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

That Solo Life Episode 349: What Solo PR Pros Need to Know Now About the Specialization Economy

Michelle Kane (00:03):
Hey, Karen, I need you to settle a little something for me. If I call myself a communications generalist on my website right now, am I costing myself money?
Karen Swim, APR (00:16):
Well, Michelle, I would say not am I?. Yeah, you already are. And today we're talking about why I do everything is quietly becoming the most expensive sentence in PR. Welcome back to That Solo Life, the podcast for independent PR and communication pros who are building a business, not just freelancing between contracts. I'm Karen Swim, president of Solo PR Pro.
Michelle Kane (00:54):
And I'm Michelle Kane, principal of Voice Matters. And today it's just the two of us, no guest, because this is a topic we've wanted to sit in on for a while.
Karen Swim, APR (01:05):
Yeah. So we're calling this the specialization economy, the short version that there's data across the freelance and independent consulting world in 2026. And it's all saying the same thing from about six different directions. Generalists are getting squeezed and specialists are pulling away. So we want to talk about what that means if you are a solo PR pro and not just a freelance designer or a fractional CFO.
Michelle Kane (01:44):
Right, right. Because most of the trend pieces about this are written for freelancers on a broad level. No one's really honed in and translated it for comms people. So that's our job today.
Karen Swim, APR (01:57):
Yeah, that's so true, Michelle. So one quick note before we dig in, some of today's numbers come from freelance economy trend reports and a few are still working through our verification process. So we'll flag those as we go because we take that seriously on the show. And as always, we will always have sourcing notes in our show notes of where we get any numbers that we cite or where we're pulling data from.
Michelle Kane (02:26):
Yeah, absolutely. So let's get into it. What do you got, Karen?
Karen Swim, APR (02:30):
So let's start with the number that kind of made me sit up. The average US freelancer in 2026 earning somewhere in the high 40s per hour. That sounds fine, except that average is hiding a canyon. Generalist content and writing work on the low end, specialists in high demand niches like us billing well over $100 an hour on the high end. So almost nobody is actually earning the average.
Michelle Kane (03:01):
Yeah. So it's really like a bimodal distribution, not a nice old bell curve.
Karen Swim, APR (03:07):
Exactly. And this isn't just a freelance platform phenomenon. It's showing up across independent consulting generally. So the floor is dropping for generalized skills and the ceiling is rising for specialized ones. So the middle, the I'm pretty good at a lot of things middle is where people get stuck.
Michelle Kane (03:29):
Yeah, which that's an uncomfortable thing to come to terms with if you're the person you've spent your whole career and I think that's a lot of us who are like, "Well, yeah, I could do the media pitch. I can do the crisis plan. I can do your content calendar, roll out your newsletter." All the things that people might be expecting.
Karen Swim, APR (03:52):
I mean, it's uncomfortable because most of us went independent specifically because we're versatile. That's the pitch that we make to ourselves. I can do it all. That's my value. The market, however, is increasingly saying versatility is table stakes, not a differentiator.
Michelle Kane (04:09):
Interesting. So what exactly is the differentiator?
Karen Swim, APR (04:13):
Depth in one specific area for one specific kind of client. So here's a part that should get people's attention. The reasoning is practical, not philosophical. A generalist PR consultant competes with an enormous pool of other generalist PR consultants. Someone who specifically handles crisis communications for mid-size healthcare systems is competing with a much smaller, more identifiable group. Smaller pool, higher rates, and the client doesn't have to explain their industry to you from scratch, which is worth money on its own.
Michelle Kane (04:51):
Wow. Yeah, that's so true. I love that you made that last point. It's so underrated. When we already know a client's world, the first call isn't a crash course in what we do. We're two sentences in and we're already talking strategy. That just saves so much time and pain.
Karen Swim, APR (05:14):
Right. And there's a related shift that's kind of worth flagging. Companies are increasingly asking for proof of impact before they'll hire an independent specialist, not portfolios, metrics, what happened after you did the work? That's so much easier to produce when you've done the same kind of work for the same kind of client over and over again instead of a portfolio that's one tech launch, one restaurant opening and one nonprofit gala.
Michelle Kane (05:48):
So true. Yeah. I mean, I've done a little bit of everything that does... It adds up, but it doesn't compound in the same way of saying, "Yeah, I've done this 15 times and we've had this success rate with it within your industry, so let's go.
Karen Swim, APR (06:05):
"Yeah. So let's get concrete because niche down gets thrown around at every conference and nobody explains what it means practically for a PR consultant.
Michelle Kane (06:18):
Right, exactly. Because I think a lot of our listeners hear niche and think industry like I do PR for restaurants full stop. And I got to say that alone makes me nervous because we all know that industries have highs and lows and you know where we're going with this.
Karen Swim, APR (06:40):
Yeah. I mean that's part of it, but saying that it's incomplete. So the framework that kind of keeps showing up in the broader freelance research is pick a vertical and a horizontal and your niche is the intersection. So vertical is the industry, healthcare, legal, fintech, sustainability, professional services, but horizontal is the skill or service. So media relations, crisis and issues management, thought leadership, internal comms, funding round communications.
Michelle Kane (07:16):
Love it. So it's not, what do you do? I do PR. It's more I help companies develop thought leadership in the FinTech founder sphere.
Karen Swim, APR (07:28):
Yeah. Yeah. Or I do crisis communications for law firms. That's essentially Sharon Torrek's... It's a throwback to the episode with her. Yeah, that's
Michelle Kane (07:42):
Her whole thing.
Karen Swim, APR (07:44):
IP and marketing law for independent agencies; she didn't build that as a generalist attorney who dabbles in marketing law.
Michelle Kane (07:50):
Very true. Or even think about Kara Ryan, who we've had on recently. She came up through healthcare comms specifically so now she's got an advisor-led AI-powered practice on top of that. So it's that vertical and the horizontal both dialed in. So if you're listening, this is possible. It's not quite the heavy lift that it sounds like, and it's really something worth considering.
Karen Swim, APR (08:14):
Yeah. And if you haven't listened to either of those conversations, we'll link it in the show notes because those are good ones to... They're good episodes all on their own with the content, but it's a good companion piece to think through what we're talking about today.
Michelle Kane (08:28):
Yeah, it definitely is. And once you say a niche out loud like that, it stops sounding like a limitation and it starts sounding like a positioning statement. I do everything isn't memorable. And let's face it, even just saying those specific words is kind of a weak statement because we've always said you can't be good at everything. And nobody who refers to their business as I do everything. So they refer business to the specific name that pops into their head when someone says, I need someone who understands healthcare compliance and media.
Karen Swim, APR (09:06):
Yeah. I mean, there's a practical filtering benefit here too. And we don't talk about that enough. We've mentioned it, but when you're specific, the wrong fit inquiries mostly stop coming in. So you stop getting the, can you also just quickly help with our internal newsletter request from an industry you don't want to be in?
Michelle Kane (09:29):
Yeah. Which side note, that goes hand in hand with scope creep, which deserves its own episode one day. But yes, positioning does some of your qualifying for you before the discovery call even happens or if it happens.
Karen Swim, APR (09:47):
That's so true. Let's not waste our time. And here's another piece that a lot of people miss when they're thinking about niching or specialization. Sorry, I can't talk today.
Michelle Kane (10:01):
It's all right.
Karen Swim, APR (10:02):
It's really not just a rate conversation. It's an income stability conversation because once you're known for one specific thing, you'll stop pitching one-off projects and start getting asked to stay.
Michelle Kane (10:17):
That's true. The glorious retainer, not just the one-off project.
Karen Swim, APR (10:22):
Yeah.
Michelle Kane (10:24):
The
Karen Swim, APR (10:24):
Broader freelance data on this points in that same direction. A large majority of hiring managers say they plan to lean more on freelance and fractional talent for ongoing work, not just isolated products. So that shift toward retainers and fractional roles is happening specifically because specialists make it easy to justify an ongoing relationship. Nobody keeps a generalist on retainer. You keep the person who is the healthcare crisis expert or the FinTech thought leadership expert on retainer.
Michelle Kane (11:02):
Right, right. And honestly, going after this model, that solves the feast or famine cycle that most all of us solo practitioners complain about or unfortunately experience from time to time. You're not reselling yourself from zero every 90 days.
Karen Swim, APR (11:20):
Yeah. And I think that also changes the pitch. So rather than I'll get you three media placements for $5,000, it becomes a manager ongoing media strategy for... And please don't hang on these numbers. These are just 4,000 a month and here's what you get every quarter. Please charge way more than those examples. But that leads to a really different client relationship and it's a completely different cashflow picture for you.
Michelle Kane (11:55):
Definitely, definitely. I'm sure in a lot of our cases it might not be that hard to make happen just because you've already developed relationships with these clients. And if you've been doing this a few years and you're still living proposal to proposal, this concept is also worth sitting with. Niching is often the thing that makes the retainer conversation possible in the first place. So moving on because we always like to look at all sides of things. Let's talk about the pushback because every time this does come up in our beautiful solo PR Pro community, there are some objections.
Karen Swim, APR (12:37):
All right. Give them to me.
Michelle Kane (12:41):
All right. So number one, if I niche down, I'll turn away good work and go broke waiting for the right clients.
Karen Swim, APR (12:49):
Yeah, that's real. And I don't want to brush that off. There's a genuine ramp up period. So the pattern in the research is roughly six months to a year before a tighter niche pays off. This isn't rebrand Monday, raise your rates Tuesday. It's a runway decision. So you don't torch your generalist client base overnight. You shift the new business conversation while you honor those relationships that you already have in place.
Michelle Kane (13:18):
True. It's similar to scaling up your rates. Every new person you bring on, you charge them what you probably should have been charging others. Objection number two, my market is too small if I go this specific.
Karen Swim, APR (13:32):
It's valid. I is, but you can counter that with math, not reassurance. So if there are even a few hundred mid-sized healthcare systems in the country, you only need a handful of retained clients to build a full solo practice. Too small almost never turns out to be true once you run the numbers. So we somehow conflate smaller pool of competitors with smaller pool of clients, and those are two very different pools.
Michelle Kane (14:03):
That's true. That's true. Small doesn't mean the same thing in every context. True. All right. Objection three. And was this the one that I would think of too or that we might've heard the most? I'll get bored doing the same kind of work over and over, but aren't anyway.
Karen Swim, APR (14:24):
So I think that actually flips the other way for most people. So as a generalist, every new client is a cold start. New industry, new vocabulary, new stakeholders you don't understand yet. That can be exhausting in its own way. But when you specialize, the work still varies,
Michelle Kane (14:44):
But
Karen Swim, APR (14:44):
You're not relearning an entire industry, every engagement or reacquainting yourself with every engagement. So the energy goes into strategy instead of orientation.
Michelle Kane (14:56):
That's true. That's true. And I can say I can feel that shift myself with voice and tone work. Once you stop trying to be a generalist brand consultant and you get specific about voice, the work gets more interesting, not less because you can go deeper instead of wider.
Karen Swim, APR (15:12):
Yeah. And the fourth one, which I think is the quiet one nobody says out loud, "What if I pick the wrong niche?"
Michelle Kane (15:23):
Yeah, that's a real fear.
Karen Swim, APR (15:26):
Yeah, it is. And I think the honest answer is a niche isn't a tattoo. It's a hypothesis that you're testing with real market feedback. You commit for a focus stretch and the budget and the referrals genuinely aren't there, you adjust. That's not failure, that's data. What doesn't work is never committing long enough to get a real signal either way.
Michelle Kane (15:57):
True. True.
Karen Swim, APR (16:00):
So let's give people something to actually do with this because go niche without a method just anxiety.
Michelle Kane (16:10):
Ah, homework without instructions awful word problems.
Karen Swim, APR (16:16):
Right. So here's a simple three question filter. So question one, where do you already have unfair advantage? Past industry experience, a network, credentials, lived experience, something that means you start ahead of a stranger walking in cold.
Michelle Kane (16:35):
Right, right. Filter question two. Where's the budget? This is the one a lot of people skip. You can be brilliant in a niche that simply doesn't spend on PR. Well, that's not going to help. So you want to make sure you're matching your interest against actual willingness to pay. Healthcare, legal, financial services, B2B, B2B tech, they consistently show up as categories with real comms budgets. So no matter what niche you're considering, definitely keep that in mind.
Karen Swim, APR (17:11):
That's powerful right there. I think people really need to sit with that and remember that because you're right. There could be industries that are super specialized and it's your jam, but they don't have comms budgets. So then why focus on it? Third question. And this is one that's easy to forget. Can you say it in one sentence? And does that sentence make a stranger go, "Oh, I know exactly who needs you. " If your answer requires three qualifying clauses, it's not sharp enough yet.
Michelle Kane (17:54):
All right. So let's run a little drill on this. Let's do a hypothetical. Say a listener spent six years in - house, six years in - house at a regional bank before going solo and now does a little bit of everything for small business clients.
Karen Swim, APR (18:11):
Yeah. So question one, unfair advantage. That person already speaks fluent financial services, compliance and regulator relationships. That is powerful. Most PR consultants would need a year to learn that vocabulary.
Michelle Kane (18:28):
Right. Okay. So they've already got the lingo down. They know the world. Question two, budget. Like we just said a couple of beats ago, financial services and FinTech are consistently well-funded categories for communications. So good sign.
Karen Swim, APR (18:44):
Yeah. And then question three, the on - sentence test. I help community banks and credit unions navigate media and regulatory communications. Say that at a conference and watch how fast someone says, "Oh, I know someone who needs that. "
Michelle Kane (18:59):
Yeah. And that's the whole exercise, which thank goodness it's three questions. You might spend 15 minutes of honest thinking and you can go from I do a bit of everything to a sentence that can actually generate some referrals to rewarding and well-paying work.
Karen Swim, APR (19:19):
Yeah. I mean, I would actually add a fourth question to this too. And it's unofficial. Are you willing to hold the line publicly? So you don't have to refuse every off-niche referral that lands in your inbox, but your website, your LinkedIn, your pitch, those need to stay consistent or the positioning will not do its job.
Michelle Kane (19:46):
That's true. That's true. And that is the difference once you make this decision to go down this road between having a niche and actually benefiting from it. A lot of people will write specializing in healthcare comms on their about page, but then their case studies are about restaurants, nonprofits, and all sorts of things. So the market being your prospects out there, they're not going to believe positioning that you're not walking your talk. They need to see the evidence of what you claim to be doing. So this brings us to something we've touched on earlier. So once you've picked the niche, how do you actually prove it's working?
Karen Swim, APR (20:28):
Yeah, this is where the portfolio versus metrics point comes back. So for every engagement going forward in your niche, capture one number, media pickups that led to a specific outcome, a measurable shift and share of voice, signups, attendance, whatever's real for that client. It doesn't have to be dramatic. One sentence, one number, one outcome.
Michelle Kane (20:53):
Right. And to me, that sounds something like position the founder as a category expert. We got, let's say three inbound press inquiries within a month of the first byline piece running one line, but it does more work in a pitch than an entire portfolio page. And let's face it, people don't want to read a whole page anyway. They just want to hear a sentence or two of how you can be effective.
Karen Swim, APR (21:20):
Didn't we just share recently that people don't want depths, they want something different. And so it's exactly that kind of line, Michelle. And you need to collect those before you need them. So don't wait until a prospect asks for proof to go digging through 18 months of Slack messages to remember what happened. Just have your little running notes document, whether you use Notion, a notepad or whatever, whatever your jam is for saving stuff and put it all in one place and have it at the ready.
Michelle Kane (21:54):
Yeah. Yeah. It helps on so many levels to build the habit into your closeout process. Every wrapped engagement, one sentence for the case study bank. In future, you will be very happy.
Karen Swim, APR (22:06):
Agree. I mean, I would even say if you're organized enough to do this, I would just do it every quarter because you have campaigns that you're running for clients. Take a moment after every campaign and just capture some metrics and save those because you can use all that stuff. It doesn't have to be the whole entire client engagement. It could be specific campaigns.
Michelle Kane (22:28):
Yeah, that's true. That's true. And I know I do this. You're just so into like, okay, moving on that you don't stop and celebrate your little wins and document them so they can help you win even more. All right. So before we wrap, Karen, tie us back to why this matters beyond just an individual rate card.
Karen Swim, APR (22:52):
Yeah. I would say that picking an area of specialization means that, yeah, you're going to say no to some revenue in the short term and you're betting on the medium term. And that is scary. And it's a scary call to make in isolation when you don't have anybody to reality check it. So I think it's a conversation worth having with other independent practitioners who've actually made that leap. That can be so helpful. And then it's not theory. It's real. Here's what happened when I did it.
Michelle Kane (23:24):
Yeah. Yeah. Which is the perfect reason to join soloprpro.com because then you can bring that into our community and we can hash it out and we can talk about it because that's what we do best in there.
Karen Swim, APR (23:36):
Yeah.
Michelle Kane (23:36):
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Karen Swim, APR (23:38):
Exactly that. And I mean, of course you can always email us too if you want to run an dea by us and you want to talk it out with us, we are available.
Michelle Kane (23:50):
We would love that. Yes. So that's it for this episode. If that got you thinking about your own positioning, we'd love to hear where you land. As Karen said, shoot us a note. Our show notes and everything good about this will be at thatsololife.com. Drop a comment or let's talk about it in the Solo PR Pro community.
Karen Swim, APR (24:12):
Love that. And if I do everything is still on your website tonight, that's fine. We're not the specialization police, but maybe run the three-question filter before you write your next proposal.
Michelle Kane (24:27):
And I don't know about you, Karen, but I'm talking to myself on that one too. So until next time.
Karen Swim, APR (24:34):
Take care of yourselves out there. Solo PR Pros.