nike, just do it, get out there and exercise. There's a bunch of shit you could do to go exercise better, right, and really it's really that simple.

Speaker 1:

And I think from a political thing, one thing I think I've learned from and I don't we don't discuss politics typically here too much just because the negative connotation of it, though I think it's very real entrepreneurship and business and I've blown away when you do something near there on like den, and people are like why is this political shit on here? I'm like who's elected affects entrepreneurship. I don't know if you guys know that it really does right up, but what I've found is if people are more, uh, positively polarizing versus maybe the negative polarizing that you see in politics and what I mean by that is we're talking about entrepreneurship why it's a better path for a lot of people is go into someone's feed that says, build a career, get a great resume, and respectfully disagree when you do that same effect in your own content on point messaging, like the focus messaging, and you create a friction that's positive but still a friction, and it works really well on social media to get noticed in a way that it just it takes all the people who are like, yeah, I'd rather just go that guy's route, but they don't hate either of you, right? So I like the fact you came from that and you're spot on. I'd even say don't even focus on your product, that's great. Focus on the problem, right, period, exactly. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a. Simply it's like oh, we do 10x, well, we do 11. Right, 7 and a half, 6. And abs, like AJ, don't focus on your feature. What does it do? If we give you apps fast, all right, great.

Speaker 1:

Nobody goes to the store to buy a hammer. They go to buy something that they can hit a nail with and put something together. I'll leave you with this Men do go Sunday to Home Depot just to walk around, 100%, true. I've seen my neighbor there. I'm like why are you in the gas section? He's like I'm thinking about putting a fireplace in next year. Yeah, next year Exactly, or maybe the year after. Walk with me and look at the tools. I'm like I do. I don't know anything about fireplaces.

Speaker 1:

Two hours later, I've still not bought anything. I've come from Anything. I've bought rocks that I won't ever use. I gotta return these. I'll be back, all right?

Speaker 1:

Uh, shameless plug time again. Uh, who should get ahold of you? How do you want them to do that? The, the people who who I really would love to work with are the small business owners. Uh, and and uh, you know how do we describe some small to medium sized business owners. So, business owners.

Speaker 1:

So, let's say, you know you have under 30 employees or something like that, but again, you probably don't. Your resources in terms of your marketing stuff are finite and you don't definitely, and you're definitely not thinking about a crisis. So, but here's an opportunity for you to check a big box off and sleep better at night, because you can put a simple process in place with five steps, a call crisis track, and you can do it yourself. And if you need some extra help with it, I would be available to get on a Zoom like this and help you work through it. But I want you to do it because it's important, because something bad is going to happen if you're not prepared and if you've got these five steps. You know your team is. You understand all the things that can go wrong. You have a process five steps. You know your team is. You understand all the things that can go wrong. You have a process in place, you know which steps you're going to take and you have messages created for each of those risks and you have someone who can deliver those messages in times of trouble. That's it, that's all you need, and you can do all this yourself through Crisis Track.

Speaker 1:

And what's the address? What's the place? Right? Yeah, it's crisistrackcom. Track is T-R-A-K. Of course it is. I'm sure T-R-C-K was taken Plus. It's just not cool enough Swenson, not Swanson. So we got to make it exactly crisistrackcom. And again, my LinkedIn profile. There's all kinds of content on there which can be helpful to people just to read in terms of things to think about some case studies. I'm trying to put stuff up there, new stuff, you know, a little bit every week and then you can link to crisistrackcom from there as well.

Speaker 1:

It could occur to me. You know, defining the word crisis is probably pretty important and I know it's late in the show to say that, but putting the wrong content out there creates a small crisis in the idea of your brand into markets you serve, or an employee that is on, is an idiot on facebook and they work for you. I think some small businesses should probably take the idea crisis a little bit more seriously, especially when you have people you don't. You know they're out there having lives. Those things matter and it's maybe does your system kind of address that lighter the rumblings of the earthquake to come to handle everything and to your point.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that it does is one of the things when we did work with clients on this would be that we want that crisis team to meet four times a year, every quarter, to do three things. One is okay do we have anything go wrong in the last three months and how do we handle it? What do we learn? Number two is are there new to your point? Are there new rumblings, crises on the horizon, potential prospective crises on the horizon that we didn't know about three months ago, but now we do so. Now we have to go through the process again. We recognize it, we create messaging and we're ready to go, and then the third step happens, maybe once a year, where you put yourself through a little table, what we call a tabletop drill where you create a scenario and you put your organization through a crisis situation with a script that takes you know it's been about two hours.

Speaker 1:

Start with a crisis. 20 minutes later, you change something. 10 minutes later, you change something else. 20 minutes later, you change something else. How does the organization react? And you kind of you know pressure test the organization on whether they understand this process we put in place and are they using it correctly. Yeah, that's great. Listen. Crisis Track with the TRAK at the endcom. Mike, thanks for coming on today. Thanks, thomas, I really enjoyed it. A good conversation, appreciate it and listen. Anyone who's made it to this point in the show you rock. Get out there, go cut a tie to something. Hold me back and define that success for yourself first, because if you don't, you won't have the spark to continue. You will be chasing someone else's dream and you really won't know what ties are holding you back from what, because you're not chasing any value to yourself. Get out there, go make something happen.

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Thomas Helfrich

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