The 4 Structural Fixes That Protect Solo PR Pros from Burnout

That Solo Life, Episode 350: The 4 Structural Fixes That Protect Solo PR Pros from Burnout

Karen Swim, APR (00:12):
Welcome back to That Solo Life, the podcast for independent PR and communication pros, micro agencies, and small agencies. I'm Karen Swim, president of Solo PR Pro.
Michelle Kane (00:27):
And I'm Michelle Kane, principal at Voice Matters. And today it's just the two of us, which is just fine. And we are tackling burnout, but not usually the way it gets covered.
Karen Swim, APR (00:38):
That's true. If you have read one wellness listicle, just one, you've read them all. Sleep more, take a walk, set boundaries, breathe. So we are not repeating that because you already know all that stuff. We're going to be talking about burnout as a business risk, something that shows up on your profit and loss statement before it shows up in a therapist notes.
Michelle Kane (01:08):
Isn't that usually the way, right? And we're going to do it specifically for solo PR pros because the causes are structurally. They're different than just, oh, that employee's overworked. We are the entire org chart. There's no one to hand it to.
Karen Swim, APR (01:26):
Yeah. I mean, we want to give you a heads-up, of course, before we start that in a lot of our episodes, if we have data sources to share, we usually will. So forgive us if we get a stat off. We do try to verify this stuff prior to recording, and we will of course have all the sources in our show notes.
Michelle Kane (01:47):
As always. All right.
Karen Swim, APR (01:51):
So what's actually happening? Yeah, let's start inside our own industry. Not the broader solopreneur world, but a couple of years ago, and they may do this, like MuckRock does these surveys of the state of work-life balance. They do one for PR pros and one for journalists. So I think the journalist was last year and PR Pros was the year before. So it's not super old, but a couple years ago. And they surveyed PR professionals for a report that dealt with stress and burnout across the industry. And half of the people surveyed said they had seriously considered leaving their jobs in the past year, specifically because of the burnout. So 44% said they actually had left a previous job because of burnout. Heavy workloads, deadlines always being on were some of the top reasons that were given.
Michelle Kane (02:52):
That'll do it. And even though that data's a couple of years old, there's nothing about how our industry operates that suggests it's gotten any better.
Karen Swim, APR (03:04):
Well, that's true because those lists that come out with the list of most stressful professions, PR is usually on that list. So if anything, I think the always on expectation has gotten more normalized. But directionally, here's what the report found. 96% said that they have trouble switching off after work. I can relate to that. 88% said work interrupted their vacation at least once, almost half of those more than three times in a year. So on average, people were only using about 72% of the vacation days that were even given. And at agencies specifically, 75% rated their stress above a five out of 10.
Michelle Kane (03:57):
Wow. And again, these are people with coworkers, HR departments, PTO policies. They're not pulling their own weight like so many of us do. Not to denigrate agency work there, but you know what I mean? Again, we're wearing all the hats at once.
Karen Swim, APR (04:15):
Wearing all the hats. Yeah, I mean that's very true. There was a separate survey from the PR and Communications Association and the Chartered Institute of PR, and they found that 91% of PR professionals reported poor mental health in the past year.
Michelle Kane (04:37):
There you go. That's no good. That's no good at all. And that's not some people are stressed, that's almost the entire profession.
Karen Swim, APR (04:47):
Yeah. I mean, it breaks my heart to even see this, but you and I both know that this is our reality, which is why we're dealing with it. So we want to lay some solo specific data on top of that. A recent founder research puts burnout among solo founders, and that would include us, at around 54 with three in four reporting anxiety episodes. And one of the things that this report said is that burnout is now cited as the single biggest predictor of solo business failure. And that's ahead of any strategy mistakes.
Michelle Kane (05:35):
Wow. Yeah. So it's not like, oh, I chose the wrong niche, or oops, my pricing's not right. It's just the burnout.
Karen Swim, APR (05:46):
Isn't that incredible that burnout outranks bad strategy as a cause of death for solo businesses? I mean, that makes me pause.
Michelle Kane (06:01):
Yeah. Yeah. And there's the loneliness number tied to all of this. Founder self-report loneliness at an average around 7.6 out of 10. That's not just, oh, I miss office chatter. That is definitely a structural feature of doing this alone, not just a mood. And I confess, yeah, it's so easy to get into your own head. And this really tells us though, if you feel like you need a little break, take the little break. If you feel like I just need to take the afternoon off, do it because I guarantee you everything's going to be there when you get back.
Karen Swim, APR (06:50):
Yeah. And the loneliness figure really, that gets me, that hits right in the center of my heart. And what we're seeing is that this is reality. It's documented, it's a repeated pattern across multiple surveys.
Michelle Kane (07:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And not that we're navel gazing, but these are real facts. So why does this hit PR people? Specifically solo PR people harder than say a solo accountant, a solo graphic designer, a solo anything else?
Karen Swim, APR (07:29):
Yeah. I mean, in my viewpoint, I think there's a couple reasons. First, our entire profession runs on being reachable. Crisis does not wait for business hours, and our clients know that. And then second is because we built this culture even inside of big agencies with HR departments where availability gets mistaken for value. So answering the phone after hours doesn't read as a boundary problem. It's read as commitment.
Michelle Kane (08:05):
True, true. How do they say it? You train people how to treat you.
Karen Swim, APR (08:11):
Treat you.
Michelle Kane (08:11):
And we hear versions of this all the time in the Solo PR Pro community. People who feel almost guilty taking a genuine day off because somewhere along the way they've learned, we've learned that being unreachable reads as being unreliable. Nobody told them or us that in so many words. It's just the water that we all swim in. It's the thing we foist on ourselves really. And I think something we need to gradually or not so gradually move away from.
Karen Swim, APR (08:43):
I 100% agree with you. Let's kill that because we're seeing what's happening inside agencies where there's PTO policies and teams and managers and all that. But let's think about this. And you take that same always on expectation and you strip out all the safety nets. There's not a manager to say slow down. Not that managers these days would do that. There's not a coworker to cover a crisis call while you're out. There's no one clocking that you haven't taken a full day off since 2010. Nobody cares. There's nobody there to keep you accountable to caring for yourself and taking that break.
Michelle Kane (09:29):
Right, exactly. So for example, it's a Saturday and a client texts quick call at 10:00 AM. Now you know it's not an emergency. They're bored deck restructured and now they're anxious about messaging. Well, sit with that anxiousness over the weekend, but you might feel compelled to take the call because saying no feels like risking the relationship. And I get that. I totally get it. But that quick call could last an hour, 90 minutes. So now your family's day, your day, or even your day for yourself. Now work has been inserted and with something that could have totally waited until Monday. So it's
Karen Swim, APR (10:16):
Like, do we
Michelle Kane (10:16):
Indulge this stuff or do we try to curb it?
Karen Swim, APR (10:20):
I know. And that's a single point of failure problem, right? If you get the flu or if you're a parent and your kid gets the flu, or you just need a week, the business does not pause. It just doesn't happen. So deadlines don't move because you're the only one that's holding them together.
Michelle Kane (10:41):
Yeah. Yeah. And that's why the standard self-care framework, it's no good for us specifically in this industry. I mean, that's why I giggle. I read it and I go, "Yeah, that sounds great." Self-care assumes the problem is that you're just not resting enough. But for a solo PR pro, the real problem is that the business has zero redundancy built into it. We're it. So no amount of Calgon take me away bubble baths is going to fix our business that has this single, almost very fragile thing. And I don't mean to sensationalize it or freak us out because I think there's a way to work through it. We just have to be willing to do it. Yeah.
Karen Swim, APR (11:29):
Yeah. Oh my gosh, Michelle, that's a whole mouthful. I hope people just stop to really think about that. Okay, let's tackle this the way we would and the way that we would reframe any other business risk. If your business can be taken down entirely because one person needs 48 hours offline, that is not a self-care gap. That's an operational design flaw.
Michelle Kane (12:03):
Yeah. Yeah. And this is the same lens that we might use, let's say if we're auditing a client's crisis plan. You wouldn't tell them the CEO should meditate more, even though maybe they should. You'd ask, "Hey, well, what's your redundancy plan if the spokesperson is unreachable?" Let's say the CEO is on a meditation retreat and can't be reached. Who's
Karen Swim, APR (12:25):
Next
Michelle Kane (12:25):
Off the bench?
Karen Swim, APR (12:28):
Yeah. And I'm going to say that I too have been guilty of this. And so we don't want anyone in this audience to feel bad. What I'm learning lately is that I'd rather ask the difficult questions of myself or have somebody ask those and make me go kind of like an ouch moment when I can still do something about it. I don't want to be sitting in the middle of a mess where I'm completely falling apart and I don't have a plan and I have to show up broken, battered and bruised when I really can't do the job. So we're saying this now hopefully so that we can all be more proactive about really reflecting on this and having a plan in place. So the audit that we really need to do is on our own businesses. And there's a distinction that is worth borrowing from good agency leaders that are starting to think about this.
(13:28):
You have to stop measuring commitment by sacrifice and start measuring outcomes instead of hours online or response speed. That is a mindset that a solo practitioner can absolutely steal directly. Are you actually tracking what you deliver or are you unconsciously grading yourself on how fast you answer email?
Michelle Kane (13:53):
Ooh, that is good. And I have to say that is one I am finally slowly learning. I just think I don't get the same juice I used to of like, oh, I answered that email quickly. Who cares? As long as you're getting the job done and doing it well. Now I might answer your email quickly so I don't forget to answer your email. That's more for my benefit. That's not because I want to show off to you. But yeah, I mean, I really have been thinking about that. And for too many years I've been rewarding my hypervigilance as a strength. And it's a cost. We're not doing heart surgery here. Yes. Is our attention demanded at times and rightly so? Sure. But we really do need to get better at counting that cost if we're going to last in the long haul.
Karen Swim, APR (14:54):
Yeah. I mean, I'm right there with you and I think that's why we want to spend the rest of this episode on not saying rest more. That's stupid. That's not helpful. You rest more.
Michelle Kane (15:09):
No, you rest. You take a nap.
Karen Swim, APR (15:12):
Take a nap. But we want to talk about four specific, four specific, okay? So we like to be specific and leave you with takeaways, four specific changes that you can make to your business this month. Okay, let's just go. So fix one. Put your response time boundary in writing in the contract, not just in your head. And true to everything, when it's in writing, it's documented and that means it's defensible. That's something that you can point to. It's something that you can remind your clients of. And I find that putting things in writing helps me stay true to what I have documented. So if your standard is I respond in a business day, except for true client defined emergencies, and then you need to write that definition of emergency into your statement of work. It's not just an FYI email that you send once and hope that it holds.
(16:12):
It needs to be a clause in your contract.
Michelle Kane (16:15):
Yeah. Yeah. Because we all know we'll buckle under the pressure because we love to serve. And that's okay, except we need to police ourselves with that. So if a client pushes past it, having this in writing is beautiful. That's your bad cop, having that clause. So you can point back to that language instead of going over your own worthiness in your head every time your phone buzzes after hours. And also keep in mind, if they're buzzing your phone after hours, that's your business line. Doesn't mean you have to pick it up.
Karen Swim, APR (16:52):
I completely agree. And I mean, here's another proactive strategy. This is a bonus that you can layer into that. In addition to having this in your contract, going through this and onboarding calls, because you want to make sure that people know what your hours are when you will respond. If something comes in over the weekend, you'll answer it on Monday during business hours. But to let them know through crisis as you've defined it, they should have an emergency way to reach you. But here's the proactive part. You're working with your client. So there are times that we have wind that things could get really hectic over a period of time. So maybe they're going through a merger acquisition, maybe there's some other big news boiling and you know about it. And even though it's quiet and it's being worked on between you, the executive team, and it's not something public, if you have a sense that this could spill over, something big is already happening within the company and it could spill over, you can deal with that during working hours by, again, reminding them of when they should call you, when it's an emergency and how you will respond to that.
(18:01):
So that's being prepared, right? Okay. So the second fix, and I think that a lot of solos skip this for a lot of different reasons. One, because we feel vulnerable. It's my business, I should be doing this. And there are all kinds of other reasons. Some of it could be that financial worry, but you need to really have an actual backup, a named backup. So partner with another solo practitioner and don't default to, I'll just figure it out if something happens. You need to have a discussion and obviously pay the person, but have a standing agreement. If you're out, this person can step in in a true emergency for 48 hours and then do the same for them. So with some solos, maybe they work together on other things and they have a good enough relationship that they'll cover for one another in an emergency.
(19:07):
So if you're going on a vacation, you're like, "Hey, I'm going to be out. Here are the things I've taken care of. Although I will have my laptop, if something comes in, is it okay if I put you down?" And then read them in, leave them notes on the kinds of things that may come up and then let them handle it and vice versa. That's a nice workaround to just have somebody that you trust that can handle things so that you can actually not do this while you're supposed to be off.
Michelle Kane (19:37):
Yeah, exactly. And that's where the Solo PR Pro membership group comes in. You'll meet a lot of great solos that you can trust and form alliances with. And you know what? The muckrack data backs this up from a different angle too. 46% of PR pros who don't use their vacation days say the reason is having no one else to backfill them. Looking at myself. But that's people with actual coworkers saying that, not me. As a solo, you don't have a maybe someone could cover it option. You have to build it on purpose and that can be very challenging, especially when if you're dealing with multiple clients, they have multiple deadlines, they have multiple scenarios and finding that perfect storm of a week to take off. You know how awful, Karen, it's like, it's easier just not to.
Karen Swim, APR (20:33):
Yeah. I mean, I love what you're saying about being deliberate about it before you need it. And then tell your clients about that arrangement before an emergency forces that conversation. That's not a weakness. It's a business continuity feature. It's the same thing that any smart client would want to see from a vendor that they're paying money to. So don't be embarrassed about it. You should have a backup and you should confidently be able to share that with your client.
Michelle Kane (21:06):
Yeah, seriously. Yeah. I mean, I've had clients when I've said, oh, I'm going to take a couple of days, and they'll say, good, you need to. Not me specifically, but they believe in the concept. And if you're not working with that kind of client, then keep on developing that business to get them. But fix number three. Oh, yes. Thank you, fix number three. I did a good segue there. Redesign your client mix on purpose. Not just for the reason I just stated, but to reduce decision fatigue, not just your workload. Oh, is decision fatigue not the worst? It's the worst. And then you have to figure out what to have for dinner every night. So that same muckrack report that we're referring to found that 45% of PR pros are juggling seven or more projects or accounts at once and named workload as the single biggest stressor in the whole survey.
(22:02):
So think about it. If you have even, gosh, 10 small project clients, each with their own cadence, their own tools, their own personal definition of urgent, that's going to burn you out faster than three deeper retainer relationships for sure. Even if you're making the same money, because really you're not because you're spending more of yourself. So aiming for fewer relationships means fewer daily judgment calls and less strain on your brain.
Karen Swim, APR (22:32):
Yeah. And it's funny, we just talked about this in our specialization economy episode about why specializing down isn't just a pricing play. It's a nervous system play. So fewer context to hold in your head at once, fewer client cultures to code switch between in a single day, that can be game-changing to combat burnout.
Michelle Kane (22:59):
Absolutely. Totally. All right. We promised four. Here's fix four. Build a real financial runway specifically earmarked for stepping back, not just a generic emergency funds. And I'm already feeling odd today even talking about that, but I get it in this day. In our current environment, not easy, but it's good to have goals. So treat two to four weeks of, I need to be totally unreachable as a line item that you're actually going to save toward. And honestly, just naming that out loud helps make it real, not just a thought that you swat away before moving on to the next task. Put it in a similar lane as saving for your quarterly taxes. Even if
Karen Swim, APR (23:46):
You have to
Michelle Kane (23:46):
Pretend and tell yourself you need to save more for those taxes and then go, oh no, that's my runway. Whatever works.
Karen Swim, APR (23:54):
You are saying something that I think, as you said this year, the economy, many, many, many of us, self-included, business slowdown. And this can be like, but let's call this burnout insurance. And so if the money already exists for the pause, then you're far more likely to actually take it before you're forced into it by illness or just sure collapse. It becomes a budget line item. And here's the thing, doesn't mean that you have to save up a bunch of money in the next two months. It means that you can do this and you get in the habit of it just like these things over time. And that fund itself really gives you a little bit of stress relief because you know that you're building towards being able to give yourself this gift. I mean, I work with companies that actually everybody in their company gets sabbaticals.
(25:00):
It's a thing. It's part of their culture. And I'm like, that is so beautiful to me. And they are completely unplugged. No email, no Slack, no nothing. Just a sabbatical to do whatever they want to, paid. We deserve that. That's one of the reasons that we went into business is to control our own work-life balance.
Michelle Kane (25:20):
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's so true. That's so true. And one thing we want to draw this all together with is that being part of a community in your profession, in your personal life, it's not just fun or maybe good for us. It's essential. And there's a real business case for it. Thinking back to that loneliness number we talked about, 7.6 out of 10, we usually hear that framed though as an emotional problem, but it's not. We want to frame that as an operational problem.
Karen Swim, APR (25:56):
Yeah. I mean, so a peer network mechanically has nothing to do with failings. It's your reality check system. 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. So being in community with other solo practitioners can tell you fast which one it actually is.
Michelle Kane (26:28):
Absolutely. And honestly, that's the reason for Solo PR Pro. That's what Solo PR Pro was built for, built around that concept. Of course we support each other, but it's really more of a working peer structure. It's where that backup arrangement, like I talked about from fix number two, that's where you can actually find those people that you can rely on because you're not going to find your emergency coverage partner from a LinkedIn shout out, although it still amazes me when people come into a Facebook community group and just start shouting out for babysitters. I'm like, "You don't know these people?" Anyway, but in Solo PR Pro, you do know the people. Yeah. You find them from knowing that, "Oh, hey, I was vulnerable and I asked the silly question or what I though was silly, and I found out that three other solos are dealing with it." And guess what?
Karen Swim, APR (27:21):
You
Michelle Kane (27:21):
Don't feel as alone.
Karen Swim, APR (27:25):
I mean, that's true. And joining a community so you feel less alone, that is one thing, that's true and it matters. But it really is what we're talking about today is that isolation does have a measurable business cost, and community is the fix for that. It's the same category as a contract clause or a financial buffer, not a separate, softer, optional category.
Michelle Kane (27:53):
Yeah, exactly. Which is why we keep coming back to it on this podcast. It's not just a soft little add-on to business advice. For a solo, it might be the single highest leverage structural fix on this entire list that we've talked about today.
Karen Swim, APR (28:10):
Yeah. I mean, so if you take one thing from this episode, don't let it be, try to relax more. Let it be audit your business the way you actually audit a client's crisis plan. Where's your single point of failure? What actually happens if you're offline, unplanned for 48 hours? And if you didn't have an answer, that's okay. That's your project for this month.
Michelle Kane (28:43):
Right, exactly. And again, we're not talking about a retreat or a spa day, not that there's anything wrong with those, but a contract clause, a named backup partner, an honest client mix review, and a runway line item. These are all doable. And again, I think these are the things that can get lost to, "Ugh, I'm too busy working for my clients to work on my business." But if -
Karen Swim, APR (29:14):
Absolutely. Set
Michelle Kane (29:15):
Aside some time to work on your business and start on these.
Karen Swim, APR (29:20):
And I would add a room full of people who've already solved pieces of this, if not the whole pie, so that you are not reinventing all four fixes alone from zero under pressure. Right.
Michelle Kane (29:33):
Yeah. So true. So very true. Well, that's the episode for today. You can check the show notes and get all these delicious links at thatsololife.com. And if this hits close to home, which of course it does, we would genuinely like to know actually. So hit us up inside the Solo PR Pro community or drop us a note at that sololife.com.