WHAT WE DO

Provides counsel and implementation in public affairs and public relations.

Horner Strategies provides counsel and implementation in public affairs and public relations. Among our specific services are the following:

Assessment

Success in public relations or public affairs usually starts with a thorough assessment of the marketplace. We help clients assess where the public is at on issues and ideas, how best to move them to action that drives success and how our client partners can achieve the outcomes for success.

Strategic Planning

A sign in a hardware store said this:

We work cheap.

We work quickly.

We do high-quality work.

Customers can select any two.

Strategic planning is the map to accomplishing the desired outcome within the desired budget in the timeframe available for success.

Public Affairs

The objective of public affairs is to predict and influence the public environment to the benefit of the enterprise.

Public affairs manages issues in the public domain, not just issues to be decided by government.

Public affairs establishes an agenda and builds stakeholders in achieving solutions.

Public Relations

Public relations isn’t just spinning an issue or pitching a good story to the media. It is the comprehensive and strategic work of building relationships with key publics. It is who you are, what you say and do and how your values translate into actions. Defining, maintaining and managing your organization’s position in the market should be a business priority. Communications – not just information sharing or persuasion, but engagement – is an essential strategy.

Crisis Management

Crises have a predictable cycle. The goal of crisis management is to stop the cycle as soon as possible, as effectively as possible. We work with clients to help them survive crises with their reputations intact and their relationships with audiences preserved. Our message:

The most effective management is prevention.

- Create effective plans that help identify and fix potential crises before they occur.

Remember: You can’t educate in a crisis. If audiences need to know something about you, they better know it before a crisis hits. If you need relationships with audiences, build them before your reputation is at stake.

Don’t manage the extraordinary as routine.

- Some crises start with a bang, others with a whisper. Be alert to the potential for an event to evolve into a crisis.

Don’t manage the unusual as a crisis.

- The unusual is the norm these days; don’t create a crisis by overreacting.

Don’t manage only reality when events are being defined by perception.

- How your organization is perceived is reputational reality.

Spokesperson Training

We work with clients to prepare them for media interviews, presentations and other public forums.