The Client Problem Solo PR Pros Are Perfectly Positioned to Solve

That Solo Life, Episode 351: The Client Problem Solo PR Pros Are Perfectly Positioned to Solve
Michelle Kane (00:13):
Hey, Karen. Quick question before we even say hello to everyone out there. Have you ever been sitting across from a client's team and just you sense something was wrong? Not a fire, not a scandal, not a big crisis to handle, but just a room full of people who looked fine, but you knew somehow they weren't.
Karen Swim, APR (00:36):
Yeah, constantly. And you know what? I just discovered there's a name for it now and there's data behind it, which is why we are doing this episode on it. So welcome back to That Solo Life, the podcast for independent PR and communication pros who are building a business. I'm Karen Swim, president of Solo PR Pro.
Michelle Kane (01:02):
And I'm Michelle Kane, the principal of Voice Matters. It's just the two of us today again. No guest because this one's been sitting in our notes for a few weeks and we just really wanted to get into it. Now we have some research to back it up. And so we're going to talk about that and what we've been noticing in our day-to-day.
Karen Swim, APR (01:22):
Yeah. So today we're talking about this trend of quiet cracking. And I know you guys, before you groan and go, oh God, another quiet something. Let's be clear, this is not quiet quitting, rebranded. It's different. And it's an honestly more useful thing to understand if you're a solo PR or communications pro.
Michelle Kane (01:50):
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, let's get into what is the actual difference.
Karen Swim, APR (01:55):
Yeah. So quiet quitting I think, was more behavioral. It was like people doing the bare minimum on purpose. Quiet cracking is about people who are still showing up; they're still performing, and sometimes really well, but internally they're under pressure. They're uncertain about their job security or unclear on what's expected of them. They're not checked out. They're just cracking quietly while still holding it together on the surface.
Michelle Kane (02:27):
And I think that's more common than we probably realize. And I'm not saying you haven't been there. And that's a very different situation or problem to be having, especially when you're walking into a client meeting, right?
Karen Swim, APR (02:43):
Yeah, it really is. And there's a 2026 workplace research report called Talent Trends. And in their survey, they found that 54% of the people said that they've experienced some level of quiet cracking. One in five said they experience it frequently or constantly.
Michelle Kane (03:07):
That makes sense. In fact, my guess would be it's probably a little higher. There were probably some people reluctant to admit it. And so that's well over half. So that's not just some fringe experience. That's real stuff. It's the majority of us.
Karen Swim, APR (03:19):
Exactly. And I mean, it's not just one report either. So Gallup's own numbers on this show that only 31% of US employees were actively engaged at work in 2025, which is under a third.
Michelle Kane (03:38):
Wow. So a quick sourcing note before we go further, because we know we always do this. We want to make sure we have facts. We're PR; we love our facts. But some of these numbers are from that talent trends report specifically. But a couple of regional figures we found alongside it, and we're still working through our verification process, so we're leaving those out of today's conversation. But as always, the sourcing notes with links to what we did confirm will be in our show notes.
Karen Swim, APR (04:07):
Thank you for that, Michelle. We always want to be transparent with our audience and not just throw out numbers. Okay. So here's why we think that this is a story for you all, our solo PR, that solo life audience, and more than just a HR headline. When a workforce is quietly cracking, the people experiencing it are also the people who talk. They talk to friends, to Glassdoor, to LinkedIn, to reporters who cover their industry. And meanwhile, the company's external messaging is very often saying the opposite of what's happening inside.
Michelle Kane (04:53):
Oh yeah. It's the, our people are our greatest asset line while on their careers page, while the actual people inside are barely holding on and not for nothing. I don't understand these companies because the people inside can see.
Karen Swim, APR (05:15):
Yeah. That's the say, do gap. And in the past, it would take a scandal or a mass layoff for that gap to really become visible externally. But now it leaks constantly in small ways all the time, like a leaky faucet that just took away. And the reason that happens is because we all have a publishing platform in our pocket.
Michelle Kane (05:45):
Yeah, we do. So let's walk through specifically why that's our lane specifically. Because I can already hear some of our listeners saying or thinking, "I'm an external comms person. This sounds like an HR or a culture consultant's job to worry about."
Karen Swim, APR (06:03):
Yeah. And that's fair pushback. So let's come back to that specific pushback in a minute because it's objection number one. But the short version is if you already do executive communications, thought leadership or employer brand messaging for a client, you're already standing in the exact spot where internal reality and external narrative either line up or they don't. So you don't need to become an HR consultant. You need to start asking a question that you maybe were not asking before.
Michelle Kane (06:40):
True, true. Which is?
Karen Swim, APR (06:44):
The question is, is what you're telling the outside world about this company's culture and people hold up if they looked inside of it right now? That's it. That's the whole starting point.
Michelle Kane (06:58):
Yeah. And I love that because it's not go fix their culture. It's go check whether your external story is actually true. Are you walking your talk? Which is squarely a comms function.
Karen Swim, APR (07:16):
Yeah. And I mean, when leadership communication is unclear internally during a period of change, like restructuring layoffs and return to office mandates, all of these things that are happening right now, that kind of uncertainty is a huge driver of quiet cracking. People crack quietly when they don't know what's happening and nobody in charge is telling them clearly. That's a communications failure before it's anything else.
Michelle Kane (07:48):
And that's the real work here, right? Leadership communications, coaching, internal messaging audits. Heck, having internal messaging, how many companies do we know that just have flimsy to non-existent internal comms? Change communications during a transition. It's things we talk about all the time. You've got to be telling your story before others do it. And in this case, it's the people that work for you will be telling your story because they're seeing what the story really is.
Karen Swim, APR (08:20):
Yeah. And I mean, the funny thing is that employers know this. Even if they don't have the language, maybe they don't know what's quiet cracking, but they know something is off because roughly half of the employers in the research are already exploring career development initiatives and about a third are investing in leadership training. So that feels like they're reaching for something. And as comms pros, we can be part of what they're reaching for.
Michelle Kane (08:51):
Exactly. Exactly. So let's jump into some of this pushback because I already flagged one and I know our community will have more.
Karen Swim, APR (09:01):
Go ahead. Hit me.
Michelle Kane (09:03):
Okay. So objection one, the one I mentioned. I'm an external PR person. This isn't my lane. I'll get pulled into the HR issues that I don't want or I don't feel quite equipped to fix.
Karen Swim, APR (09:17):
Okay. So that's a fair point. But here's the boundary. You're not there to fix the culture. You are there to do a narrative alignment check. And that is, in fact, that's a very native task for communication professionals. And then you refer out anything that's genuinely an HR or organizational psychology issue. Know your lane, stay in it, but don't assume that the lane doesn't touch this topic at all because it does.
Michelle Kane (09:50):
Yeah. True. True. Okay. Your Honor, objection two. And yeah, this may feel like scope creep waiting to happen. It's like, whoa, I didn't really, this was not in my proposal. I'll get pulled into fixing culture or problems that I was not hired to touch. And by not hired to touch, I mean I'm not getting paid to touch.
Karen Swim, APR (10:16):
Yeah. So same answer, okay, but from a slightly different angle. This is the scoping conversation that you have upfront. You're not signing up to run engagement surveys or redesign benefits. You're really offering a very specific bounded deliverable, a message and narrative audit. So maybe a leadership communications coaching session or two, but if it opens the door to bigger retain work, wonderful, but the initial offer stays narrow on purpose.
Michelle Kane (10:51):
Yeah, that sounds good. I mean, not things directly like this, but this stuff happens all the time. All right. If Your Honor would be so kind, objection three. Sorry. Listening to too much Nancy Grace lately. Objection three. And I think this is the one that's going to come up the most with our listeners. That quiet cracking, is this going to be another buzzword that comes and goes, like a hundred other workplace TikTok trends?
Karen Swim, APR (11:29):
It's funny because I don't know that this happens in other countries, but we love to name stuff here in America. We name crime sprees. We name everything. There's a name for everything. So I totally understand why our audience would think that. But here's the thing, the underlying data about this, it's not new or trendy. It's a continuation of engagement numbers that have been low for years. So Gallup's been tracking disengagement for a long time and it continues to not get better. So quiet cracking is just the label that's attached to this persistent, well-documented problem for this particular research cycle. So yes, the name might fade away, but the underlying issue, it's not going away anytime soon.
Michelle Kane (12:21):
Yeah, that makes sense. And that's a good distinction. So here's the one that's the quiet one that nobody says out loud. Am I building up enough suspense? Yeah. Okay. So if I bring this up with a client, am I not basically telling them that their company is falling apart or they're wrong, you're doing bad things to your company? Which if this is happening, I can think of one case in particular where this is actually happening. That's an awkward, maybe even insulting conversation to start, which could put your whole relationship in jeopardy.
Karen Swim, APR (13:05):
Absolutely. You can't lead with this and you can't frame it as an accusation like, "Hey, love to work with you. Your company sucks." So don't. So when you're doing it, so here's what you do. You can frame it as market context, not as a diagnosis of them specifically, but you can talk about here's a trend that's showing up across industries right now. I wanted to flag it and ask a couple of questions. And that is going to land completely differently than your people are quietly falling apart and it's your fault. And listen, these actually, I'm going to light you guys in on a little secret. These are my favorite kind of client engagements. These are so rich and so layered and really allow you to truly pull out your strategy muscles and use them in ways that you see real change. To add a little layer to this, me personally, I always also frame this in the proactive crisis category.
(14:16):
So this is guarding against that internal bumping up against external in a time when you really need external messaging to land and it being diminished because the realities don't match each other.
Michelle Kane (14:33):
Yeah. Yeah. And I agree. It's such an important reframe because you don't want to walk into the room and say, "You're being really crappy to your people. By the way, here's my invoice." And I think approaching it from a way that doesn't put them on defense right away is of course the smart thing to do. And this is why we're part psychologists and therapists for our clients sometimes. But anyway, so moving on. Let's give people something to actually do with this, right? Because be aware of quiet. Yeah, quiet crack. Say it 20 times fast. Be aware of quiet cracking is an inaction.
Karen Swim, APR (15:18):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We came up with this little three question filter, and you can run this on existing client relationship or you can use it in your discovery costs. So the first question filter is, is there a gap between what this company says about its culture and people externally and what you would actually find if you talk to employees? And that's the say, do gap check.
Michelle Kane (15:50):
Love it. Love it. Question two.
Karen Swim, APR (15:52):
Is leadership communicating clearly right now about anything that will create uncertainty? Whether that's restructuring, return to office changes, because those are still happening, layoffs, a merger. And I mean a rocky quarter. So unclear leadership communications during uncertainty is honestly one of the biggest drivers of this. If the answer is no, actually they're pretty quiet about all of that, then that's your opening.
Michelle Kane (16:26):
Yeah. Yeah. True. And question number three.
Karen Swim, APR (16:32):
Okay. So would a light touch audit, not a full culture overhaul, just a message, a narrative review, surface something useful for them? And if all three of these questions, if the answer is yes, then now you have a real offer that you can bring to that client.
Michelle Kane (16:53):
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's run a drill. I feel like I'm a basketball camp. Not that I've ever done that. Say a listener has done B2B tech PR for years and one of their retained clients just went through a round of quiet layoffs. No public announcement, just suddenly people are poofing, disappearing off of the company Slack. Yet the company's careers page still says we invest in our people.
Karen Swim, APR (17:27):
Yeah, that's such a great example. Seen that so many times. So in this one, the say, do gap is glaring, right? And the public messaging and the internal reality are contradicting each other right now. So big yes.
Michelle Kane (17:44):
Yeah. And then question two, leadership communication during the layoffs.
Karen Swim, APR (17:51):
Yeah. So in my mind, there's two kind of quiet layoffs. So if it was a quiet layoff without any clear internal explanation, then that's where this uncertainty vacuum we're talking about comes into play. People that are left behind are definitely quietly cracking because they're wondering, are they next? So they're doing their jobs while they're panicking. And I mean, can I just tell you how unsettling it is not only for employees, but for any partners that you work with, to all of a sudden have people not be on meetings, disappear from Teams, disappear from Slack channels with no explanation? And I've seen that happen and it's not
Michelle Kane (18:41):
Good. Yep. Yep. And I think we've both either experienced or witnessed situations where it's human nature. It does not take much to shake the confidence of employees when they see unexplained change going on. Because let's face it, corporate America, the track record's not great for change being good. But anyway, moving on. Question three, would an audit help in this situation?
Karen Swim, APR (19:11):
Yeah, I think absolutely. And this is kind of a natural add-on to existing work that you're doing. So you can say something like, "I noticed the careers page messaging hasn't been touched since before the reorganization or before the whatever happened. Do you want me to take a look at that and determine whether or not it still reflects where you are?" So that's not so scary, right? And that's a normal scope conversation because as comms pros for our clients, we should be looking at all of the messaging touchpoints.
Michelle Kane (19:54):
That's so true. And I love it because it's not like a cold pitch. You're not throwing cold water on them. And in fact, honestly, because with everything else they may be dealing with, they may not have even considered that. That's why we exist.
Karen Swim, APR (20:12):
I agree. And isn't that one of the greatest ways to have new work happen? It's not from a pitch deck, but it's just by noticing and letting your client know that you're noticing. And that to me is, that is the heart of a solo PR pro. We actually care, so we pay attention to things, but paying attention can be more than just us being great at our jobs. It can also lead to deepening that relationship with our clients.
Michelle Kane (20:40):
Yeah, definitely. And that certainly builds trust, I think. So as we head towards wrapping this episode up, let's tie this back. Why does this matter beyond one client engagement?
Karen Swim, APR (20:54):
Yeah, that's a great question. I think because there's something that's beneath this that connects us to not just our clients. A lot of us went solo partly because we didn't want to be inside of a workplace that was quietly cracking. And now here we are watching that same dynamic play out for the people that we serve. So it's a good reminder that the isolation and uncertainty we help clients name in their organizations is kind of worth naming for ourselves too. So none of us should be figuring out how to spot this stuff completely alone.
Michelle Kane (21:37):
So true. So true. And that's exactly what the Solo PR Pro community is for. Bring this one into our community, our private Facebook group if you're a member. And if you're not a member, you should be a member. If you're sitting with a client where you're seeing these early signs of quiet cracking, let's hash through it together.
Karen Swim, APR (22:00):
Yeah, I agree. And I mean, you can also, we have a perfectly free LinkedIn group, but you can also hit us up on socials. You can send us an email directly. If you really are experiencing this or something around this or any other challenge and you want some one-on-one help, we are absolutely here for that.
Michelle Kane (22:21):
You know it. Yes. So that's it for this episode. If this got you looking sideways at a client's careers page, we want to hear about it. Show notes, sourcing links, and everything else will be available for this episode at thatsololife.com.
Karen Swim, APR (22:37):
Yeah. And if you've got a client and the external and the internal aren't quite matching right now, don't worry. Not a reason to panic. It's a reason to ask a few good questions.
Michelle Kane (22:50):
Indeed. So until next time.
Karen Swim, APR (22:52):
Take care of yourselves out there, Solo Pros.