Dr. Charles A West
We don’t recommend that you quit your job without having a survival plan. However, if you have already quit, there are many gigs available. Some are skilled and some are not so skilled. The key to generating income is finding a need/want and being able to satisfy it. For example, everywhere you look you see a strong demand for same-day service or within two-hour service delivery. This can be food, packages, medicines, furniture, and other consumer goods. You can generate income here but not a lot because it is not considered one of the highly skilled jobs. The average food delivery person earns less than $15 an hour. Compensation on any gig is just like compensation on any job, is based on skill level and experience. But if you have technology skills you can significantly increase the compensation level. You can provide marketing, customer reviews, surveys, social media management, and data mining services. For example, if you understand social media, you can manage social media for small businesses. Few small businesses have the time or expertise to manage a social media account. A couple of years ago, we recommended to a small business that they ought to mine their customer list. Instead of waiting for the customer to decide when to seek service for their car, the business should be driving the customer to the business with an ongoing marketing campaign that educated, informed, and assisted the customer in maintaining the value of their automobile. As a result, the business was able to increase its revenue significantly as well as create a more predictable flow of income.
A Side Gig Might Allow You to Quit Your Job
One of our 7 secrets is a gig makes you recession-proof. Gigs can provide you with some income to survive during difficult times. From the first time that I heard my accounting professor say, get yourself a little cash business on the side, thru the Great Recession when many people discovered the gig economy, to the current pandemic, where many people rediscovered the gig economy, gigs have given people an employment option. After selling handbags on 125th street and 7th avenue in NYC and being able to put a down payment on my first house, gigs have been a continuous part of my life. No matter what level or secure my employment, the gig provided me with insurance to be able to pay many of my bills during any one of several recessions that I lived through. Just saying.
Gig Lessons from the Great Recession
The gig economy came of age during the Great Recession 2007-2010. Over 8.1 million jobs were lost and people had to figure out how to survive. They cobbled together various gigs to make ends meet and in some cases returned home to live with their parents. A group leveraged underutilized assets like cars, houses, and tools. As the economy improved, many people decided that they enjoyed gig work and chose to continue instead of going back to corporate. They enjoyed gig benefits like independence, control, remote work, flexibility, respect, adequate compensation and work-life balance. Studies indicate many of these benefits are the rationale provided by people who quit their jobs over the last three months and became part of the Great Resignation wave.
Don’t be Fooled by the Hype… Having A Gig is Work
No matter where you look there is an article about the gig economy. Many would have you believe that you can be up and running instantly. Others will tell you that you can make loads of money. Few tell you the truth, “you become an entrepreneur when you enter the freelance gig economy. We label this as secret number 1 in our ToolKit. Being an entrepreneur means that there is work, risk, competition, and market challenges. Your success will be based on your ability to navigate all of these factors. You can do it like many others before you. But you want your decision to pursue a gig based on fact, not fantasy.