Why Solo PR Pros Should Plan for Micro Retirement Now

Why Solo PR Pros Should Plan for Micro Retirement Now

Michelle Kane [00:12]-[00:27]: Okay, Karen, I have a hypothetical for you and you're probably going to think I'm nuts or the fact that we probably need to start that Powerball poll. What if I told you I wanted to disappear for four months next year? Honestly, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Sound good.

Karen Swim [00:28]-[00:38]: Yeah. Honestly, yeah, my, I think my first reaction would be, well, good for you. And how do I get in on that? And,

Michelle Kane [00:39]-[00:44]: Um, well, I'll, I'll tell you, it's not witness protection.

KAREN SWIM, APR [00:44]-[01:25]: Oh, that would be, you know, have me worried. Um, and you know, the mind of a solo PR pro would tend to go there. Right. Um, but yeah, I would be delighted for you. And then I would want to talk logistics. You think? Yeah, which is what we're gonna talk about kind of in today's episode. So welcome back to That Solo Life, the podcast for independent PR and communication pros who are rocking it as entrepreneurs running their own businesses. I'm Karen Swinman, I'm president of Solo PR Pro.

MICHELLE KANE [01:25]-[01:47]: And I am Michelle Kane, the principal of Voice Matters. And it's just the two of us today. And I'll say that this is a companion piece to our recent episode on burnout. So if you haven't caught that one yet, go give it a listen. We keep these snack sized so it won't take long because this one builds right on top of it.

KAREN SWIM, APR [01:48]-[02:16]: Yeah, it does. And, you know, in the burnout episode, we talked about, you know, burnout being a business risk, not a personal feeling. But in this one, this is about an actual response to burnout. So it's not just, you know, set better boundaries, meditate more. This episode is called, it's all about micro retirement.

MICHELLE KANE [02:17]-[02:25]: Love it. Micro retirement. Okay, so let's define it for people who might, who perhaps haven't heard that term.

KAREN SWIM, APR [02:26]-[03:06]: Yeah, and I think it's kind of like a sabbatical. So it's, it's intentional, right? It's a planned break from full time work. And, you know, it's usually between six months, two years, and you take it periodically across your career. So Instead of saving up, you know, for one, you know, big retirement at the end, it's a little more proactive. And so you design it in advance. And I think that that's what makes this really different and interesting to me is that this is not a crisis break. It's really a planned break.

MICHELLE KANE [03:07]-[03:39]: It's such a wild concept, for sure. And it's certainly different from what most of our society does, right? We keep on going until we hit that wall and collapse and then, you know, either our body or our psyche creates an unplanned break. you know, and that's never tidy or pleasant. So, you know, kind of like if you have the means to do this sort of thing, it certainly makes sense.

KAREN SWIM, APR [03:41]-[04:45]: And I think I love this episode because we hear retirement and we think, we think generation, right? We think about a certain age group, but this is really for everyone. It's for the emerging professional. Maybe you're at the start of your career. Here's something to really build into your planning and say for it and that micro retirement rather than, you know, again, because in all honesty, we've changed our definition of retirement and Many, you know, just work for the rest of their lives, not because they necessarily have to, although these days, but because they want to, they want to still, you know, contribute to their profession. Maybe they want to pivot and do something a little different, like teach or coach or something else. But micro-retirements give you those breaks along the way and the opportunity enjoy, you know, retirement in smaller doses. So, yeah. I, you know, let, let's, let's get into, you know, a few of the numbers.

MICHELLE KANE [04:45]-[05:18]: Yeah, sure, sure. And just, you know, quick, quick sourcing note before we get going. The stat sets that we are using do trace back to named published surveys, so we will include them in the show notes. And so we certainly are comfortable flagging some of these stats directly. So we'll source, you know, each survey states directly who they spoken to, you know, because that also changes how much weight you should put on the numbers for sure. So like I said, the full sourcing breakdown will be in our show notes. Let's get into it.

KAREN SWIM, APR [05:19]-[05:39]: Awesome. So, okay. So HSBC did a quality of life study. And it was about 10,000 respondents and they found that 37% plan to take a mini retirement. So six to 12 months at some point before their actual retirement.

MICHELLE KANE [05:39]-[05:45]: That's a pretty robust number for something that sounds, especially in our society, pretty novel.

KAREN SWIM, APR [05:46]-[06:08]: I agree, but here's the catch. The people surveyed really were high earners. They held assets somewhere between $100,000 and $2 million. It's skewed towards people that have a financial cushion. I want to flag that because it's going to matter a lot when we get to push back on it.

MICHELLE KANE [06:08]-[06:12]: Sure. Let's definitely hold that thought. What's the second study?

KAREN SWIM, APR [06:12]-[07:07]: So this is the one that I actually found a little more interesting. SideHustles.com ran their own survey of a thousand American employees, average age 40. So it was, you know, a good cross section and it wasn't filtered by income or net worth. And their numbers were really different. 75% believe employers should offer structured micro retirement policies, unpaid sabbaticals, extended PTO. And when you get to Gen Z, that jumps to 85%. So 10% of the people said that they're actively planning a micro retirement this year and 59% would consider one at some point and 20%, one in five have already taken one.

MICHELLE KANE [07:10]-[07:31]: That's a pretty significant number for some idea that many of us are just wrapping our minds around today. Think about that. Out of every five people you know, one may have already done this. And you know what? Shout out to Gen Z. I love how they're re rethinking and reframing work, which is no small task in the American society.

KAREN SWIM, APR [07:32]-[08:20]: I completely agree. I mean, and, and 54% of the respondents from that side hustle survey said they believe that micro retirement prevents burnout and improves their wellbeing. And I fully agree with them. And, and so, you know, I, I think that. Probably the results, you know, prove that and, and I love this idea. I wish, I wish someone had talked to me about this early in my career. I knew about sabbaticals and I thought that was cool, but I actually went in my corporate days. I don't know about you, but I never worked for a company that offered that. I now have clients that do that and I think it's beautiful. Um, but I never had that opportunity.

MICHELLE KANE [08:20]-[09:11]: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I, I mean, it's amazing because now I think we both came up in the era of you just run yourself ragged, because that's what we all do. And do you ever really catch up? No, you just think There's nothing on the other side to deal with that. You just think, well, the weekend's coming, or, oh, I've got my vacation. That'll take care of it. But you never really do. And I love the distinction between these two surveys. And I love that the second survey wasn't well-screened like the HSBC one because, I think it tells a different, probably more realistic story for us and our listeners, unfortunately.

KAREN SWIM, APR [09:12]-[10:01]: Yes, I completely agree. And I mean, let's, so, you know, for solos, because I know solos are like, okay, that's great for employees. What about us? So employees have to ask permission, right? They have to negotiate the policy, or they quit, and they hope to get rehired somewhere. Yeah. But as Solos, we don't have an employer to grant or deny anything. So it's us. We get to give ourselves permission to do this. And so that does sound freeing, but it also means that there's not any department that is forcing us to have that planning compensation. So if we don't build the runway on our own, nobody's building it for us.

MICHELLE KANE [10:01]-[11:08]: That's such a good point. And as often as we say it, and, you know, we build our day-to-day around it, there's no external constraint, right? We're not, we're not time-carding in at 828 a.m. every day. But that also flips it that it's our responsibility. And I think, you know, goodness, even for me all these years in, Can I tell you, last week I took my very first Ferris Bueller afternoon. It was a gorgeous day. I had not been to the pool all summer, and I just felt kind of ragged. And I'm like, well, you've been working nights and weekends on these events and stuff. I'm like, I'm going to the pool. Good for you. And then as I sat at the pool, I realized I should have had pool afternoon Fridays. Bring my Chromebook. Anyway, it's just a little too much inside my head, but I think it helps our listeners know where we're kind of all coming from, where this sounds great, but it could also be kind of scary. But let's talk a little bit more about how, you know, we can still design around this. It's never too late to start doing this stuff, you know.

KAREN SWIM, APR [11:09]-[11:39]: And, you know, let's be honest, in 2026, I think the real tension around this, it's worth naming. If you're an employee, you are probably not feeling comfortable about sabbatical or micro retirement because of the job market. Is really shaky and so you might be a little bit nervous about. You know, taking a leisurely break and feeling that that's risky. So.

MICHELLE KANE [11:42]-[11:53]: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, that's that's definitely an important caution. And, you know, I question I could go either way on this, whether it's relevant to us solos as well. Right.

KAREN SWIM, APR [11:54]-[12:43]: Yeah. Yeah. So for us, I think that caution exists in 2026, too, as we're seeing a very tumultuous economy. A lot of solos have you know, lost a lot of business because of budgets. And so the risk is for us, we're business owners and we want to protect, you know, those existing relationships, you know, versus, you know, needing to get rehired. But it's not a zero risk. And, you know, we have to be honest about that. your, your pipeline doesn't pause just because you do. And so yeah, it is a risk. But it's worth examining that. And, you know, knowing that that caution exists and planning accordingly.

MICHELLE KANE [12:43]-[13:18]: Yeah, definitely, definitely. Okay, so now we've, we've laid this out, and it sounds fantastic. But let's do battle with the pushback, right? First one, we don't happen to have $100,000 to $2 million sitting around, sadly, unless, you know, relatives might have left something under carpets I haven't pulled up yet. I'm not sure. So, you know, I'm sure many listeners are out there going like, yeah, for real. You know, this trend isn't for me. It's for people who might already have a financial cushion, which automatically gives them a little more freedom. How can we work around this? Right? Yeah.

KAREN SWIM, APR [13:20]-[14:02]: Well, I think that's where the two studies and their differences come in, right? So the HSB study, well funded people that can take, you know, six to 12 months, but the side hustle survey really actually talked to regular employees. So they 75% still want this to exist as an option. So I think that the the appetite is there for everyone, regardless of how much you earn. And I think we still all can take those planned, protected breaks, you know, as opposed to a crisis one where you literally hit a wall and cannot go on. And I think that we can make that accessible to us.

MICHELLE KANE [14:03]-[15:02]: Yeah, that's true. That's true. So, you know, it's less, you know, I'm going to book three months in Portugal like the HSBC respondents, right? And it's more of planning and protecting your time off. In fact, my hairstylist friend, we were talking last week and she's just finally, she's getting the jive of, you know, how Sometimes it's feast or famine, right? People make appointments, they cancel. And she said, you know what? I'm thinking of just for every six weeks I work, I'm gonna take two either off, focus on the business. And I said, that's brilliant because your hairstyle people are on maybe five, six, eight week. that that is an amazing idea, because that, you know, we love talking about time blocking when we're sitting at our keyboards. That's time blocking your hair appointments into people are like, well, I'm not available then. Anyway, all sorts of good reasons. So I guess, you know, I'll push back on the pushback.

KAREN SWIM, APR [15:04]-[16:21]: Yeah, I mean, I I agree with you. And I think there's ways to do this. When, when I was in college, I worked for a law firm and they took a month off every quarter, um, basically. And I was, you know, I was young, but I was like, wow, that's so cool. Four months off a year. Yeah. But again, when you, you schedule, the, you know, your business cadence around that, then it's just built in. So it doesn't feel disruptive. And I, you know, I've seen solos do some creative things, you know, taking projects and purposely scheduling, you know, around like, so that they can have a month off. but I, I love like these planned breaks and it's more than a vacation. Cause I think we can all take a week or two off and feel okay about it. Um, some of us can take, you know, a couple, two to three weeks and we'll take a laptop and you know, wherever we're going and we might work a little remotely, but taking a real break. I just think that that's a healthy move for us. It is. All right. What's the next objection? Hit me up.

MICHELLE KANE [16:21]-[16:34]: Okay. And poof, this one pings to my insecurities. If I step away even briefly, my clients will replace me and or my pipeline will just die while I'm gone.

KAREN SWIM, APR [16:35]-[17:35]: Yeah. I mean, so this kind of goes back to our specialization episode and retainer. So if you've built your business and it's on you personally being the answer to everything, you know, where you don't have systems and, you know, maybe it's no one else can manage that relationship. Stepping away is absolutely risky, but if you have retained business, you have documented processes, and maybe even a referral partner or two, then this becomes more portable. And so in my mind, this definitely becomes a good stress test as to whether or not your business depends on your presence or your ownership. And don't feel bad if you're like, it requires my presence because this is your opportunity to change that.

MICHELLE KANE [17:35]-[18:18]: Yeah, yeah. And if you frame it this way, you know, for many of us who came up as account executives, right, you went on vacation, you had someone else backing you up. So it's not exactly a foreign concept, right? That's a really, I think for a lot of us, it's definitely a hard a hard-heard truth, for lack of a better way of putting it, but definitely useful and something for us to really think about. OK. Objection 3, and we touched on this already. The economy is too uncertain right now. This is the worst possible time for me to take my foot off the gas.

KAREN SWIM, APR [18:19]-[20:00]: Yeah, I mean, I'm going to be really honest and say this is where you trust your own gut on the timing. So maybe it's not 2026, but maybe this episode hitting gives you the opportunity to plan ahead for 2027 to, you know, take a little micro retirement for yourself. And I think, you know, it gives you an opportunity to test out some referral partners in small ways, you know, bring people in to subcontract, you know, maybe you guys work together on each other's accounts for a little bit and see if the rhythm is there and see if you find somebody who's working. So, so you have some time to plan, but I, I'm not going to say, Oh, your worries are unfounded. No, they're, they're founded and it's your business. So you really have to be ready for micro retirement. And I know we're all control freaks. We are, still up here post. We like to control every aspect and we're over thinkers, but I just think that, you know, it's really worth recreating your business at whatever stage you're at so that it doesn't all fall on your shoulders. And here's the beautiful thing. A planned micro-retirement is a good test because you can still step in if you need to. Let's not forget that. You can still stay connected to your business. But I like the idea of testing this in the event that you ever have Time that you have to step away and there's no choice.

MICHELLE KANE [20:00]-[21:25]: Yeah, that's true. That's true Which is far scarier than being somewhat ready For it. So there's all sorts of reasons to really pursue this, you know It's not a pipe dream of you know Going away again to Europe for a whole quarter. All right, so and then there's the quiet pushback yeah there's always that quiet one right okay ready if i actually stopped for real would my business survive would i like i know for many of us and i think about this so often and it's definitely one of my constant things i'm working on it's like Would I even know who I am without being constantly available? And I know what I said, just said is so awfully mentally unhealthy and not going to lie. Menopause has certainly helped cure me of some of that, but at the same time, you know, we are so ingrained to being the go-to person. It can't help but become part of who you perceive you know, who you are. And I think that's a big one, making sure that our identity isn't what we do. It's dangerous.

KAREN SWIM, APR [21:26]-[22:38]: Yeah. You're 100% right. And for so many people, not just solo PR pros, your identity is wrapped up in your career and what you do. And without it, you don't know who you are. That's a very real, honest question. I've seen that pop up, you know, a lot recently on social media from other sectors. But if that question makes you uncomfortable, then I think that that discomfort alone is data for you. And it's telling you that it's something worth paying attention to, not something to push past, like, that's real. So do the work and untangling that. And, you know, in smaller stages, you can start to really, you know, explore who you really are, because it's not your job, your job is what you do, no matter how much you love it, it's not who you are. And so really sit with that, like, who would I be without all this? Because that's the scary part. And I think that is why we bury ourselves sometimes beneath that work. We wrap it around us, like, you know, a way to be, you know, it makes us feel good to know that we're doing things, but If all that went away, who are you?

MICHELLE KANE [22:38]-[23:48]: Yeah. And, and I think too, of course, having only done this sort of work my entire career, I don't have other perspectives, but I think because so much of what we do is creative and we become, you know, even a little bit part of the teams we work with as far as wanting their success. That distinction can be different as opposed to, let's say, you know, the summer I was counting cows all day, walking in and not walking out, you know, you're just running numbers, you know, I'm not really investing. my creativity and, and fervor into it. So it can be a little more difficult. So now that we've made everybody anxious, myself included, let's talk through a way to give our listeners and us, you know, a way to think about this instead of, you know, let, let, let's, uh, let's get the, uh, the angst out of the way and, Let's talk through how this can really be a possible beginning for us.

KAREN SWIM, APR [23:48]-[24:27]: Yeah. Yeah. So, OK. You know how we like to have a little format to help you guys along. So a couple of questions. So one question to start with is, what percentage of your revenue would, right now, would survive your absence without you personally present? And so here's where you want to be dead honest. full transparency. It's just you and a piece of paper or you and, you know, a voice note, however you want to do it. So you want to be honest and not aspirational.

MICHELLE KANE [24:27]-[24:37]: Yeah, that's good. That's good. Okay. And we should tell them. So we've put this into like a three question framework. So that's question one. What's question two?

KAREN SWIM, APR [24:38]-[25:25]: I think question two is, well, what's the smallest version of a way that would still count as a reset for you? Because it really doesn't have to be six months. Beautiful. And if I'm being really honest, most solo PR pros would go bananas with six months off. So for you, it might look like three uninterrupted weeks. That might feel like a year. Some people would just need, you know, one month with completely, you know, off the grid, disconnected, no email. So I think that you want to set this based on what works for you and, and not, you know, based on a headline from a survey.

MICHELLE KANE [25:25]-[25:42]: Yeah, yeah, I love that. You know, kind of align it with your nervous system. Because even when you said a month, I immediately thought of the Sunday Scaries when you consider going back to a month's worth of email. Yeah. Okay. And finally, question three.

KAREN SWIM, APR [25:43]-[26:15]: I would say the third question is, who's your reality check person or your community for this decision? Because I don't think that this is a decision that you should make alone and when you're burned out and having 2 a.m. spirals, And it shouldn't just be you in a spreadsheet. I think you should talk this through with someone who's done it or who can at least reflect back to you with complete honesty.

MICHELLE KANE [26:16]-[26:41]: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's true. All right. So let's run through a hypothetical, right? Let's see. We've got a solo who is seven years into their solo practice. They're exhausted. They are fortunate to have three solid retainer clients, which is great, but literally everything runs through their inbox. There's no assistant, no backup.

KAREN SWIM, APR [26:42]-[26:44]: Yeah. So question one.

MICHELLE KANE [26:44]-[26:44]: Yeah.

KAREN SWIM, APR [26:45]-[27:09]: First question, revenue survival right now. Um, that means that pretty close to 0% can survive their absence, right? Because everything routes through their inbox personally. So that's, that's a finding, right? It's, it's not, should I take a break, but it's really like, I have no infrastructure for anyone to reach me being unavailable.

MICHELLE KANE [27:10]-[27:36]: Yeah. So before she even plans this micro-retirement or micro-break, that's a step. And I will say, even though myself included, we may not have that set up, we all have to know at least one or two people that would be good candidates for that. It's just having that conversation. In fact, I can think of several right now that I'm like, well, if it really came down to it, so-and-so could mind my store for a couple of weeks.

KAREN SWIM, APR [27:37]-[28:01]: So I think that that's where you really start to build even that one thin layer. So it could be a shared inbox. It could be a documented handoff process or a part-time contractor who can triage. It can be a, you know, a VA employee, a VA service that can manage that. So that's not a detour from your goal. It's just, you know, like phase one of the plan.

MICHELLE KANE [28:02]-[28:02]: Yeah.

KAREN SWIM, APR [28:02]-[28:03]: Okay.

MICHELLE KANE [28:03]-[28:11]: So this hypothetical solo takes care of that. And now they need to determine what is the smallest version of officially away.

KAREN SWIM, APR [28:12]-[28:51]: Yeah. For someone who like this person sounds completely depleted, exhausted, wiped out. I will push back. I don't think the starting point is six months. I would say to protect it weeks is, is, you know, more than a fully offline, This you can treat as a test of the systems not the vacation itself So if the business can survive two weeks intact, that's that's evidence now that you have it's not a gas at who will it yeah, and honestly, that's that's tremendous data and You know should pending all goes well would be really exciting.

MICHELLE KANE [28:52]-[28:59]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay question three Yeah. So our community. Yeah.

KAREN SWIM, APR [29:00]-[30:29]: Yeah. This I think is, you know, goes back to something bigger than logistics. It's not making the decision alone. Um, you know, you should have somebody to reality check the plan and, and be honest with you about whether your systems are actually ready and, you know, exactly how people it, this is exactly how people either never take a break, um, or take it and panic the whole time. So true. So true. And that brings us back to the thing we always come back to, right? Yeah, it's community. This is the kind of decision that really does get better with independent practitioners in the room, people who work exactly like you, because many of them have built these systems. And so not only can they walk that through with you, they can share some of the tools that they may have used to make this easier. you know, how they went about it. They can give you the nitty gritty details that you can then begin to research and see what works for you. They can also, you know, provide some caution about what worked and what didn't, and even work you through maybe some of the mindset challenges because, you know, who are we kidding? Every business owner, no matter what type of business you run, walking away from your business and handing the keys over to somebody else to manage in your absence, You know if for the first time it's it's going to be a little nerve-wracking. You'll be a little nervous about it Yeah, it is scary.

MICHELLE KANE [30:29]-[30:57]: It is scary. But here's the good news None of us have to go it alone. That is exactly what solo PR pro is all about. Yes. She knows plug You know if if you have not gone to solo p pro calm yet, please do especially if you're sitting with this question right now membership is, you know, become a member, bring it to our community, because we're all there to help each other think this stuff through.

KAREN SWIM, APR [30:58]-[31:23]: Yeah, I agree. And if, if you're just, you're like, I am not a community person, I don't want to join anything. That's okay. You're our people too. You can drop us an email and, you know, set up a time for a little one-on-one consult and we're happy to talk it through with you and help you out because that's our whole mission is to be here for this community.

MICHELLE KANE [31:24]-[31:41]: Yeah. Yeah. That's what I love about this community. We are truly passionate about helping each other succeed. So, well, that's it for this one. You'll find show notes and the sourcing breakdown and links to our burnout
episode. Everything about this episode and our podcast as a whole at thatsololife.com.

KAREN SWIM, APR [31:43]-[31:59]: Yeah. And if this one quietly had you reaching for your calendar, whether it's an app or a paper calendar, then you're not crazy. That's a good thing. Yup. Definitely. So until next time. Thank you for listening to That Solo Life.