Cheryl Snapp Conner is founder and CEO of SnappConner PR and creator of Content University™. She is a speaker, author and national columnist on business communication and PR. In 2020, ClearPoint Strategies has named her one of the world’s Top 30 Business Thought Leaders to Follow.
Since the launch of SnappConner PR in April 2007, the agency has established itself as a top US thought leadership and communications firm, winning Top Tech Communicator recognition and multiple awards for agency growth. Cheryl has been named to Signal Peak’s v100 list each year since 2008. She was a trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Utah Technology Council (UTC) and headed the UTC Communications Committee from 2004 to 2016. She has been recognized by Utah Business Magazine’s 30 Women to Watch and is a two-time finalist in the Utah Women in Technology awards. Prior to forming her first agency in 1989, Snapp Conner was Director of Public Relations for Novell.
For six years from 2012-2018 Conner contributed to the Entrepreneurs channel for Forbes as a PR and business communications expert. She’s also been a guest contributor to WSJ Startups, a regular contributor to Inc. and launched a PR and entrepreneurship column for Entrepreneur magazine.
Company: SnappConner PR
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Cheryl Conner: I’m the founder and CEO of a public relations company, SnappConner PR. Early in my career, I led the PR for one of Utah’s leading early technology companies, Novell. Ninety days in, I was named PR manager and later director and led that work through their four acquisitions and IPO. From there, I started my first PR agency as a consultant, then as a cofounder of two prior agencies before founding SnappConner PR in 2007.
Through this time, I’ve discovered the power of strategic public relations – especially the power that comes from thought leadership, case studies, and the ability of companies and executives to speak genuinely to their marketplace. The power comes not from self-promotion but from the genuine stories and education that is interesting and compelling to prospective customers (and to the world and business ecosystem you work in). Through 17 years of business my team has supported small and large organizations and even individuals through every stage of entrepreneurial growth.
Can you share a time when your business faced a significant challenge? How did you navigate through it?
Cheryl Conner: My business has faced multiple significant challenges. The first was from not choosing ideal team members and promoting too quickly. The very worst kind of trial comes from challenges within companies, not from without. My very first business partnership took on a much different tone when the other founder set his sights on becoming the majority owner and taking the company over (a situation I’ve actually faced twice). In the first situation, I agreed to sell only when it was the purchase of all of my ownership, which let me to be free to start another business. In the second case, I initiated a division of assets to form two separate companies. In both cases, my businesses progressed much further and better with team members aligned. In the case of bad employees, I encouraged their departure and am grateful to ultimately work with a small time of powerful players that are highly aligned in the business we have operated together for 17 years and will most probably continue forward under the current leadership for years beyond the time I am gone.
Economic downturns have been a challenge as well. PR is a vital function, particularly during challenging times, but in a downturn, clients are able to allocate less budget and pay more slowly. We’ve learned to flex with those seasons. We don’t over hire and we maintain a strong circle of contractor resources we can use to expand and contract as required.
How has a failure or apparent failure set you up for later success?
Cheryl Conner: The pandemic was a frightening situation for everyone involved, but in many ways turned out to be a blessing. The PPP loan program allowed us to maintain our staff without layoffs. Even more importantly, it taught all businesses that we are able to operate more virtually than we’d have believed. We evolved to become a more virtual company after the pandemic. That has allowed me to move and work from Boise, Idaho to allow me to help support my aging mother, and one of my other partners has moved to the east coast to support her parents as well. Our President is able to run our Utah operation from a much smaller footprint. Our clients no longer require face to face meetings each week. Many more of our clients are geographically dispersed and we’re accustomed to working face to face with them just a few times per year.
I’m able to spend the majority of my time in PR strategy and execution instead of traveling up and down the freeway for meetings every day and then being required to do most of my actual public relations work at night.
How do you build a resilient team? What qualities do you look for in your team members?
Cheryl Conner: Resilience is my biggest mantra. It’s also what I look for in team members and work to instill in everyone that I work with. Resilience goes hand in hand with EQ, Emotional Intelligence, which I place a much higher stake in than someone’s actual background or skills. With resilience and EQ, the right people can learn to achieve most other skills needed for business success. Courtesy, respect for others, and strong communication skills are essential. People can (and should) discuss the hard topics, but should do so constructively and respectfully. This is where the big progress happens, both within our team and in our relationships with our clients.
How do you maintain your personal resilience during tough times?
Cheryl Conner: My biggest weapon is the ability to look at any given situation and say, “So what did that just open up for me?” It is always the right question. If it’s a crisis, it’s an opportunity to become calm and resolute to ensure that you are bringing your very best thinking and actions forward. It’s an opportunity to shine.
I also place a huge priority on fitness and health. Exercising every day, getting enough sleep and eating healthily give you the very best basis for addressing anything the world throws your way. It’s the ideal way to show up as your best self, every day. Let your stress relief compulsions be good ones.
I often reflect on the ways I benefit from the extreme difficulty of my first corporate role, being a female leader at a time female leaders weren’t typical or welcome. Likewise, being under siege by the other founder in my first agency business required me to work day and night (sometimes through the night) to survive. I learned that when I was forced to meet impossible demands, the bar for what truly is “impossible” became much higher. While I’d never want to do it again for any extended time period, it is a good thing to be capable of getting into that “turbo mode” when it’s genuinely required.
What strategies do you use to manage stress and maintain focus during a crisis?
Cheryl Conner: During a crisis, my biggest strategy is “sleep on it.” When someone confronts me in anger or makes wild threats or accusations, I stay calm. When a person gets frightened or angry, they are acting (or actually reacting) from the more primitive “fight or flight” part of their brain. They’re not playing with their full deck of cards and do things that cause harm and that they’ll later regret. Knowing this, my biggest power is the ability to stay calm, think about what’s happened and to not respond or react in the heat of a moment. I won’t ignore or rebuke a person, but I’ll set a time to reconvene after both sides have had a chance to reflect. Once I’ve considered what’s really happening and how I want to respond, the next conversation can be a productive one. If the other party is still flaming and acting rashly at that point, you know fully what you are dealing with and can take the right steps knowing that you’ve considered the situation and it is the right thing to do.
How do you communicate with your team during a crisis?
Cheryl Conner: In a crisis, I remind my team that these are the times that require our full strength – that other people and organizations are facing the same stresses we are facing – and that these are the times to remember who we are, remember who raised us, and to show up as our best. I do invoke spiritual guidance in these times, and I encourage my team members to do the same. I remind them that we have weathered difficult situations before and have always prevailed. And I thank them for their extra focus and dedication to being our very best during the times that leave us with no margin for error.
What advice would you give to other CEOs on building resilience in their organizations?
Cheryl Conner: To other CEOs, I would remind them that the biggest part of crisis management is prevention. We have the ability to stave off many forms of crisis by generating meaningful employee contracts that protect nondisclosure and non-disparagement (in either direction) and, if applicable to protect IP and noncompete.
I also urge or even require in the case of our clients, a meaningful spokesperson policy that everyone is aware of and can understand. This covers things like who is authorized to speak on behalf of the company, and in the face of a crisis situation who would speak to the press, and what would be the sequence of events.
It would cover who the company’s stakeholders are and who would need to be informed and in what sequence? (board members, employees, key customers — the people who would need to hear the news directly as opposed to reading about it in the press).
If your employees blog or make presentations or participate in social media, what are their responsibilities or requirements (and their opportunities) as a member of the company?
Financially, how well is the company prepared in liability insurance, patents and IP protection, physical and digital security protection? Does the company have a savings account or sufficient operating credit to weather a down economy or unexpected event like a theft or the loss of a major account? So, prevention is 90 percent of the emphasis.
How do you prepare your business for potential future crises?
Cheryl Conner: In addition to all the steps in prevention, I suggest protecting your company’s culture is key. Create a team that exhibits high character, strong emotional maturity and impeccable ethics. This is the kind of a team that would inherently help to weather many kinds of crisis seamlessly and without top leaders even needing to intervene. Reputation-wise I strongly urge every company and even every individual to be sure you are vocal and present in the principles you stand for, and do this in a way that is known and could be readily found by an internet search (or even a background search). In a crisis, the first people you reach out to will inevitably be your attorney and your PR counsel (and, of course, your spouse). All actions beyond that will require consideration of these key influencers working in concert to amend the situation in the best way possible. If you were to face a repetitional blow, your legal counsel would most probably prevent you from speaking out beyond a careful public statement. For the agonizing time period after that statement until the situation is resolved you will likely not be able to speak about it while in a legal process. During that period of time it is the validation of your track record and the things that your customers and your colleagues could say about you that would stand as your record and help the situation to resolve as smoothly as possible.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about leadership in times of crisis?
Cheryl Conner: You will likely be your strongest self (or should be) in times of crisis. These are the moments that define you much more than the leadership you exhibit when things are running smoothly and revenue is plentiful. This has been true for me, and my most important lesson has been to prepare well, stay strong, and know that these times will ultimately be a gift that distills and refines you much more than a time of regret. Then do all within your power to make that the case.
