That Solo Life: The Solo PR Pro Podcast

That Solo Life: The Solo PR Pro Podcast

That Solo Life: Co-hosted by Karen Swim, APR, 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.

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Recent Episodes

354
Aug. 31, 2026

Beat the Economy By Breaking into a New Industry

Episode Summary Some industries are on fire right now, hiring, growing, and spending. And some are bone dry. If yours has gone quiet, you've probably already heard the advice to pivot. Karen and Michelle are not here to tell you that pivoting is possible. They're here to tell you how. Episode 354 is a practical guide to breaking into a new industry when your current one has stalled. This episode is for the practitioner who is sitting in a dry sector right now and needs real steps to take. Karen
353
Aug. 24, 2026

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

Mitch Leff and his colleague Kim Speece were engaged to work on a 34-day World Cup Campaign for Decatur. Eighteen months later, the two Solo PR Pros 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.
352
Aug. 17, 2026

The Hairball that Gave Us Hope

AI Content Watermarking, SEO sabotage and a giant hairball in NYC are among the five topics discussed in this episode of That Solo Life.
351
Aug. 10, 2026

The Client Problem Solo PR Pros Are Perfectly Positioned to Solve

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
350
Aug. 3, 2026

The 4 Structural Fixes That Protect Solo PR Pros from Burnout

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. The hosts share data on burnout and four structural fixes specific to Solo PR Pros.
349
July 27, 2026

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

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

Recent Blog Posts

July 21, 2026

3 Things the Muck Rack State of PR Report Unknowingly Tells Solo Practitioners

Muck Rack's State of PR 2026 report surveyed 971 PR professionals this summer. Only 18% were solos. The rest were mostly agency and in-house practitioners, which means the report's most-cited figures were never really describing a department of one.…
June 8, 2026

Are PR Professionals More Anxious Than Their Clients? What New Research Says

Every year, the USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations releases its Global Communications Report. The 2026 edition is titled A Quiet Shift, though anyone working in PR right now could reasonably argue that the pace of change feels anything but qu…

About the Host

Karen Swim, APR