When “Business as Usual” Isn’t Enough

Public relations isn’t just for big corporations. For small businesses and nonprofits, it can be the difference between a bad day and a lasting, costly crisis. This edition of Work in Progress explores why proactive communication and public relations planning isn’t just about when a crisis hits, it’s about building trust and clarity that make it easier to weather one.

I’ve learned a lot in these first few months of being a full-time consultant. But honestly, this isn’t unfamiliar territory.

Throughout my career, especially in my various roles at the Lignite Energy Council, I operated as a sort of hybrid consultant. I was accountable to a wide range of stakeholders, each with their own priorities and expectations, and I served their respective stakeholders. My job was to bring all of that together in a way that supported one cohesive mission.

It’s a little different from what I would call a traditional corporate communications role, where the focus is on advancing one organization’s mission and aligning with a smaller set of internal teams. Both are valuable, just different kinds of complexity.

Looking back, my time in both agency and association settings was really a crash course in consulting long before I ever gave it that title.

Now that I’m formally consulting full-time, I see common themes across every organization: people care deeply about what they are building, but their messages and decisions aren’t always aligned. In larger or broader organizations, that misalignment tends to show up between departments or committees. In small businesses and nonprofits, it looks a little different but creates the same strain, just without the extra staff or systems to soften the impact when things go off track.

Those kinds of communication challenges can quietly drain small organizations over time. They are often part and parcel of a broader set of unseen challenges that hold small businesses, nonprofits, and associations back; things that chip away at time, focus, and momentum long before anyone realizes it.

The Unseen Challenges

Here are a few things I’ve noticed that quietly drain small businesses, nonprofits, and associations of time, money, and momentum:

• Burnout from meetings and networking events

• Subscription overload

• Overreliance on social media for lead generation

• Heavy dependence on word-of-mouth marketing

• Outdated or nonexistent market research

• Fragmented branding

• No defined or consistent marketing budget

• Lack of communication systems or staff training

• No structured public relations or reputation plan

The one I want to focus on today is the last one, because it’s something most organizations can fix quickly and affordably, but often don’t consider until it’s too late.

Public relations is more than crisis management, marketing, or press releases. At its core, PR is relationship and trust management.

When Things Go Sideways

If you’re a business owner, do you have a plan for when things go wrong?

A viral social post, a disgruntled former employee, a false claim, an unfortunate comment…these moments can spread fast and hit hard.

Before the internet and social media, reputation management was almost luxurious by comparison. A story might appear in the paper, get read, and be forgotten. Retractions were buried on page 4 of section D – frustrating but official.

Then came the internet, and with it everyone’s opinion: instantly, permanently, and publicly.

Strengthen Your Message Before You Need To

Public relations shouldn’t start when something goes wrong. It should happen well before that, in the everyday choices you make about how and when to communicate.

Here are three simple ways to strengthen your message before you ever need to manage a crisis:

1. Define your “red lines” and write them down.

Every business should know what topics or situations it will never engage with publicly. Politics, social debates, competitor drama - whatever’s off-limits, document it. This can help keep employees and owners from posting impulsively and gives everyone a shared reference point. (Many “PR crises” start because someone didn’t know where the line was.)

2. Build your “holding statement” library.

Before you ever need one, draft 3–5 short statements you can adapt for almost any situation: a mistake, a misunderstanding, a customer complaint, or a community issue. The goal isn’t to sound robotic; it’s to show calm, care, and credibility while you gather facts. (Most large companies have these on file. Small businesses can too.)

3. Establish a “single source” of truth.

Decide now who speaks for the business, how updates are shared, and where your official messages live. Is it your website, a Facebook post, or an email to customers? Mixed messages do more damage than bad news itself. (When things get noisy, clarity and consistency are in control.)

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The Takeaway

Small business PR isn’t about spin; it’s about protecting trust. These three steps cost almost nothing to put in place but can save you from losing time, customers, and credibility when things get messy.