That Solo Life: The Solo PR Pro Podcast
 

That Solo Life: The Solo PR Pro Podcast

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That Solo Life: Co-hosted by Karen Swim, founder of Words for Hire, LLC and owner of Solo PR Pro and Michelle Kane, founder of VoiceMatters, LLC, we keep it real and talk about the topics that affect solo business owners in PR and Marketing and beyond. Learn more about Solo PR Pro: www.SoloPRPro.com

Episodes

The 4 Structural Fixes That Protect Solo PR Pros from Burnout

4 days ago

4 days ago

30 min

Episode Summary

If you've read one burnout wellness listicle, you've read them all — sleep more, take a walk, set boundaries, breathe. Karen and Michelle aren't repeating any of that, because you already know it. Instead, Episode 350 treats burnout as a business risk: something that shows up on your profit and loss statement before it shows up in a therapist's notes. Industry surveys show 91% of PR professionals reported poor mental health in the past year, 54% of solo founders reported burnout, and burnout is now cited as the single biggest predictor of solo business failure, ahead of bad strategy. In the episode, the hosts discuss four fixes, none of them spa days: an absence clause in your standard client agreement, a named backup partner you have already introduced to key clients, a deliberate client mix redesign to reduce decision fatigue, and a financial runway fund treated exactly like a quarterly tax line item. They close on the business case for community — not as a soft add-on, but as the operational fix that addresses isolation at 7.6 out of 10 and gives you back the reality-check system that disappears when you work alone. This is a milestone 350th episode that sounds less like an anniversary, and more like a conversation your business has needed for a while.

Episode Highlights

  • [00:38] Burnout as a Business Risk, Not a Wellness Topic: Karen reframes the episode before the intro ends: this is not a wellness listicle. Burnout shows up on your P&L before it shows up in a therapist's notes. The solo-specific dimension, as Michelle names it, is structural — you are the entire org chart, and there is no one to hand anything to. That changes both the causes and the fixes.
  • [01:51] The Industry Data: What the Numbers Actually Show: Karen walks through PR-specific research: half of PR professionals surveyed had seriously considered leaving in the past year because of burnout, 44% had actually left a previous job for the same reason, 96% report trouble switching off after work, and 88% say work interrupted their vacation at least once — with almost half of those reporting more than three interruptions per year. A separate survey from the PR and Communications Association and the Chartered Institute of PR found 91% of PR professionals reported poor mental health in the past year. Karen and Michelle flag that some of this data is a couple of years old but note nothing about how the industry operates suggests it has improved.
  • [04:47] The Solo-Specific Layer: Burnout as the Top Business Failure Predictor: Founder research places burnout among solo founders at around 54%, with three in four reporting anxiety episodes. The finding that stops Karen mid-sentence: burnout is now cited as the single biggest predictor of solo business failure — ahead of bad strategy, wrong niche, or incorrect pricing. Solo founders self-report loneliness at 7.6 out of 10 on average. Karen's framing: isolation is not just an emotional problem; it is an operational problem with a measurable business cost.
  • [07:29] Why Standard Burnout Advice Doesn't Apply to Solos: The wellness industry's standard prescription assumes a team, a manager, HR, and PTO policies. Solos have none of those. Michelle's point lands clearly: you can't delegate to reduce your load, you can't call in sick without a client impact, and you can't take a vacation without first solving the 'who covers this' problem from scratch. The fixes that work for employed practitioners are structurally inapplicable. You need fixes that match the actual org chart — which is you.
  • [08:43] Fix 1: The Absence Clause in Your Standard Client Agreement: Karen's first structural fix: add a clause to your standard client contract that spells out what happens when you are unavailable, planned or unplanned. What is the notification window, what is the contingency, and who is the named backup? Michelle flags that this is not a sign of weakness but a business continuity feature. Any smart client would want to see it from a vendor they're paying. Karen: tell clients about that arrangement before an emergency forces the conversation, and frame it as exactly what it is.
  • [12:25] Fix 2: A Named Backup Partner You Have Already Introduced: The second fix goes further than just having a backup plan. You need a specific named person your clients already know exists. Not a theoretical arrangement you'd scramble to activate in a crisis, but a relationship you've built in advance with someone whose work you trust and who understands your clients well enough to step in without a cold start. Karen and Michelle both note this is one of the highest-value things the Solo PR Pro community provides: a vetted pool of peers you can actually trust with a client when you need to step back.
  • [16:52] Fix 3: Redesign Your Client Mix to Reduce Decision Fatigue: The Muck Rack data Karen cites shows 45% of PR pros juggling seven or more projects or accounts at once, with workload named as the single biggest stressor in the survey. Michelle makes the decision-fatigue case: ten small project clients each with their own cadence, tools, and personal definition of urgent will burn you out faster than three deeper retainer relationships, even if the revenue is identical because you're spending more of yourself per dollar earned. Fewer relationships, fewer daily judgment calls, less strain on your brain. Karen connects this directly to the specialization economy episode: specializing isn't just a pricing play, it's a nervous system play.
  • [22:59] Fix 4: A Financial Runway Earmarked for Stepping Back: The fourth fix is specific: treat two to four weeks of 'totally unreachable' as a budget line item you're actually saving toward, in the same lane as quarterly taxes. Karen calls it burnout insurance. The logic: if the money already exists for the pause, you are far more likely to take it before you are forced into it by illness or collapse. This doesn't mean saving a large sum immediately; it means building the habit and giving the fund a name, which makes it real rather than just a thought you swat away before the next task.
  • [25:20] Community as an Operational Fix, Not a Soft Add-On: Karen and Michelle close on the business case for community framed explicitly as an operational fix in the same category as a contract clause or a financial buffer. Karen's framing: when you're the only person in the room, you lose the ability to tell the difference between 'this is genuinely urgent' and 'I've been alone with this problem too long and it started to feel enormous.' A peer network gives you that reality-check system back. Michelle: for a solo, community may be the single highest-leverage structural fix on the entire list.
  • [28:10] The One Takeaway Karen Wants You to Leave With: Karen's closing ask: don't let the takeaway be 'try to relax more.' Instead, audit your business the way you would audit a client's crisis plan. Where is your single point of failure? What actually happens if you're offline, unplanned, for 48 hours? If you don't have an answer, that's your project for this month. Not a retreat. Not a spa day. A contract clause, a named backup partner, an honest client mix review, and a runway line item.

Resources & Additional Information

Related Episodes and Community Resources:

Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, President of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.

Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.

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What Solo PR Pros Need to Know Now About the Specialization Economy

Jul 27, 2026

Jul 27, 2026

24 min

Episode Summary

Michelle opens with the question a lot of solo PR pros have been quietly asking themselves: if I call myself a communications generalist on my website right now, am I costing myself money? Karen's answer is immediate — not 'am I?' but 'you already are.' What follows is a data-driven, practically grounded conversation about the specialization economy: the growing body of research across the freelance and independent consulting world in 2026 that shows generalists getting squeezed and specialists pulling away. Karen and Michelle aren't just reporting a trend — they're translating it specifically for PR and communications practitioners who've never had anyone apply this research to their work. The episode covers the bimodal income distribution hiding inside freelance averages, the vertical-horizontal framework for finding your niche, four common objections to specializing (with honest answers to each), a three-question filter for identifying your niche, and the metric-capturing habit that makes specialization pay off over time. This is a conversation for the solo practitioner who has 'I do everything' on their website tonight — and might be ready to change it.

Episode Highlights

  • [00:03] The Opening Question That Frames Everything: Michelle opens before the intro music with a direct question to Karen: if she calls herself a communications generalist on her website right now, is she costing herself money? Karen's answer: not 'am I?' but 'you already are.' The episode's premise is immediate and personal — and Karen and Michelle make clear they're talking to themselves too.
  • [01:05] The Specialization Economy: What the Data Shows: Freelance and independent consulting data in 2026 is pointing in the same direction across multiple sources: generalists are getting squeezed and specialists are pulling away. The average US freelancer earning rate hides what Karen calls 'a canyon' — generalist content and writing on the low end, specialists in high-demand niches billing well over $100 an hour on the high end. Almost nobody is actually earning the average. The floor is dropping for generalized skills; the ceiling is rising for specialized ones. Karen's framing: the middle — 'I'm pretty good at a lot of things' — is where people get stuck. Note: some figures referenced in this episode are still working through the show's verification process; sourcing details will be linked in the resources section as they are confirmed.
  • [04:13] Why Specialization Wins: The Practical Case, Not the Philosophical One: The argument for specializing isn't philosophical — it's structural. A generalist PR consultant competes with an enormous pool of other generalist PR consultants. Someone who specifically handles crisis communications for mid-size healthcare systems competes with a much smaller, more identifiable group. Smaller pool, higher rates, and — critically — the client doesn't have to explain their industry from scratch. That last point is underrated: starting a client engagement already fluent in their world, their vocabulary, and their stakeholders is worth real money. Karen also flags a related shift: companies are increasingly requiring proof of impact before hiring specialists, not just portfolios. That proof is much easier to produce when you've done the same kind of work for the same kind of client repeatedly.
  • [06:40] The Vertical-Horizontal Framework: What Niching Actually Means in Practice: Karen and Michelle push back on the idea that niching just means picking an industry. The framework showing up across freelance research: pick a vertical (the industry — healthcare, legal, fintech, sustainability, professional services) and a horizontal (the service — media relations, crisis management, thought leadership, internal comms, funding round communications). Your niche is the intersection. Examples drawn from recent guests: Sharon Toerek does IP and marketing law for independent agencies. Kara Ryan came up through healthcare communications and built an advisor-led, AI-powered practice on top of that. Both dialed in the vertical and the horizontal. The practical test: once you say your niche out loud, it should stop sounding like a limitation and start sounding like a positioning statement.
  • [09:06] The Filtering Benefit Nobody Talks About Enough: When you're specific, the wrong-fit inquiries mostly stop coming in. You stop getting the 'can you also just quickly help with our internal newsletter' request from an industry you don't want to be in. Positioning does some of your qualifying for you before the discovery call even happens. Karen and Michelle note this is deeply connected to scope creep — a topic worth its own episode.
  • [10:02] Specialization Is an Income Stability Conversation, Not Just a Rate Conversation: Once you're known for a specific thing, you stop pitching one-off projects and start getting asked to stay. Broader freelance data shows a large majority of hiring managers plan to lean more on freelance and fractional talent for ongoing work — and that shift toward retainers happens specifically because specialists make ongoing relationships easy to justify. Nobody keeps a generalist on retainer. The FinTech thought leadership expert stays. The practical consequence: niching is often what makes the retainer conversation possible in the first place, and retainers solve the feast-or-famine cycle that most solo practitioners experience.
  • [12:41] Four Objections — With Honest Answers: Karen and Michelle work through the four most common pushbacks they hear in the Solo PR Pro community. One: I'll turn away good work and go broke. Honest answer — there is a real ramp-up period of roughly six to twelve months; don't torch your existing client base overnight, shift new business conversations while honoring existing relationships. Two: my market is too small. Counter with math — a few hundred mid-sized healthcare systems in the country, you only need a handful of retained clients for a full solo practice; smaller pool of competitors is not the same as a smaller pool of clients. Three: I'll get bored. Flips the other way — as a generalist, every new client is a cold start; as a specialist, the energy goes into strategy instead of orientation. Four (the quiet one): what if I pick the wrong niche? 
  • [16:16] The Three-Question Filter (Plus an Unofficial Fourth): A practical framework for identifying your niche. Question 1: Where do you already have an unfair advantage? Past industry experience, a network, credentials, lived experience — something that means you start ahead of a stranger walking in cold. Question 2: Where's the budget? You can be brilliant in a niche that simply doesn't spend on PR. Healthcare, legal, financial services, B2B tech consistently show up as categories with real comms budgets. Question 3: Can you say it in one sentence — and does that sentence make a stranger say 'I know exactly who needs you'? If it requires three qualifying clauses, it's not sharp enough yet. The unofficial fourth: are you willing to hold the line publicly? Your website, your LinkedIn, your pitch all need to stay consistent or the positioning won't do its work.
  • [18:11] Running the Filter Live: The In-House Bank Example: Karen and Michelle run a hypothetical listener through the filter: six years in-house at a regional bank, now doing a bit of everything for small business clients. Unfair advantage: already fluent in financial services vocabulary, compliance, and regulatory relationships — most PR consultants would need a year to learn that. Budget: financial services and fintech are consistently well-funded for communications. One sentence: 'I help community banks and credit unions navigate media and regulatory communications.' Karen: say that at a conference and watch how fast someone says 'I know someone who needs that.'
  • [20:28] How to Prove It's Working: The Metric-Capturing Habit: For every engagement going forward in your niche, capture one number — one sentence, one metric, one outcome. Not a dramatic case study, just: 'Positioned the founder as a category expert; three inbound press inquiries within a month of the first byline running.' Build a running document, whether in Notion, a notes app, or wherever your system lives. Michelle: build it into your closeout process for every wrapped engagement, and into every campaign, not just every full client relationship. Karen: future you will be very grateful.

Related Episodes

Resources & Additional Information

Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, President of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.

Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.

Did this episode inspire you? If you found value in this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more solo pros just like you! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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The Hidden Messages for Solo PR Pros in the Muck Rack State of PR Report

Jul 20, 2026

Jul 20, 2026

18 min

Episode Summary

Muck Rack's State of PR 2026 report surveyed 971 PR professionals. Only 18% were solos. The rest were mostly from agencies and in-house teams — which means that when the report says 66% of PR pros rate their stress above five out of ten, or that 55% worked more than 40 hours last week, those numbers were never really measuring a department of one. Karen and Michelle decided to build the solo column themselves. This episode takes three of the report's most significant findings and translates them through the solo lens: first, why the stress and workload data almost certainly understates what solos are experiencing; second, why the industry's move toward volume pitching at the exact moment journalists are demanding relevance is actually good news for solo practitioners who were never going to out-blast a team of account coordinators; and third, why the GEO ownership vacuum — 29% of organizations say no one owns it — is one of the clearest competitive opportunities solos have right now. Karen and Michelle also draw on Muck Rack's companion State of Journalism 2026 report throughout, giving the journalist perspective that makes the pitching data land harder. This is a data-driven, translation episode built for the practitioner the industry keeps forgetting to count.

Episode Highlights

  • [00:03] The Opening Question That Frames Everything: Karen opens without a greeting: 'Quick question before we even say hello. Did you read Muck Rack's new State of PR report and feel like it was describing someone else's job?' Michelle's answer: she pored through it, noticed only 18% of respondents were solos, and across every chart — stress, hours, pitching, GEO — there was no solo column. The episode's mission: build that column themselves.
  • [02:17] The Report Was Not Built for You — and the Data Understates Your Load: Karen walks through the report's sample: 971 usable responses, 56% agencies, 18% solo. When the report says 66% rate their stress above five out of ten, or that 77% worked after hours at least once last week — those numbers come largely from people with a team absorbing some of the load: an account coordinator to pick up an email thread, an intern to build the coverage report, a colleague to cover a sick day. There is no chart in this report for running all of those roles simultaneously.
  • [03:43] What Freelance and Creative Industry Research Fills In: Because Muck Rack didn't ask solos specifically, Karen and Michelle pull parallel research from broader freelance and creative industry studies. The finding: the majority of freelancers report burnout symptoms, and a notable share describe energy depletion even when logging fewer hours than a traditional employee. The theory is that when you're responsible for delivery, sales, admin, and income security simultaneously, the load doesn't show up as more hours — it shows up as more weight per hour. Michelle: 'Boy, isn't that the truth.'
  • [05:53] Segment 2: Precision Over Volume — Why Solos Are Already Winning the Pitch Game: 49% of PR pros say they pitch more than 20 journalists per campaign. 24% pitch more than 50. Meanwhile, personalization is moving in the wrong direction: only 66% say they always or usually personalize pitches, down from 70% last year, and 73% of those who do personalize are only changing a few sentences. The trend line: pitch more people, customize less per person. And then the number that should stop everyone doing this cold.
  • [06:56] 88% of Journalists Immediately Delete Irrelevant Pitches: Karen and Michelle pulled Muck Rack's companion State of Journalism 2026 report directly. 88% of journalists say they immediately delete a pitch that is irrelevant to their coverage — the single biggest reason pitches get trashed, ahead of being overly promotional at 71% and looking like a mass email at 50%. And 70% say the number one thing a pitch should demonstrate is clear relevance to their beat — ahead of interview access, data, and everything else. 43% say relevant pitches are seldom or never what they actually receive. A journalist quoted in the open-ended responses: 'Don't pitch widely, pitch selectively and then widen as needed.'
  • [09:42] The Solo Reframe: Your Constraint Is Actually Your Strategy: Karen's line: you were never going to out-blast a team with a subscription database and three account coordinators. You cannot pitch 50 people with real personalization by yourself. But the data shows that is exactly the wrong strategy anyway. The industry is trading relevance for reach at the moment journalists are punishing that trade. What solos assumed was a disadvantage turns out to be pointing them at the right approach by default. It's not that you need a bigger list — you need a sharper one. 15 real relationships outperform 50 cold contacts.
  • [11:53] The GEO Ownership Vacuum Is a Solo Opportunity: 73% of PR pros say GEO is at least somewhat important to their strategy. But 29% — the single largest group — say no one owns it at their organization. Another 13% are not sure who does. PR and comms claim it only 24% of the time. SEO or content teams claim it 15% of the time. The rest is scattered across marketing leadership and dedicated AI teams. For solos: there is no committee, no turf war, no meeting to schedule to decide whose job it is. That decision was already made.
  • [16:34] The GEO Tactics Already in Reach: The tactics the report lists for building AI visibility are all single-person tasks: 55% are securing coverage in high-authority publications, half are creating authoritative or data-driven content, half are optimizing for search, and 44% are structuring content with clear answers and FAQ formats so AI tools can extract it easily. None of these require cross-functional sign-off. Michelle's observation: if you start now informally, you may not be behind at all — you may be ahead of larger organizations still arguing about who owns this.
  • [18:33] Three Takeaways for Solo Practitioners: First: trust your own stress and workload data more than what this report says — it was never measuring a department of one. Second: shrink your pitch list and go deeper, letting this data give you permission to stop trying to out-volume agencies with ten times your headcount. Third: claim GEO now, informally, before anyone tells you it's yours to claim — pick one tactic and start.

Resources & Additional Information

Note on sourcing: all statistics referenced in this episode are drawn from Muck Rack's State of PR 2026 and State of Journalism 2026 reports. Links to both reports are above. Freelance burnout data is from broader creative industry research cited in the episode — verify against primary sources before external publication.

Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent or small-agency practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, President of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.

Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.

Did this episode inspire you? If you found value in this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your feedback helps us reach more solo pros just like you! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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Why Senior PR Pros Should Focus on Development Not Decline

Jul 13, 2026

Jul 13, 2026

24 min

That Solo Life Episode 347: Why Senior PR Pros Should Focus on Development Not Decline

Episode Summary

Are you in the later stages of your Solo PR career?  Today’s episode of That Solo Life is one of the most grounded, research-backed, and genuinely useful conversations the show has had about what it means to be a late-career practitioner in an AI-dominated landscape — and why the narrative telling experienced pros they're behind the curve is not only wrong, it's the exact opposite of what the evidence shows. Karen and Michelle walk through the real data on AI adoption, two peer-reviewed studies that directly challenge the 'experience is a liability' myth, a practical three-bucket framework for deciding what to ignore, what to adopt, and what to anchor, four mindset shifts for the final stretch, and three action items that can be done this week. The tone throughout is not inspirational poster energy. It's honest, warm, and built for practitioners who are genuinely tired and need a practical path forward, not another list of tools to chase.

 

Episode Highlights

  • [00:25] The Opening Sentence That Names What Everyone Is Feeling: Michelle opens with what she calls 'a statement a lot of our listeners have either said out loud or are saying to themselves': she's five years from wrapping up her career, and she just doesn't have it in her to learn one more new tool. Karen doesn't argue. She validates it — and then reframes it. The feeling isn't laziness or fear. It's the cumulative weight of four or five complete technology revolutions inside a single career.
  • [01:59] The Real Weight of Experience: Four Technology Revolutions in One Career: Karen lists what experienced PR pros have already navigated in a single career: typewriters to desktop publishing, fax machines to email, print media to social, and now AI. The question she frames for the rest of the episode: the real question isn't 'can I learn this?' — you've already proven you can, repeatedly. The question is how much of this do you actually need to learn, and how do you protect your energy for what matters most.
  • [03:16] The Data on the AI Usage Gap — and What It Actually Means: Karen cites National Bureau of Economic Research data: AI tool usage at work is about 34% for workers under 40, and about 17% for workers 50 and up. That gap is real. But the research also shows it's not about ability — it's about confidence and on-ramps. Nobody handed experienced practitioners a clear 'start here' door. The industry is selling urgency, not discernment. And discernment is exactly what experience builds.
  • [04:41] Busting the Myth: Experience Is Not a Liability in an AI World: The myth Karen and Michelle want to kill: that going further along in your career means you're slower, behind, and less valuable in an AI world. The counter-argument is research-backed. As AI makes production work cheaper, what becomes scarce and valuable is judgment — knowing what's worth doing, what's true, and what will land with a reporter versus blow up in a client's face. Karen's line: you cannot prompt your way to 30 years of pattern recognition.
  • [05:51] Two Studies That Prove Experience Is an Advantage, Not a Liability: Karen cites two unexpected findings. A University of Mannheim study of BMW plant workers found productivity actually increased with age, right up to retirement — because veterans knew which problems were expensive and headed them off before they occurred. A North Carolina State study of software developers found that older programmers knew a wider range of topics, answered questions better, and in some cases were more adept with newer systems. The researcher's theory: if you're fluent in old technology, you understand new technology better because you know what problem it's solving.
  • [09:48] The Three-Bucket Framework: Ignore, Adopt, Anchor: The practical core of the episode. Ignore: the platform of the month (if it's durable, it'll still be there in a year), tool maximalism (one capable AI assistant covers the overwhelming majority of actual work), becoming a technologist (fluency, not engineering), and anything you're only doing out of fear. Adopt: baseline AI fluency using one tool for real tasks, and understanding how audiences are now finding information through AI rather than clicking through to websites. Anchor: the things you don't age out of — judgment, relationships, trust built over decades, storytelling, strategy, and ethics.
  • [15:30] Anchor: The Things You Don't Age Out Of: Karen's framing for the anchor bucket: as the tools get cheaper, your judgment gets more valuable. This includes knowing what not to publish, when to tell a client to stay quiet, and how to catch the AI-generated thing that is confidently, completely wrong. Michelle: that last one is becoming a job all in itself. Karen's reframe for the whole framework: the new tools handle the first draft. You handle the final judgment. That's not a demotion. That's the senior seat. You've earned the editor's chair.
  • [16:33] Four Mindset Shifts for the Final Stretch: Development not decline — treat this stage as its own stage with its own strengths, not as a countdown. Curiosity over mastery — you don't have to be the best at the new thing, just conversant enough that you're never in a meeting where a term comes up and you have no idea what it means. Pick one tool and go deep — depth in one beats a panic attack across many. Partner, don't martyr — bring in a younger pro or a specialist for execution-heavy tasks; you bring the strategy and judgment, they bring the hands-on tooling. Everybody wins.
  • [21:04] Legacy: The Mindset Piece That Reframes Everything: The fourth mindset shift is the one that hits differently: legacy. The mentoring, the coaching, the teaching, the writing — these are not the consolation prize of winding down. They are how your judgment keeps compounding and outlives your client roster. At this stage, the experience is the product. And that's exactly what the Solo PR Pro community is built around — a private, safe place to ask the questions you don't want to ask out loud in front of a client or prospect.
  • [22:07] Three Action Items — Small Ones: Karen closes with three specific, this-week actions. Pick one AI assistant and use it for one real task — not a course, not a certification, just one task. Take your 'supposed to learn' list and run it through the three-bucket framework — cross out everything in the ignore column and watch the list get lighter. Have one conversation about partnering — find one execution-heavy thing you keep avoiding and find a person to delegate it to, not to learn it.

Resources & Additional Information

Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, President of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.

Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.

Did this episode inspire you? If you found value in this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your feedback helps us reach more solo pros just like you! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

View more

Why Independent PR Firms Are Outperforming Holding Companies Right Now

Jul 6, 2026

Jul 6, 2026

21 min

That Solo Life Episode 346: Why Independent PR Firms Are Outperforming Holding Companies Right Now

Episode Summary

It's the week after the Fourth of July, and Karen and Michelle are talking about a different kind of independence. It turns out that the future of PR looks a lot like its past: closer to the work, the relationships, and the accountability that got lost as holding companies scaled. Karen and Michelle walk through the data backing that argument — holding company headcount cuts, a Forrester forecast for 2026, independent firm revenue and growth figures, and a client tenure study that should make every solo practitioner feel validated. This is a celebratory, data-backed episode about why this moment belongs to independent practitioners, and a reminder that going solo doesn't mean going it alone.

 

Episode Highlights

  • [01:13] The Article That Sparked This Episode: Karen and Michelle discuss a PR News article by Jennifer Risi founder and president of The Sway Effect, titled “Old School Is the New School: How Independent PR Is Outrunning the Holding Company Model.” According to the article the future of PR looks like its past, not the bloated, multi-layered approval structures that came with scale, but direct relationships, accountability, and responsiveness.
  • [02:29] The Industry Backdrop: Mergers, Layoffs, and a Symbolic Real Estate Shift: The article was published around Cannes Lions, timed against a wave of holding company consolidation, including a major agency merger referenced in the piece. Michelle highlights a striking detail: WPP gave up its longtime beach space at Cannes, and an independent agency took it over, a literal changing of the guard discussed in the original article.
  • [03:10] The Headcount Numbers Behind the Shift: According to the article, holding companies cut headcount by an average of 8% in 2025, with a Forrester forecast cited for a 15% reduction in 2026. Karen and Michelle are clear that this isn't something to celebrate,  hey don't take pleasure in layoffs or peers in the industry struggling,  but the data underscores the structural shift taking place. All source data referenced in the episode will be linked in the show notes.
  • [05:59] Independent Firms Are Posting Real Growth: Citing O’Dwyer's 2026 independent PR firm rankings, the independent sector pushed combined fee income to $4.8 billion, with nearly a third of the top 140 independent firms surveyed posting double-digit growth in the same year holding companies were announcing layoffs. Karen and Michelle's takeaway for solo listeners who haven't seen that kind of growth yet: there is work being awarded right now, and consistency in business development matters more than ever.
  • [07:08] Independent Clients Stick Around Longer: A 2025 joint study from the ANA and the 4A's found that clients stay with independent agencies an average of 7.3 years, compared to 5.8 years at holding company agencies. Karen notes this surprised her. She expected the gap to be even wider based on anecdotal experience with solo practitioners but the data confirms what many independents have felt for years: that tenure reflects trust renewed over and over again, not just convenience.
  • [10:21] Why Now? Two Forces Colliding: Michelle frames the moment as two things happening at once. The holding company model scaled to a point where margin optimization started to outweigh relationship investment. At the same time, AI emerged and gave independent practitioners the tools to work smarter and keep pace without the overhead that scale requires.
  • [11:11] The Counterintuitive AI Argument: Judgment Becomes More Valuable, Not Less: The article asserts that AI doesn't make communications less important; it makes human judgment more valuable. When the media environment is fragmented, and machine-generated content adds speed and volume to an already chaotic landscape, clients need a human who can say what's actually real, what matters, and what to do next. That judgment cannot be automated and it does not live in headcount, it lives in a person.
  • [13:14] Independence Means Choosing What You Carry: Independence isn't the absence of structure, it's choosing what structure to carry. For a solo practitioner, that means no committee, no internal routing, no extra layers, just the strategy, the execution, and the phone call. Karen adds an honest counterpoint: that freedom carries real weight too, and most solos who are drawn to this work want that weight. It's not a burden when it's the work you signed up for.
  • [16:19] The Honest Tension: Concentration Without a Bench: Michelle names the tradeoff directly. Being the whole agency means there's no one to hand a midnight crisis to, no colleague down the hall to sanity-check a risky call. The freedom and the isolation come in the same box. Karen's answer is the Solo PR Pro community — built specifically to give independent practitioners the peer support, expertise, and gut-checks that solo work doesn't naturally include.

Resources & Additional Information

Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, President of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.

Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.

Did this episode inspire you? If you found value in this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your feedback helps us reach more solo pros just like you! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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The New Rules of Trust but Verify

Jun 29, 2026

Jun 29, 2026

20 min

That Solo Life Episode 345: The New Rules of Trust but Verify

Episode Summary

Every solo PR pro has heard the same directive for the past year: show up in AI search. Get cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, and the rest. But Karen and Michelle pose a different question: when AI mentions your client, does anyone actually believe what it says? New research says visibility and believability are two distinct jobs, and most practitioners have only been working on one. Karen walks through Burson's new Credibility Paradox report (with Profound), which analyzed roughly 55,000 believability forecasts across 85 companies and seven AI platforms. The headline finding: executive and leadership messaging is the least believable claim type across every industry studied, while third-party proof — product results, workplace recognition, and independent coverage — ranks highest. Karen and Michelle unpack why this is genuinely good news for solo practitioners, why it doesn't mean ditching executive thought leadership, and what to actually do about it starting Monday morning.

 

Episode Highlights

  • [01:54] The Credibility Paradox: Visibility Is Necessary But Not Sufficient: Burson's new report, produced with Profound, ran roughly 55,000 believability forecasts across 85 companies on seven major AI platforms. The headline finding: simply being mentioned by an AI tool is not the win. The real work now is building enough evidence around a brand that the AI's answer is actually believable to the people who matter.
  • [03:01] The Finding That Stops Practitioners in Their Tracks: Leadership Messaging Ranks Least Believable: Across every industry studied, executive and leadership claims scored as the least believable claim type. The highest-scoring claims were product results, innovation, workplace recognition, and other third-party signals, proof that comes from somewhere other than the brand's own mouth. Karen is careful to note the nuance: this does not mean executive thought leadership is worthless. It means leadership messaging is the lowest-leverage lever for believability when it isn't anchored to proof.
  • [05:40] What This Looks Like on a Real Account: Karen walks through a practical example: a SaaS founder wants to be known as the most innovative platform in their category. An AI tool can repeat that claim, but a skeptical buyer will read it as marketing and discount it. Compare that to an independent review site ranking the same company, a trade outlet covering a customer's actual results, or a workplace award genuinely earned. Same underlying message, completely different believability. The shift isn't to stop telling the story. It's to get credible third parties to tell it alongside you.
  • [07:37] The Good News: Earned Media Is Quantifiably the Most Believable Lever: A 2026 Stacker study found that distributed earned media drove a 239% lift in AI citations compared to owned content alone. Separately, Muck Rack's analysis of over 25 million links found earned media accounts for roughly 82–84% of all AI citations. For solo practitioners, this reframes years of fuzzy ROI conversations into one of the most quantified arguments for earned media ever, and it's a number a budget-holding client can understand immediately.
  • [10:36] Why Solos Specifically Win Here: You Don't Need a Paid Media Budget: The believability lever that matters most - earned coverage and third-party proof - is exactly the lever solo practitioners are already built to pull without a paid media budget. Karen's framing is that you can't always outspend a big agency, but you can outearn them. AI didn't make solo practitioners obsolete. It handed them the receipts.
  • [11:34] The Foolproofing: Buyers Still Verify Before They Trust: A third report, G2's Answer Economy study, surveyed over 1,000 B2B software buyers and found only 2% will buy from an AI-recommended brand without verifying it first, and 69% of those who verified ended up choosing a different vendor than originally planned. The conclusion: the AI conversation doesn't replace human trust, it feeds into it. The proof a practitioner builds is exactly what's waiting when a buyer goes to verify.
  • [13:11] Judgment Is the Scarce Resource, Not Content: AI can draft a press release in nine seconds. It cannot tell a practitioner whether that's the right tactic for the right client at the right moment. Karen and Michelle make the case that experienced judgment, knowing which proof point actually moves believability for a specific client, in a specific industry, with a specific buyer, is the solo PR pro's defining advantage in the AI era. It is not something a tool can be prompted into replicating.
  • [18:10] The Monday Morning Action: Ask AI What It Says About Your Client: Karen's first practical step is to ask an AI tool what it currently says about your client, then read the answer the way a skeptical buyer would. Is it leaning on the brand's own claims, or on verifiable third-party proof? The second step is take an hour that would normally go toward polishing executive voice and redirect it toward harvesting one piece of third-party proof,  a review, a pitch, or an award worth pursuing.

Resources & Additional Information

Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, President of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.

Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.

Did this episode inspire you? If you found value in this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your feedback helps us reach more solo pros just like you! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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The Secrets that Filmmakers Know About Marketing That Most Business Owners Never Learn

Jun 22, 2026

Jun 22, 2026

28 min

That Solo Life Episode 344: The Secrets that Filmmakers Know About Marketing That Most Business Owners Never Learn with Jake Isham

Episode Summary

Jake Isham describes himself as an accidental marketer. He went to film school, realized he wasn't going back for a grad degree, and spent his 20s learning to build a business the hard way. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Creative Minds, a creative agency rooted in filmmaking and storytelling that helps entrepreneurs build personal brands through video content, photography, and a signature podcast model that takes clients out of the studio and into the environments where they actually come alive. 

In this episode, Jake joins Karen and Michelle to talk about his journey and the hard-won lessons along the way.  He breaks down how a filmmaker's lens changes the work he does for clients, why the Hero's Journey is a more useful brand-building framework than most marketing playbooks, how his on-location podcast model turns a client's hobby into a content engine, and the business development principle that he wishes someone had told him on day one: promote at a volume that feels impossible, measure the results six weeks later, and get 1% better every time.

 

Episode Highlights

  • [01:43] The Accidental Marketer Origin Story: Jake went to film school, considered grad school for about a semester, and decided he'd already spent four years doing what he was about to spend two and a half more years doing. What followed was a decade of figuring it out, freelancing, building, and course-correcting, guided by a piece of advice from his father.
  • [07:35] The Filmmaker's Lens: Why the Hero's Journey Is the Real Brand Framework: When everyone claims to tell stories, the differentiator is understanding what storytelling actually means. Jake draws the line between sharing an anecdote and structuring a narrative. payoff. He uses Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey as a practical brand-building tool: who is your hero, who is your enemy, who are your allies, what are you standing for, what are you standing against. These are the questions that build a brand identity rather than a content calendar.
  • [10:24] Getting Clients Comfortable on Camera: Jake's superpower as a director is making people comfortable in front of a camera, and he leverages that in his work with clients.  He describes a client whose first shoot took four hours with a teleprompter. Their most recent shoot took one hour, no teleprompter, off the top of his head, and produced more usable content than the first session ever did. The skill is not just technical but the accumulated experience of working with actors, directing scenes, and creating the conditions for someone to be fully themselves.
  • [12:30] The Signature Series Podcast Model: Rather than building another studio podcast, Jake developed a signature format: take the client's hobby or genuine interest and build a location-based show around it. A golf enthusiast on the course. A client at their place of worship. The host is in an environment that makes them feel natural and engaged, which changes everything about how they show up on camera. 
  • [20:12] The Business Development Truth Nobody Tells Creative Entrepreneurs: When asked what he wishes someone had told him at the start, Jake doesn't hesitate: promote, promote, promote, promote. He describes watching a gym owner tell his mentor he had distributed 300 flyers. The mentor's response: I do 5,000 a day. The lesson is not that what you're doing is wrong. It is that you are almost certainly not doing it at anywhere near the volume required. Jake shared the experiment he used and the data that he relies on for business development success.  
  • [23:04] The Six-Week Lag: How to Measure Business Development Without Losing Your Mind: Jake has identified a consistent pattern in his own practice in which promotion activity produces income results approximately six weeks later. The implication is practical and clarifying. Don't judge a business development effort in the first six weeks. Measure from week six to week twelve. 
  • [26:52] The 1% Better Principle: Why You Don't Need to Leap to Progress: Jake co-hosts a filmmaking show called The Creative Lens. He shows his first episode as an example: his setup was visibly rough next to his co-host's polished rig. By episode eight or nine, the gap had closed — not through a single overhaul, but through consistent incremental improvement. One better backdrop. One better light. One more structured opening. He applies the same logic to business development: not 100 posts more, but one more post. Not a complete brand overhaul, but one sharper headline. Get 1% better. Then do it again.

 

About Jake Isham

Jake Isham is a filmmaker, photographer, and the owner and founder of Creative Minds, a creative agency focused on personal brand building through video content, photography, and signature podcast production. After film school and a brief flirtation with grad school, Jake spent his 20s learning how to build a business without a mentor and without a safety net — and has turned that hard-won experience into a practice that helps entrepreneurs show up authentically on camera and build content strategies that compound over time. He is also the co-host of The Creative Lens, a podcast about filmmaking, gear, and the business of visual storytelling. Jake is based in the Los Angeles area and works with entrepreneurs building personal brands at every stage.

Resources & Related Episodes

Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, President of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.

Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.

Did this episode inspire you? If you found value in this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review. Your feedback helps us reach more solo pros just like you! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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What Solo PR Pros Need to Know About IP, AI Legal Risk and Building a More Valuable Agency

Jun 15, 2026

Jun 15, 2026

34 min

That Solo Life Episode 343: What Solo PR Pros Need to Know About IP, AI Legal Risk and Building a More Valuable Agency

Episode Summary

Most solo practitioners have contracts. What they don't have is a strategy. Sharon Toerek, founder and principal of Legal+Creative | Toerek Law, and an intellectual property attorney whose entire practice serves independent marketing, advertising, PR, and creative services agencies, joins Karen and Michelle to make the case she has been making for years — and that most of us have never fully absorbed. Legal protection is not a cost center; it is a profit center. The frameworks you've built, the methodologies you've refined, the media lists you've curated, the processes you've quietly deployed for every client engagement are intellectual property. This means that many of them can be protected, packaged, and monetized. Sharon walks through her IP Triangle framework, breaks down the specific AI legal risks that every solo practitioner using AI tools needs to understand, and closes with the practical advice that runs through everything she does: focus on progress over perfection, start with one thing, and don't wait for the exit to start caring about what you've built.

 

Episode Highlights

  • [04:25] Legal as a Profit Center, Not a Cost: Sharon reframes the entire conversation about legal investment. Most agency owners think about legal as defense — something you pay for when things go wrong. Sharon's argument is different: a well-negotiated client agreement directly impacts the revenue you capture from that relationship. Exclusivity should carry a premium. Payment terms are a negotiating lever, not a formality. And the intellectual property you've built has monetization potential that most solos have never explored. The mindset shift from legal-as-expense to legal-as-revenue-strategy is the foundation of everything that follows.
  • [09:26] You Have IP You Don't Know About: Karen names the pattern that runs through the solo practitioner community: years of developed workflows, methodologies, and frameworks, quietly deployed in every client engagement, never formally recognized as assets. Sharon validates this and introduces the essential caveat: not all IP has equal economic value. The discipline is in the inventory — taking stock of what you have, assessing which of it is genuinely differentiating, and then deciding what to protect and how.
  • [10:44] The IP Triangle: Brand, Content, Transactions: Sharon's framework for assessing and protecting agency IP has three points. Brand: the names, systems, methods, and proprietary products you've developed — protectable through trademark. Content: your media lists, content libraries, proprietary processes, anything that gives you a competitive advantage in your vertical — protectable through trade secret or copyright law, depending on whether it's public-facing. Transactions: the agreements that govern work flowing out of the agency (licenses, deliverables) and into it — critically, the contracts with freelancers and 1099 contractors that determine whether you actually own the work you paid for. Walk through all three. Do the inventory. Then figure out what it means for your pricing and packaging.
  • [16:29] IP and the Exit Strategy Most Agency Owners Haven't Considered: Karen raises the question that matters to practitioners thinking about the next chapter: how should mid-to-late career agency owners be thinking about their IP right now? Sharon has seen agencies with a defined body of protected IP achieve business valuations significantly higher than comparable agencies without it. She has also seen owners who aren't ready to leave the work entirely create separate buyers for the client book and the intellectual property, keeping the asset they built while transitioning the day-to-day. The options multiply when you've done the work ahead of time. The time to start is not at the exit.
  • [23:24] AI and the Two Legal Risk Areas Every Practitioner Needs to Understand: Sharon is direct: every conversation at her firm right now touches AI in some way. The risk landscape falls into two areas. First: intellectual property — who owns work created with AI, and who is liable if AI-generated content infringes a third party's rights. Second: data privacy and confidentiality — how easy it is to accidentally breach client confidentiality by feeding sensitive information into AI tools, and how exposed practitioners become when contractors use free AI accounts that train on every input. Both risks are manageable. Neither is optional to address.
  • [24:30] What Needs to Be in Your Contracts Right Now: Sharon gets specific. Every client engagement agreement and every independent contractor agreement needs language covering: IP ownership for AI-generated work, IP infringement responsibility, and what happens to confidential client information when AI tools are used to process it. Beyond the contracts, she recommends an internal AI policy and a conversation guide for discussing AI use with clients before an engagement begins. The goal is alignment before the work starts, not damage control after.
  • [29:23] Progress Over Perfection: Where to Start: Sharon closes with the advice that runs through everything she does: don't let the size of the opportunity paralyze you. If you haven't signed a new contract with a long-term client in five years, start there. If you know you have systems and methodologies worth protecting, start the inventory. Pick one thing, do it, then do another. The legal and financial advisors come later. Today, look at what you have and start making lists.

About Sharon Toerek

Sharon Toerek is the founder and principal of Toerek Law, known through her brand Legal+Creative, an intellectual property law firm whose practice is devoted exclusively to independent marketing, advertising, PR, and creative services agencies. She created the Agency Protection System and the AI Agency Legal Toolkit, a practical resource for navigating the fast-moving legal landscape around artificial intelligence. Sharon speaks regularly at industry events, including Inbound, Content Marketing World, and the Build a Better Agency Summit, and serves on the 4A's legal consultants panel. She is also the host of The Innovative Agency podcast, which covers innovation, business development, technology, and creativity for agency owners.

You can connect with Sharon at legalandcreative.com or via LinkedIn.

Resources & Additional Information

 

Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, President of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.

Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.

Did this episode inspire you? If you found value in this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review at That Solo Life. Your feedback helps us reach more solo pros just like you! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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What the 2026 USC Global Communications Report Says About PR Today

Jun 8, 2026

Jun 8, 2026

24 min

That Solo Life Episode 342: What the 2026 USC Global Communications Report Says About PR Today

Episode Summary

Karen and Michelle open with a question that lands before the intro music fades: When was the last time a client approved a statement without pushback? The answer tells you everything about the communications environment right now and so does the report they spend this episode unpacking. The USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations 2026 Global Communications Report, titled A Quiet Shift, surveyed over 700 PR professionals, more than 1,000 members of the general public, and conducted one-on-one interviews with Fortune 500 chief communications officers. Karen and Michelle read it with the solo and independent practitioner in mind and pull three findings that are immediately relevant to how you counsel clients, frame messages, and navigate a landscape that has shifted more dramatically in two years than many expected. A fourth and fifth finding will be covered in a future episode, and in an exclusive YouTube behind-the-mic segment, the co-hosts announce at the close.

Episode Highlights

  • [03:01] The Perception Gap — You Feel It More Than Your Clients Do: The report identifies a meaningful gap between how PR professionals perceive the current environment and how the general public does. 81% of PR professionals say polarization is extremely or very high right now — but only 69% of the general public agrees. That 12-point gap has practical implications for how practitioners advise clients. Karen asks the key question: are you advising clients based on your own anxiety about the landscape, or are you exercising the restraint that meets your audience where they actually are? The solo advantage here is real — without agency layers and group dynamics amplifying collective anxiety, solos have more room to reality-test their instincts before they become strategy.
  • [08:52] Corporate Social Advocacy Has Retreated — Sharply and Fast: The data on this one is stark. In 2023 and 2024, 89% and 85% of PR professionals respectively, said companies have a responsibility to advocate for social issues. By 2026, that number has dropped to 55%. The general public sits even lower at 42%. The drop took two years. For practitioners working with nonprofits, purpose-driven brands, or clients whose missions touch social issues, the wind is no longer at your back — but it hasn't stopped blowing. The shift is not uniform: 6 in 10 Gen Z and 7 in 10 millennial PR professionals still hold this belief. Understanding your client's audience generation is now essential to calibrating how hard to push on purpose-driven messaging.
  • [14:55] The Content That Disappeared After the 2024 Election — and What Replaced It: Using exclusive data from Cometrics.io, the report analyzed LinkedIn posts from 6,317 C-suite executives at Fortune 500 companies across a six-month window before and after the November 2024 election. The volume of communication stayed the same. The topics shifted dramatically. AI and agents content rose 75%. Cybersecurity up 29%. Technology ethics up 27%. On the other side: LGBTQ+ content dropped 77%. Greenhouse gas content down 50%. Net zero down 44%. DEI content down 13% — though Karen and Michelle both note that number is likely understated by now. A separate Meltwater analysis of media coverage tracked the same pattern. The practical implication: if your clients have content in the declining categories, the framing strategy has to change. The story doesn't stop — but how you tell it does.
  • [20:08] What Solo PR Pros Do With This Information: Karen and Michelle close with the practitioner application: if a client's content falls in the declining categories, you don't stop. You reframe. You spend more time at the strategy table. You adjust how the message lands without abandoning who the client is. Michelle's reminder: your voice as a practitioner is still your voice. You navigate circumstances — you don't abandon your position. And if a client's business includes a credible AI story, tell it. If they aren't, others are telling it for them.

Coming up: Karen and Michelle will cover additional findings from the USC report in an exclusive behind-the-mic YouTube segment for deeper discussion.

Resources & Additional Information

Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, President of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.

Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.

Did this episode inspire you? If you found value in this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review https://www.thatsololife.com/rate/. Your feedback helps us reach more solo pros just like you! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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The Leap, the AI Edge and Authentic Leadership

Jun 1, 2026

Jun 1, 2026

42 min

That Solo Life Episode 341: The Leap, the AI Edge and Authentic Leadership

Episode Summary

Kara Ryan spent 20 years of her career navigating corporate communications in some of the most regulated industries in the world - financial services, healthcare, and medical devices. In April of this year, she closed that chapter and opened Klyr Strategies, a solo communications advisory built upon the high-stakes moments that her clients face, such as product launches, leadership transitions, acquisitions, and IPO preparation. She joins Karen and Michelle just weeks into her solo journey, which makes this conversation something rare, equal parts seasoned practitioner wisdom and unfiltered, real-time solopreneur start-up experience. The conversation covers the financial math and mindset behind making the leap, the structural surprises that hit early, and how Kara's "advisor-led and AI-powered" approach works in practice — including why she's upfront with clients about using AI and how she keeps their data secure. She also shares her strongest professional conviction: that authenticity in leadership communication is a strategic discipline, not a personality trait, and that communicators are uniquely positioned to address it. This is a conversation for anyone who has done all the right things in corporate and still feels like something is missing.

 

Episode Highlights

  • [02:29] The Slow Burn Decision to Go Solo: Kara always pictured working for herself — but it took 20 years, a turning-40 moment of reflection, and the realization that the job market wasn't going to rescue her to finally make the leap. She filed her LLC paperwork two years before she actually left, which says everything about how long the mental preparation can take. Her framing of "perceived security" resonated deeply with Karen and Michelle: the steady paycheck and benefits that feel like stability are increasingly anything but.
  • [06:17] Why a Tough Job Market Is an Argument for Going Solo: Kara makes a counter-intuitive case: watching talented, experienced mid-to-senior communications professionals spend six, nine, or twelve months searching for their next role wasn't a reason to wait — it was a reason to move. She chose to create her own security rather than compete for a shrinking pool of roles. The calculus is different when you're in charge, but at least you're the one doing it.
  • [09:11] The Real Surprises of Early Solo Life: Weeks in, the biggest surprise for Kara has been structure — in two senses. The rhythmic structure of corporate life (a desk, a schedule, a team) simply disappears, replaced by something more fluid and self-directed. And then there's business structure in the legal and financial sense: entity type, tax implications, and what it actually means to be both the employee and the employer. None of it is impossible, but none of it is as straightforward as it looks from the outside.
  • [17:42] What "Advisor-Led and AI-Powered" Actually Means: Kara is intentionally transparent about using AI — it's front and center on her website and LinkedIn — because she wants clients to ask her about it. In practice, AI handles the research and monitoring work that would otherwise consume her mornings: a daily media scan, a customized briefing, a business development follow-up queue, all delivered before she sits down to work. She's not using AI to draft comms plans; she's using it to stress-test the ones she writes. The distinction matters, especially with clients in regulated industries where data security isn't optional.
  • [22:25] Bring Comms to the Table Before the Decision Is Made: Kara's most consistent frustration from 20 years in corporate: communications professionals are brought in after the decision has already been made. The announcement is written. Now communicate it. But that's where the real opportunity is lost. Comms can inform the decision itself — reading the room, flagging what employees are already feeling, identifying timing conflicts in the news landscape — but only if practitioners are included early. It's not about ego. It's about outcomes.
  • [25:17] Thinking About All the Audiences, Not Just the Obvious One: When a leadership transition is announced, the C-suite is often focused on one key audience — investors, say, or the board. Kara's job is to hold the full map: employees, customers, partners, media, and community. Each audience needs something different from the same moment. That multi-audience perspective is something communicators bring that AI and algorithms can't replicate, and it's one of the clearest arguments for bringing comms in before the decision, not after.
  • [26:58] The Case for Communicating Less: A provocative take from someone whose business is communications: sometimes the most strategic thing you can do is recommend less of it. Kara has worked in organizations with hundreds of communications professionals and organizations with none — and the sky didn't fall in either place. What matters is the right message, from the right person, to the right audience. Blasting every channel because you have them is not a strategy. It's noise, and it trains people to tune you out.
  • [38:18] Authenticity Is Kara's Signature Topic — and Her Strongest Conviction: After two decades of watching leaders transform at the podium — warm and candid in the hallway, robotic and on-script in front of an audience — Kara has landed on authenticity as her defining professional issue. Not because it's a buzzword, but because the gap between who a leader is and how they communicate creates a trust deficit that messages alone can't close. The good news: it's coachable. The harder truth: some leaders won't be coached, and sometimes the right answer is to find a different spokesperson for that moment.

 

About Kara Ryan

Kara Ryan is the founder and principal of Klyr Strategies (pronounced "clear"), a communications advisory serving small to mid-size companies in the medical device and healthcare space. Kara spent 20 years in corporate communications, working across financial services and highly regulated healthcare environments, with deep expertise in the high-stakes moments that define organizations: product launches, leadership transitions, acquisitions, and IPO preparation. She is based in Orange County, California — a hub for medical device manufacturers — and brings boardroom-level experience to clients who are doing big things without an in-house communications team to support them. She describes her practice as advisor-led and AI-powered, is transparent with clients about how and why she uses AI tools, and takes data security seriously as a non-negotiable.

Connect with Kara:

Website: klyrstrategies.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kara-l-ryan

 

Resources & Additional Information

Klyr Strategies: klyrstrategies.com

Solo PR Pro membership community: soloprpro.com

That Solo Life podcast website: thatsololife.com

 

Host & Show Info

That Solo Life is a podcast created for public relations, communication, and marketing professionals who work as independent and small practitioners. Hosted by Karen Swim, APR, founder of Solo PR Pro, and Michelle Kane, Principal of Voice Matters, the show delivers expert insights, encouragement, and practical advice for solo PR pros navigating today's dynamic professional landscape.

Listen to all episodes and catch up on previous conversations at thatsololife.com.


Did this episode inspire you? If you found value in this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more solo pros just like you! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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