O
ver the holiday break an
article in the Financial
Review highlighted the ‘gig
economy’ - but from a rather neg-
ative viewpoint. The writer went
onto say that people had no
“workers’ rights” and were selling
out at wages below the standards
of workers in a regular job.What the writer failed to do was some
proper research before coming up with the
article spread out over 2 pages. Maybe the
writer was in a secure job and couldn’t see
the benefits of being a self employed busi-
ness owner or that doing gig work such as
Uber, Airbnb and so forth has leverage while
working and that profit opportunities are
there to be had in the new gig market place.WHY IS THIS SO?
On a long term trend full time work has
plateaued and part time work or casual
work has become the norm. In some indus-
tries such as retail; assistants in the food
trade wages have even been underpaid to
as low as $10 an hour whilst regular hourly
rates in Australia command from $22 and
hour to an “average” of say $35 an hour
depending on what you’re doing.
No doubt people are looking at alterna-
tives - and when they do its come to look-
ing at Rent a Friend, Airtasker, Uber,
Airbnb, Fiverr.com and more.CAN YOU AUTOMATE WHAT
YOU’RE DOING?Maybe not in all cases, but certainly in
some cases you could. For example, it’s
very possible to do some jobs such as web
design and outsource the hard bits online
e.g. graphics, templates for design and so
forth. Amazon Kindle books need “kindle
friendly” e-covers made for them. I use
one designer who has basically mappedout most of the common variants his
clients need and thus auto-
mated the design process.
You might not be able to
automate driving a car for
Uber (yet) but with driver-
less cars around the future
corner, you can get a
glimpse of what’s ahead.
Similarly if you were a book
editor and you subscribed to
Grammarly you could
alongside your own skills automate doing
work for clients who need their books
checked.CAN THE GIG ECONOMY BE
FUN?Rent a Friend also lends itself to both
leisure while earning an income. The aver-
age earnings per hour can be $30 an hour
while on a gig with a person hiring you to
say visit a movie or a luncheon or a day at
the races. Sure you do have to be attentive
to the needs of the person hiring you but
the upside is you get built-in perks doing
what you love. Certainly much better than
a desk bound online gig by any means.THE FUTURE?
Almost every area of our lives is being
changed by the gig economy. It boils down
to access. 20 years ago we advertised in
classifieds in your local or big city based
newspaper. This worked extremely well.
Then as the internet gnawed away at the
newspaper’s “rivers of gold”
one day it all stopped. The
ball was snatched from their
hands and landed in our
mobile phones.
One to one access was
the defining pivot point we
have between apps and cus-
tomers.
Your future success
could be simply offering what
you love to do and are good at via an app
or a smart web portal access. This can be
especially true if you can accurately define
your offer and deliver it in a way that’s
economical for you and the target market
client you are aiming to reach.The New Gig
Economy
How to cash in on the new
way of doing business
by David Newton20 • Australian Opportunities Magazine • M/J/J 2017 • http://www.workfromhomemagazine.com.auDavid Newton runs social and business events in both Sydney and Melbourne see his sites:
http://www.meetup.com/BabyBoomersRights/and
http://www.meetup.com/Baby-Boomers-Melbourne/ plus
http://www.amazon.com/David-Newton/e/B009N5DVNG/
attend his regular events and meet new people.How To Start and
Grow A Successful
Online Travel
Business