It's Now Time To Give Solo PR Pros Their Respect

Today we’re talking about the challenges we face as self-employed professionals in a world where certain sectors of the business world and governmental policies just don’t get us, favoring traditional employment over independent work. From pricing of tools and products to respecting the value solos bring to the table, it’s time to give solo PR pros our respect.

 

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Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane of VoiceMatters. And my ever steady co-host, Karen Swim with Solo PR Pro. Hey Karen, how are you today?

Karen Swim, APR (00:19):

Hey, Michelle. I forgot how to turn on the recording and use my mic and all those things and it hasn't been that long. Just my brain's all over the place today. Other than that, I'm great. How are you?

Michelle Kane (00:32):

Yeah, if I'm going to be honest, it's a little bit of a discombobulating day. I don't know. I didn't, some days are just like that, right? You make sure you read the email two or three times before you send, just to make sure

Karen Swim, APR (00:46):

I'm telling you. I mean, February is the shortest month, but it is really like it's gotten Napoleon syndrome this year. It's like, yes, I'm short, but I'm the big guy around here. I mean, it's really been shoving us around and showing us who's boss.

Michelle Kane (01:03):

I'm going to show you what's up. You're going to rue the day you talked crap about me.

Karen Swim, APR (01:09):

Yeah, call me the shortest month.

Michelle Kane (01:12):

Yeah, I'll show you. I'm going to stick around for a while. Oh my goodness. Yeah, for real, for real. And I think everyone is feeling it. It's always one of the most difficult months to just get through.

Karen Swim, APR (01:26):

Yeah, and it's short, but boy has it been jam packed and

Michelle Kane (01:31):

Yes, it's a lot.

Karen Swim, APR (01:36):

Yes, I'm ready for a spring break or something. Yeah,

Michelle Kane (01:40):

Well, and of course it has to be rude and be a leap year this year, so it's like I'm even going to add a day. Yeah, take that.

Karen Swim, APR (01:49):

Well,

Michelle Kane (01:52):

How can I flip this? Speaking of Napoleon complexes? No,

(01:56):

No. Maybe a little David and Goliath. Anyway, what we're going to talk about today or attempt to is just how, I don't think economy's the right word, but how our business world is set up really to favor the employed as opposed to the self-employed. We saw that with the pandemic where for the first time ever self-employed people, even though if you're a corporation of someone who is self-employed, you still pay unemployment tax. And yet what for the first time, oh, we could file for unemployment. Oh, well, gee, thank you very much. We too contribute to the economy, whatever. But we see it a lot as solos in the tools we use, and we've talked about that, touched on that before of course, but just how, oh, the enterprise version of this is only $12,000 a month. Well, thanks.

Karen Swim, APR (02:57):

Yeah. So it feels like this is one of the areas of discrimination that we never ever talk about, and it really is discriminatory because it's not just in the pricing, it's really the recognition and respect that many of us choose to be self-employed, and we're going to tackle that whole issue with the Department of Labor very, very soon with an expert. But to put it into context of where we're going with this is from the government. The US government does not like people that are self-employed. They don't understand people who are self-employed. When you say independent contractor, which is a big broad category and definition, the government thinks about Uber drivers and now technicians and other people, they do not think about strategic consultants like us who have really chosen to build a business of one who are very happy working on our own until we aren't, because some people go back and forth, and that is okay too.

(04:07):

So they don't understand, I'm going to say the flavors of independent work, and there's no good definition that takes into account the people who are truly independent and want to be, and the people who might be forced into being contractors because we know that there are a lot of companies out there that quite frankly just don't want to pay people as employees. Nail technicians are a great example, and they're one of the industries that is under target because your nail technicians show up at the same place every day. They have work hours, they're not working for other people, they're not marketing themselves to other people, and yet they are considered contractors. Construction workers is another category, and we could argue about Uber and Lyft because these are people that work on a platform, but even in that category, there are people that truly want to be independent. What you can't do though is say, I want to be an independent contractor. I don't want to work for a company, but I do want benefits and I want to unionize because now you're mixing. So again, the United States has a very murky view of this.

Michelle Kane (05:23):

Yes.

Karen Swim, APR (05:24):

The disrespect continues with how we're treated by companies just all around organizations, when they do content for public relations people, it's largely geared towards people that are employed traditionally, not people like us.

Michelle Kane (05:43):

Right. That's so true. And it's interesting, even as you talk to people who are in larger corporations, well, what do you do? I'm like, well, I run a public relations and marketing agency. Well, what do you mean? I'm like, well, what do you mean? What do I mean? Do I need to have 30 people standing behind me? And what I like to say is, I mean, to be honest, I've done the same job in essence my whole career. And whether that was in an ad agency or leading comms in a nonprofit, whether I'm running up the old metal staircase to my art department in my agency days, or I'm emailing someone saying, Hey, can you jo that over and make the logo bigger? Tell me the difference of what I'm doing. And I did that in varying degrees a little bit as employee, now I run my own company. And it's just interesting just the mental shift, not just amongst perhaps colleagues and acquaintances, but yeah, the government, although they seem to understand it at tax time very well, how you're organized. It's amazing to me.

Karen Swim, APR (06:52):

Technically, it's always a little bit frustrating, for example, when even you go to take some industry surveys and it's all skewed for people who have an employer, and it's like, what about the rest of us who have valid opinions and have experiences? You're not taking into account that we work a little bit differently. And then people automatically looking at us as though we're not businesses. We are, we're entrepreneurs. We founded a company, and it doesn't matter if your company has zero employees, it's still a company, and we don't always get treated that way, but things are not sized for us. So conferences are not sized for us and content is not sized for us. And definitely the price of technological tools are not size for us because these companies forget about a big segment of the public relations and marketing industry by only targeting people that are in these corporations and those big fat dollars.

(08:04):

But sometimes, and we've seen this in Solo PR Pro, which is why we don't do special offers anymore with new companies. We're very, very, very, very, very, very strict about it these days because too many companies have built their company on the back of solos, and so they give you a great price that's priced for us, and then as soon as they get on the map, they raise those prices and forget that we ever existed. I just won't allow that anymore. I just don't go for it. No, thank you. I'm not interested in giving you access to our audience, only for you to snatch the rug from up under us a year from now.

Michelle Kane (08:42):

Yeah, in many ways, I mean, I don't want to sound too pompous here, but in a lot of ways, solos, we experience whatever the next wave is going to be. We experience it first. We're like the college radio of the marketing and PR industry, or Bob, I'm going to stay in our industry silo because I liken it to, Hey, I love my radio station, WXPN in Philadelphia, and I will hear a song on there, songs on there. Next thing you know, oh, suddenly, maybe eight months later I'm hearing this song on satellite or commercial radio and everyone's saying, oh, did you hear that new song? I'm like, WXPN has been playing this for a while. So I see the solos that way, and it's not to be all full of ourselves, but it's because we are the ones, whether we have people working under us or not, we're the ones who experience this stuff first, whether it's something new in social media or just a new way that you have to operate your business. We literally feel the pain or the pleasure of the certain things, whatever the thing is. And so we have that much more experience at running the business because face it, a lot of larger businesses kind of run themselves in many ways,

Karen Swim, APR (10:05):

And the responsibilities are decentralized that everyone doesn't get the perspective of the whole. Whereas as solos, we really do, and we get that insight into organizations as well. And I think that that's a valuable contribution for people to seek out our viewpoint because we do get exposed to more, and it's no slam on people that work in companies. You guys are doing great work, and we respect you as colleagues. Our jobs often though, require us to learn things and to upskill a little bit faster because there isn't anybody that's telling us that we can't. Whereas in corporate America, your career track is often defined by the position you're in, the department you're in, and you're doing that in collaboration with your employer. As a solo, though, we are often the ones that adopt in demand scales very quickly because we have to. We don't have a backup, we don't have a department behind us. It's us. We're a very, very small team. So yeah, again, and with that, sometimes I have attended educational opportunities and the stuff that is being taught is not at our level. And then I think, and I know that that doesn't just pertain to solos, but you want to say, well, what about the seasoned public relations professionals among us employed and self-employed? Are we always only going to scratch the surface at the beginner and mid level and not go above that? And I understand they need to learn as well, but then we want to keep learning and growing as well. And often that's just not taken into account.

Michelle Kane (12:02):

Yeah, excuse me. That's so very true. I mean, even back to what you said about surveys. I can't tell you how many times I've started a survey and I get four or five questions in and I'm like, eh, you're not really talking to me, but I am still, yeah, but I'm still a segment of your audience. So what's up with that?

Karen Swim, APR (12:23):

Right? We want to be sane and we want to be heard. We want to be included. And I think we're past time, and let's be realistic. It is 2024. If the pandemic taught us nothing, it's that people in this country know how to start a business and there are a number of people that want to be in business for themselves. Can we not in this year in age, acknowledge that we exist, that we're economic engines, that we actually create jobs, that we have money, that we spend it, and that we're valuable sometimes being self-employed and then being a woman of a certain age too. I just feel like I'm completely invisible to the world. It seems like no one cares. No one cares about you, girl, you don't matter because you're not our target demographic. I don't care that they don't treat me that way. I'm going to insert myself in the conversation or I'm going to start a whole new conversation anyway, but we solo should not have to build that. I'll also say though, this is exactly one of the reasons why Solo PR Pro exists, because we do see

Michelle Kane (13:31):

You.

Karen Swim, APR (13:33):

This is why we can't create all the technological tools that you need, but we can fight for you

Michelle Kane (13:39):

And validate your experience, validate the idea that you had. If not for Solo PR Pro, I probably wouldn't have been brave enough to take a step forward. It is you and I'll name check her. Gloria Bell, I don't know if you're out there, but I saw her speak on a panel and she had her company at the time, and I thought, oh, she's doing it. And I was at a place where I knew I could see the bottom starting to fall out, where I was the safe space where I was getting paid. And that's another thing that whole experience taught me. Yes. Is it scary being on your own and having your own company sometimes? Heck yeah, but you know what? That direct deposit isn't the a hundred percent surety that you think. But yeah, those two things. And I went, oh, oh, okay. So I'm not a weirdo for having this instinctive notion that maybe this is a possibility. So if you are hearing this, you are not alone. And it does bogle my mind that in a country where we pride ourselves on our whole bootstraps thing and forging out on your own and being an American went really, because in some ways it's like, oh, how is it? Oh, we're not like that. Well, too bad because we're here doing it

Karen Swim, APR (14:59):

Enterprising Americans, but we don't really want you to do enterprising. We want you to be employed because it feels like America's just like an old school rusty model of work in so

Michelle Kane (15:13):

Many control freak ways.

Karen Swim, APR (15:15):

Yeah,

Michelle Kane (15:15):

It's a control freak.

Karen Swim, APR (15:17):

We built this whole tax system, and it's really designed for you to work for a company and just stay there and retire from there and get your gold watch. And I know we don't do pensions anymore, but we need it to be this way. This is how our system works, and we don't want to build a new one, but I say time to build a new one America.

Michelle Kane (15:39):

Wouldn't that be nice? Well, hey, we hope we've inspired you, even made you giggle a little bit because goodness knows we need that. But please do go to Solo PR Pro, check out the ongoing offer from lettuce even though we don't do special offers. There is this opportunity through lettuce. And just get on the mailing list too, because there is good information that will come your way. And please do share us around. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.