Episodes

That Solo Life — Episode 361 Hosts: Karen Swim, APR & Michelle Kane Episode Summary In the before times, there were people whose entire job was to clip your name out of a newspaper. A physical bureau, staffed by real humans with scissors, tracked press coverage for PR firms and their clients. They mailed stacks of paper clippings before anyone had thought to call it a media monitoring service. Burrell's did this for 136 years before quietly shutting its doors in June 2024. In this episode, Ka...

Episode Summary Two résumés land in front of a reviewer. Same skills. Same experience. Same note that AI helped write them. The only difference is the name at the top: one says James, the other says Emily. James earns a 97% approval rating. Emily gets a comment that she can't even write a résumé herself. That experiment, and the research behind it, opens a hard but necessary conversation for a profession that is roughly two-thirds women. When men use AI, they're called resourceful. When women ...

In this Halloween themed episode Karen and Michelle dig up seven industry patterns that have been frustrating PR and communications professionals for years, including jargon that obscures instead of clarifies, ghosting that stalls careers and pipelines, last-minute PR requests and more.

Twenty-one percent of PR pros continue to measure activity rather than impact, and it is costing them a seat at the table.

Kaitlin McCready has had many communication lives but the through line across all of those chapters is the same problem: the gap between what an organization says and what its audience actually believes, understands, or acts on.

Episode Summary Fractional roles seem to be growing in scope, including in Public Relations. Over the years, we have seen our fair share of creative titles, but does the Fractional title in Communication roles have longevity? In today’s episode, we take an honest look at the fractional title, extract what's actually useful, and give solo PR practitioners a real framework for deciding whether fractional positioning is a fit for them, or whether it's a fashionable label with a new set of obligati...

Episode Summary In a recent episode (Episode 350), we addressed burnout and called it out as a business risk. Today’s episode addresses a different reason to step away from your business with a micro retirement. Unlike burnout, micro retirement is a planned business response and not a crisis break. It is a deliberate, designed pause that you build into your practice before you need it, the same way you build a financial runway or a contract clause. Michelle opens with a hypothetical question: w...

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...

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.

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

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 ...

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.

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...

Muck Rack’s State of PR 2026 report surveyed 971 PR professionals. This episode takes three of the report’s most significant findings and translates them through the lens of the solo PR practictioner.

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 ...

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 Fo...

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 Credibil...

Jake Isham is a filmmaker and accidental marketer. In this episode he shares the lessons he has learned about branding, marketing, and running a business without letting go of your art.

Sharon Toerek, founder and principal of Legal+Creative and an intellectual property attorney discusses how agencies can turn legal into a profit center.

That Solo Life Episode 342: What the 2026 USC Global Communications Report Says About PR Today Episode Summary Karen and Michelle open with a question that lands before the intro music fades: When was the last time a client approved a statement without pushback? The answer tells you everything about the communications environment right now and so does the report they spend this episode unpacking. The USC Annenberg Center for Public Relations 2026 Global Communications Report, titled A Quiet Shi...

That Solo Life Episode 341: The Leap, the AI Edge and Authentic Leadership Episode Summary Kara Ryan spent 20 years of her career navigating corporate communications in some of the most regulated industries in the world - financial services, healthcare, and medical devices. In April of this year, she closed that chapter and opened Klyr Strategies, a solo communications advisory built upon the high-stakes moments that her clients face, such as product launches, leadership transitions, acquisiti...

That Solo Life Episode 340: Why Right Now Is Your Moment as a Solo PR Pro Episode Summary In this episode, Karen and Michelle deliver a timely reminder that periods of disruption are not just a challenge for solo PR pros — they are an opening. As larger agencies navigate layoffs and major brands question whether their big agency retainers are actually serving them, seasoned independents are uniquely positioned to step in with what clients need most right now: senior-level expertise, direct acc...

That Solo Life Episode 339: Why Smart Solos Are Watching These Five Trends Right Now Episode Summary Karen and Michelle are back with one of their favorite formats — a roundup of what's happening in the world right now and what it means for solo and small agency PR, communications, and marketing professionals. From the growing opportunities in internal communications to a telling shift in how and where people place their trust, the co-hosts cover five timely topics shaping the landscape for in...

Episode 338: One PR Pro Shows There is Purpose in the Press With Candice Smith, MEd, Founder & Chief Strategist @ French Press Communications Episode Summary Running an independent public relations business requires more than just excellent communication skills. You need a solid strategy, a growth mindset, and a commitment to continuous learning. In episode 338 of That Solo Life, hosts Karen Swim, APR and Michelle Kane sit down with Candice Smith, MEd, to explore how educational frameworks ca...