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

How Two Indie PR Pros Delivered 170,000 Attendees and Daily Media Coverage for the World Cup

2 hours ago

2 hours ago

35 min

Episode Summary

Most PR wins are hard to see in real time. The brand building, the reputation work, the slow accumulation of coverage that eventually shifts how a client is perceived.  Those results are often invisible until long after the campaign ends. Mitch Leff's World Cup campaign for the city of Decatur, Georgia was the opposite. The goal was clear: get people to the square. The measure of success was visible from day one. And by the time the Indigo Girls closed out the 34-day Watch Fest on the last night of the tournament, Mitch and his partner Kim Speece had delivered 170,000 attendees, daily media coverage for every single day of the World Cup, international press from Japan's Asahi Shimbun, features in Southern Living and Garden & Gun, and the best sales month in 29 years for one of Decatur's most beloved bars. Even more amazing, they did as two independent practitioners. There was no junior staff, no agency overhead, just decades of experience, meticulous timing, and a daily 8:30 pm video blast to TV stations so that the morning shows always had something to run. In this episode, Mitch joins Karen and Michelle to walk through how the campaign came together, how they set expectations without a baseline, how they managed story angles that didn't pan out, and what it means for the case that independent practitioners can do what large agencies do and do it with excellence.

 

Episode Highlights

  • [01:48] Saying Yes Without a Budget, Scope, or Timeline: Mitch's colleague Jen Johns called in the fall of 2024 with an idea for 34 days of World Cup programming in Decatur's newly renovated town square. No budget confirmed, no scope locked, no clear timeline beyond 'the World Cup is happening.' Mitch said yes anyway, drawn by the scale of what it could be and the relationship with Jen, who he'd worked with through years of sports-adjacent clients. His first proposal didn't even have a budget number in it. The plan and the funding came together in the months that followed.
  • [04:00] Working Backwards from the Event: How to Build a 14-Month PR Timeline: Mitch and his colleague, Kim Speece sat down in spring 2025 and mapped the entire campaign backwards from the final night of the World Cup. Every announcement got its own milestone: the overall program launch, three separate band announcements for the headline acts, a cluster announcement for the smaller supporting performances, and a commissioned economic impact study from a professor at Emory's Goizueta Business School scoped specifically for Decatur. Each milestone had a deadline, and every deadline was worked backwards from the one that followed it.
  • [06:10] When a Story Angle Doesn't Pan Out — and When Something Better Shows Up: Mitch had planned for the volunteer story as a strong visual element: hundreds of community volunteers being trained and deployed, a natural human-interest thread. It didn't work as well as expected as the training sessions were smaller and less visually compelling than he'd imagined. At the same time, an unplanned opportunity arrived on a Sunday morning: a founder of REM posted that he'd be sitting in with Drivin N Cryin at the Watch Fest the following evening. Mitch had an updated media advisory out that Sunday afternoon. The lesson he draws: you plan the story angles you know, you stay close enough to what's actually happening to catch the ones you didn't.
  • [08:39] Turning a Crisis Risk Into a Proactive Story: Heat was on every event organizer's mind during the 2026 summer. When Atlanta media began running stories about fans passing out at Centennial Olympic Park, Mitch had a different story ready: everything Decatur had done to prepare. Misting stations. Shade coverage. Water stations. Paramedics and fire department staff on site, including the fire chief. He pitched the preparedness angle, booked the interviews, and turned a potential crisis narrative into a positive feature about a city that had planned ahead.
  • [13:56] Setting Expectations and Baselines When You're Starting from Zero: The newly renovated Decatur Square had never hosted an event of this size. The fire department estimated a capacity of around 5,500 people. That became the planning number. For media expectations, Mitch told the client they should expect three of Atlanta's four TV stations at the launch press conference, plus the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and local radio. They got all four stations, an advance story in the AJC, significant radio coverage, and international press. Once it became clear that Decatur had a more organized and sustained program than any other city in the region, Mitch revised his projections upward, telling the client they'd get more coverage than originally planned, because the program itself had earned it.
  • [16:00] Building Media Relationships Six Months Before You Need Them: One of Mitch's core principles for event PR: never let a reporter first hear about the event when the event is happening. Every journalist who might want to cover the Watch Fest knew about it six months in advance. The outreach spanned local, statewide, regional, national, sports, and travel media. The Chamber of Commerce, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Mayor's office, and elected officials were all on every distribution list, because they were fielding calls from other media and amplifying the reach. By the time the World Cup started, the reporters already knew. Mitch's job in the final weeks was to give them content, not context.
  • [18:00] The Daily Blast That Made Morning Shows Easy to Say Yes To: Two weeks before the World Cup, Mitch and Kim began sending a weekly 10-day look-ahead to media. Once the tournament started, they added a daily blast: a brief note about what happened that day and what was happening the next day, with video of that evening's concert shot and delivered to TV stations by 8:3 0pm. Not a press release. Not even a full media advisory. Just here is what happened, here is what is coming, here is usable video for your 11 pm show and your morning block. Morning producers came in at 2 am and found the clip at the top of their inbox. Channel 69, the CBS affiliate, ran a drone shot of the Decatur Square on most mornings of the World Cup. That daily cadence is what made Decatur reliable, and reliable is what keeps reporters coming back.
  • [20:16] Owning the Last Weekend When No One Else Was Doing Anything: As the World Cup wound down, Mitch checked the schedule and noticed that the downtown Fan Fest ended July 15th and nothing else was happening in Atlanta on the 18th and 19th. He told the client: we can own that weekend. The city of Atlanta ultimately announced a Ludacris concert in Piedmont Park for one of those nights, but the concert ended at 6 pm. The Indigo Girls at Decatur didn't start until 8 pm. Mitch made sure reporters knew that Decatur would be the closing act. Decatur is how the World Cup ends. By the time the Indigo Girls took the stage, the narrative was exactly what he'd pitched it to be.
  • [22:07] Two Independents, No Agency Overhead, One Full Campaign: Michelle raises what the episode is really about: two independent practitioners, no junior staff, no agency infrastructure, and they delivered a campaign that the client said far exceeded their expectations. Mitch explained that knowing when to send a release at 11:30 pm instead of 3 am because you understand how morning producers work, knowing which story angles have visual legs and which don't, and having relationships with reporters built before you need them was the key to success. The budget didn't require a third person, and the experience of two senior people meant the judgment was there from day one. They split the days, set up a workspace on the square for managing other clients, and absorbed the overrun in June and July because that's what the work required.
  • [29:34] What Mitch Is Most Proud of, and What the Numbers Don't Capture: Karen asks the question that goes beyond the data. Mitch's answer circles back to the relationship: a city manager and mayor who were responsive every single day, a client who consistently said the results were beyond what they'd imagined, and a square that was packed night after night with people who'd never been to Decatur before and will come back. The Brickstore Pub's best day in 29 years. A reporter flying in from Tokyo's Asahi Shimbun specifically to cover how smaller cities benefit from World Cup hosting. A morning when Mitch could watch the CBS affiliate run a drone shot of a full Decatur square at 5 am and know that the video he'd sent the night before was the reason it was on the air. And the last 20 minutes of the Indigo Girls set, when Mitch and Kim let themselves feel what they'd built and then started wondering what was next.

About Mitch Leff

Mitch Leff is the founder and principal of Leff Associates, an Atlanta-based independent PR firm with more than four decades of experience in public relations, media strategy, crisis communications, and event PR. His work spans sports, government, nonprofit, and corporate communications — including the 1996 Atlanta Olympics — and he is widely recognized as one of Georgia's most connected and experienced independent practitioners. Mitch also leads the Georgia Independent Professionals Group, a community of solo and independent PR and communications professionals across the state. He is an active presence on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, and is a frequent resource and connector for the Georgia independent PR community.

 

Website: leffassociates.com/our-team

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leffassociates

Email: mitch@leffassociates.com

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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2 hours ago

35 min

The Hairball that Gave Us Hope

Aug 17, 2026

Aug 17, 2026

23 min

Episode Summary

In this episode of That Solo Life, Karen and Michelle discuss five headlines from newsletters, online news, and blog posts that caught their attention recently. From the hotly debated AI content watermarking to how negative SEO is being used as a competitive weapon to the giant hairball that rolled through the streets of New York City, they provide their point of view and offer actionable takeaways for Solo PR Pros.

Episode Highlights

  • [00:53] Topic 1: AI Content Watermarking — Transparency Without Context: Karen kicks off with the AI content watermarking debate — Anthropic and others beginning to watermark AI-generated content. Karen's take: she's not against transparency, but a watermark with no context misses the point. Using AI as an editing layer — the way she uses Grammarly or Claude to catch blind spots and pressure-test a draft — does not mean she didn't write the piece. The judgment, the voice, and the revision are still hers. The problem with a blanket token is that it can't distinguish between a thoughtful human-led workflow with an AI assist and a prompt-dump. AI slop isn't a new problem, bad writing predates computers by centuries. The real protection against it is not reading it, not publishing it, and not sharing it. Karen's practical point for the profession: even practitioners who believe they don't use AI almost certainly are as t's embedded in media databases, press release distribution tools, social platforms, and smartphones. The more productive stance is engaging with the question of how to use it responsibly.
  • [09:05] Topic 1 Continued: AI Deception Is the Real Problem: Karen sharpens the point: what actually bothers her isn't AI-assisted writing, it's deceptive use, particularly AI-generated photos used to represent products or experiences. Restaurant menus with AI food photography. Shoe listings where the product looks nothing like what arrives. That's not a writing quality issue. That's a consumer trust issue. And it's where the conversation about AI authenticity needs to focus.
  • [11:51] Topic 2: Negative SEO as Competitive Weaponry: Karen flags a story that surprised her: litigation underway around US businesses deliberately using toxic backlinks to damage competitors' online visibility. SEO sabotage as a competitive tactic. Karen's immediate reaction: she's dealt with malware attacks that required a full site cleanse and Google resubmission, but she'd never thought of backlinks being weaponized intentionally. The takeaway for solo practitioners: check your own backlinks. Your clients with in-house SEO teams may already be doing this, but smaller clients probably aren't. And your own name and brand reputation can be attached to toxic links you're not aware of. 
  • [14:28] Topic 3: The K-18 Hairball — Experiential Marketing Having Its Moment: Michelle brings the story of hair care brand K-18 rolling a giant hairball — called The Tumble Hair — through the streets of New York City to launch their Future IQ hair longevity serum. The stunt stopped New Yorkers. New Yorkers. Karen's read: in an era where AI generates infinite digital content, real physical experiences create the kind of surprise and shareability that no algorithm can manufacture. The hairball was genuinely alarming to look at, and it worked — lots of social media, lots of engagement, lots of earned coverage. The bigger signal: people are still craving real things, even if the real thing is a giant rolling hairball.
  • [17:48] Topic 4: Summer Reading Recommendations: Karen and Michelle swap what they've been reading. Michelle is midway through We Solve Murders by Richard Osman and praises the tight chapters, quick pace, and social media influencer murders as the entry point for a bigger caper involving a private security firm. Karen finished Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time by Angela Brown, a novel that deals with mortality and the dreams people shelve, in a way that's more funny and page-turning than heavy, and that left her with a genuine nudge to dust off things she'd pushed aside. Both recommend reading outside of business books to sharpen writing and restore creativity. They challenge listeners to get through a book or two before summer ends.
  • [22:16] Topic 5: The Library Card Is a Surprisingly Useful Business Tool: Michelle, who serves on a public library board, makes the case: a library card gives you access to global publications through services like PressReader, which means major newspapers and trade outlets without individual subscription costs. For solo practitioners trimming budgets without wanting to lose access to media that matters, this is a real option. Libraries also now offer tools, appliances, and in some cases co-working space. Michelle and Karen both note that modern libraries are significantly more useful than their reputation suggests — and that getting a card is a genuinely practical move for anyone in the information business.

 

Resources Mentioned

 

  • Additional Resources for Solo PR Pros



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.

View more

Aug 17, 2026

23 min

The Client Problem Solo PR Pros Are Perfectly Positioned to Solve

Aug 10, 2026

Aug 10, 2026

22 min

Episode Summary

Quiet cracking,  distinct from quiet quitting, describes employees who are still showing up, still performing, sometimes performing really well, but are internally under pressure, uncertain about their job security, or unclear on what's expected of them. They're not checked out. They're just cracking quietly while holding it together on the surface.  In this episode, co-hosts Karen Swim, APR, and Michelle Kane address this trend and how it impacts Solo PR Pros.

The Talent Trends 2026 report found 54% of respondents have experienced some level of quiet cracking, with one in five saying they experience it frequently or constantly. Gallup's 2025 engagement data shows only 31% of US employees were actively engaged at work. Karen and Michelle make the case that this is not an HR headline — it's a communications problem that solo PR pros are already standing in the middle of, and one they're uniquely positioned to surface and address. They walk through what quiet cracking looks like in client organizations, the say-do gap it creates between internal reality and external messaging, four objections practitioners will raise (with honest answers to each), a three-question filter for identifying quiet cracking clients, a live scenario drill on handling a client who just went through quiet layoffs, and what to do when the same isolation and uncertainty you help clients name applies to your own practice.

Episode Highlights

  • [01:22] Quiet Cracking vs. Quiet Quitting: Why the Distinction Matters: Karen draws the line clearly. Quiet quitting was behavioral — people doing the bare minimum on purpose. Quiet cracking is about people who are still showing up and often performing well, but are internally under pressure, uncertain about job security, or unclear about expectations. They're not checked out. They're holding it together while cracking on the inside. The distinction matters because quiet cracking is harder to see, harder to name, and — for PR practitioners — far more consequential to the external messaging they're being paid to manage.
  • [02:43] The Data: 54% Have Experienced It, Only 31% Are Actively Engaged: The Talent Trends 2026 report found 54% of respondents had experienced some level of quiet cracking, with one in five reporting it frequently or constantly. Separately, Gallup's 2025 data shows only 31% of US employees were actively engaged at work. Michelle notes the real number is probably higher — people were likely reluctant to admit it. Karen and Michelle flag upfront that some regional figures they found alongside these reports are still working through their verification process and will be linked in the show notes as confirmed.
  • [04:07] Why This Is a Communications Problem, Not an HR Problem: Karen's framing lands clearly: when a workforce is quietly cracking, the people experiencing it are also the people who talk — to friends, to Glassdoor, to LinkedIn, to reporters who cover their industry. Meanwhile, the company's external messaging is often saying the exact opposite of what's happening inside. In the past, a scandal or mass layoff was needed to make that gap visible externally. Now it leaks constantly in small ways, because everyone has a publishing platform in their pocket. The say-do gap between internal reality and external narrative is squarely a communications problem.
  • [06:03] Why Solo PR Pros Are Already Standing in This Spot: The most common objection Karen anticipates: 'I'm an external comms person, this is an HR or culture consultant's job.' Her response: if you already do executive communications, thought leadership, or employer brand messaging, you're already standing at the exact intersection where internal reality and external narrative either line up, or they don't. The question to start asking: is what you're telling the outside world about this company's culture and people something that would hold up if anyone looked inside right now? That's a comms function, not an HR function.
  • [09:01] Four Objections — With Honest, Bounded Answers: Karen and Michelle work through four objections the Solo PR Pro community will raise. One: I'll get pulled into HR issues I'm not equipped to fix. Answer: you're doing a narrative alignment check, not a culture overhaul Two: this feels like scope creep. Answer: keep the initial offer narrow and bounded, a message and narrative audit, maybe a leadership communications coaching session, scoped clearly upfront. Three: is quiet cracking just another buzzword? Answer: the underlying data isn't new, Gallup has been tracking disengagement for years, and it keeps getting worse; the label may fade but the problem won't. Four (the quiet one): will raising this insult the client and jeopardize the relationship? Answer: frame it as market context, not a diagnosis — here's a trend I'm seeing across industries; I wanted to flag it and ask a couple of questions.
  • [13:05] How to Raise It Without Blowing Up the Relationship: Karen's approach: never lead with it and never frame it as an accusation. Bring it as market context — a trend showing up across industries that you wanted to flag and ask a couple of questions about. That framing lands completely differently than suggesting the client's organization is falling apart. Karen also names these as her favorite kind of client engagement: rich, layered, strategy-heavy work that uses PR skills in ways that don't always get deployed in day-to-day media relations.
  • [14:33] The Three-Question Filter for Identifying Quiet Cracking Clients: Karen's three questions to run on any current or prospective client. One: is there a visible gap between the external messaging and what you would actually find if you talked to employees? That's the say-do gap check. Two: is leadership communicating clearly right now about anything that will create uncertainty — restructuring, return to office, layoffs, a merger, a rocky quarter? If not, that silence is the opening. Three: would a light-touch audit — not a full culture overhaul, just a message and narrative review — surface something useful? If all three are yes, you have a real offer to bring.
  • [16:53] The Live Drill: A B2B Tech Client with Quiet Layoffs: Michelle runs a scenario: a long-retained B2B tech client just went through quiet layoffs — no public announcement, people disappearing from company Slack — while the careers page still says 'we invest in our people.' Karen runs it through all three questions: the say-do gap is glaring, leadership communication was absent, which created an uncertainty vacuum for remaining employees, and a light-touch audit of the careers page messaging is a completely natural scope conversation. The entry point: 'I noticed the careers page messaging hasn't been updated since before the reorganization. Do you want me to take a look at whether it still reflects where you are?' Not scary. Not confrontational. Exactly in scope.
  • [20:54] Why This Connects Back to Why Solos Went Solo: Karen closes on the thread beneath the whole episode: a lot of solo practitioners went independent partly because they didn't want to be inside a workplace that was quietly cracking. Now they're watching that same dynamic play out for the clients they serve. The isolation and uncertainty they help clients name in their organizations is worth naming for themselves too — and it's a good reminder that none of them should be figuring out how to spot or address this stuff completely alone.

 

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.

View more

Aug 10, 2026

22 min

The 4 Structural Fixes That Protect Solo PR Pros from Burnout

Aug 3, 2026

Aug 3, 2026

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.

View more

Aug 3, 2026

30 min

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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Jul 27, 2026

24 min

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.

View more

Jul 20, 2026

18 min

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

Jul 13, 2026

24 min

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.

View more

Jul 6, 2026

21 min

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.

View more

Jun 29, 2026

20 min

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.

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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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Jun 22, 2026

28 min

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