It’s a pretty great feeling to see the fruits of your labor when it comes to fixing up your house or condo. Maybe you’ve spent the last two weekends painting the interior a color that pops, or you’ve finally built the deck you’ve been planning for years or splurged on that state-of-the-art refrigerator.

Whatever it is, you can see the payoff of your hard work, financial investment and planning. But what about those essential yet decidedly less “sexy” efforts? It could be replacing a rusty water heater, shoring up your home’s foundation or saving for an inevitable replacement of the gutters or HVAC system.

These are arguably more important, long term, than purely superficial improvements — crown molding or ornate flower beds. But they’re easier to push down the priority list to be tackled “one of these days.” After all, upgrading the electrical wiring in your beautiful old home doesn’t seem to have the same sense of urgency or excitement, and it can feel like a bit of a letdown spending so much time and money on something no one even sees. That is, of course, until the old wiring fails to pass a code inspection … or starts a kitchen fire.

This same phenomenon can apply to companies when it comes to marketing, communications and branding efforts. The “sexy” items often top the to-do list: Create a fun new social media campaign. Design and debut a new logo or visual identity. Attract the attention of national trade media for a feature story on your new location. Launch a customer newsletter. These things draw lots of attention and have obvious payoffs.

What’s often overlooked is the unflashy but undeniably important effort of preparing for times when things go awry. Every organization — whether large public corporation, small neighborhood business, nonprofit, arts group or family-owned operation — would be wise to have a crisis communications plan in place. Yet many, many of them do not.

Let’s face it, crisis prep is the HVAC maintenance of the corporate communications world. It’s not flashy, takes plenty of time and effort, and most people won’t even know it exists. It doesn’t have the obvious payoff of that fancy new two-level deck. But, boy, will you regret overlooking it when the time comes that you need it.

Smart crisis planning takes time. It takes a commitment to the process. At a minimum, it should involve a deep dive into issues that could arise — often with no notice or time for on-the-spot prep — and cause potential harm to your organization’s hard-won reputation.

Here are a few of the many factors to consider in crisis planning and preparedness:

Get the right folks at the table: Consider forming a crisis communications committee to analyze potential concerns, formulate a plan and create needed materials. In addition to your communications leaders (including media relations, social media management and branding overseers), this committee should include corporate counsel, regulatory liaisons and perhaps a couple of members of the C-Suite. If you work regularly with an outside crisis or media relations agency or outside counsel, they should be part of the committee, as well.

Make it an ongoing effort: Crisis planning is not a “finish it and forget it” proposition. Much of the heavy lifting will take place when you initially ramp up the crisis team, but it shouldn’t end there. Commit to meeting quarterly if possible, certainly no less than twice a year, to reassess industry trends and threats, changes in the market, specific vulnerabilities to your business, tricky issues on the horizon and problems that are brewing. If your business is in a highly regulated or risk-adjacent field (certain industrial and manufacturing sectors, particularly litigious areas), consider meeting monthly. Each time, assess the need to revise or further develop existing crisis materials and create additional ones.

Assess, analyze, audit and repeat: Crisis planning gives you extra incentive to “read the room” in your industry and the greater business landscape. What issues have thwarted your competitors lately? Which topics are your customer surveys telling you could bubble up into problems? How have organizations with sterling reputations navigated threats? A critical part of crisis prep is scenario planning. This involves analyzing all the ways that the wheels could come off, metaphorically speaking, and preparing accordingly — creating “if/then” playbooks; developing standby statements; fleshing out FAQs for tough questions you would face from the media, shareholders, industry analysts and more.

Expect the unexpected: As they say about troubles: They will come, and they will go. Data breaches, lawsuits, eminent domain battles, public outcries, executive malfeasance — these things and more can be an unfortunate part of doing business. Acting as though they will never come is a recipe for being led around by the tail when they do.

A great crisis plan is a living document. It’s most effective when it’s not shut in a drawer or server folder and dusted off once a year or, even worse, referred to only when you’re in the line of fire. And it’s supported by thoughtful analysis, scenario planning and materials development.

Whether you tap the expertise of an agency such as Vehr Communications or rely on your in-house team, this work will give you comfort knowing that if the tough issues arise, you’re ready. Only by shoring up the foundation and HVAC of your “home” can you truly relax and enjoy the two-level deck and beautiful flower beds that you worked so hard to build.