{"id":1384,"date":"2010-01-31T10:22:51","date_gmt":"2010-01-31T10:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2021-03-07T17:29:09","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T17:29:09","slug":"licking-the-toad-a-commentary-on-pro-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/?p=1384","title":{"rendered":"Licking the Toad – A Commentary on Pro-activity"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my previous lives involved helping to manage crises (yes, there were many) from a public and\/or community relations stance. I don\u2019t remember where I first heard the following phrase, or whether I originated it, but I started to refer to my strategy and philosophy on PR problems as \u2018Licking the Toad\u2019.<\/p>\n

What did I mean by that? Well, my philosophy was a simple one to explain. Bad news does not get any better in time. I advocate organizations disclose as much information as possible, responsibly and to be available to comment, even if it means all you can say is \u2018No Comment\u2019. You have to build trust within your organization, and have access to 100% disclosure, internally, for this approach to be successful. But when the media is setting up the live trucks in your parking lot, you have a great chance to stay ahead of the story and manage it when you \u2018Lick the Toad\u2019.<\/p>\n

This philosophy has applications beyond the world of public and community relations. I have applied it in customer service as well. When dealing with a customer problem, \u201cLicking the Toad\u201d means taking a proactive stance to return a customer to a positive customer service experience.<\/p>\n

Here is a recent example. I had a misunderstanding with a customer of my consultancy,\u00a0www.cameronknowles.com<\/a>, over a contractual point. After an e-mail exchange which defined the disagreement, whether I was right or wrong was immaterial. I asked myself \u2018what is right for the relationship\u2019. Sometimes, even if you\u2019re right, you\u2019re wrong, because by proving your point, you have the potential to lose the relationship. I acted rapidly, made a concession, and planned for improved communication in the future. Consider one more toad licked.<\/p>\n

\nThe great thing about licking the toad is that once you\u2019ve got that taste in your mouth, it only gets better!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my previous lives involved helping to manage crises (yes, there were many) from a public and\/or community relations stance. I don\u2019t remember where I first heard the following phrase, or whether I originated it, but I started to refer to my strategy and philosophy on PR problems as \u2018Licking the Toad\u2019. What did I mean by that? Well, my philosophy was a simple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1385,"href":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions\/1385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cameronknowles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}