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the future of Freelancing - Q&A with The Gig Exchange Story by Naomi Ferreira

Recently we spoke with Mike Berry, founder of the Gig Exchange. You can read part 1 here.

This is part 2 of our interview with Mike where we discuss skills in demand and what the future might hold for the self-employed.

I have seen into the Future of Work, the job for life is no more, the career for life is evaporating as we have to pivot and upskill multiple times throughout our work life.

What freelance job roles are in high demand?

We live in the era of the digital revolution, any skill or role that facilitates businesses advancing their digital transformation is highly valuable. These can be broken down into different sub-services:

Design & Build: Web & App development, Web Design are hugely desirable skills, especially as small business begins to understand the importance of having a digital footprint.

Customer Experience: UI/UX Designers who can simply navigate the customer to point of sales within a website or application are critical to success.

Sales & Marketing: This can range from Artists, Illustrators, Graphic Designers, Photographers & Content creators visualising the product and brand.

Copywriters articulating the message & media/journalists reporting on this.

Video producers professionally engaging & educating audiences.

SEO experts extending the organic reach of a website.

Digital marketers: Strategically planning the solution and implementing the result across different mediums and especially social media.

Cloud professionals: Migrating legacy on premise office equipment to scalable cloud platforms

Network & Cyber Security professionals: Enabling internet access & securing customer data & websites.

Automation: Software engineering, DevOps & automation is driving efficiency within the workforce. Businesses are demanding to work smarter.

Data Analysis: Data Scientists, or Big Data Analysts & Business Analysts who can collate, interpret & present customer data trends is the big growth area!

AI & Machine Learning: We’ve all seen the movies, but the fact is AI & machine learning is here to stay. How we control it for good is the most important question. The opportunities are endless and it’s a huge growth area if you have skills in mathematics & programming.

Blockchain & Cryptography: The way we transact over the internet is changing rapidly. These technologies are at the forefront of providing de-centralised, yet secure, transactions. At a fraction of the cost of existing solutions.

Where do you believe is the future of freelancing?

I believe we are all slowly progressing towards self-employment. The future of freelancing is incredible. The digital age is opening up new opportunities to freelancers which have previously been restricted to local geographical areas, or permanent employees only. Businesses are rapidly beginning to appreciate the value of on-demand highly skilled local and remote freelancers.

The effect of Covid has accelerated and liberated businesses to adopting remote workers especially. ‘Where’ and ‘how’ work is completed is no longer as important to an employer. The outcome is now everything. If you can deliver high quality work, when expected, the opportunities are endless. I believe remote working is the next big opportunity.

What makes a freelancer stand out to a potential employer/in the marketplace?

Our super power over all other sites is that we are founded and developed by contractors and freelancers. We understand this world as we walk in the same shoes. But most importantly, we passionately care about our customer’s success.

The secret to success are the 3 A’s. Ability, Attitude & Availability. We summarise this as reputation. Our reputation is everything. It can deliver more work, or destroy our business. We want all our workers to thrive, by promoting their reputation to obtain new work opportunities. We understand that in some cases, feedback is not always accurate. We allow one response to all feedback and believe how we respond to negative feedback portrays ourselves powerfully to our customers.

How can freelancing be turned into a secure/stable business?

The challenges of maintaining a steady flow of work, when it works with your availability, at a price that suits, is a common and tough problem to solve.

I believe the answer lies in building your own network, diversifying your work opportunity funnels, adding value through high quality work and continuous improvement is key.

I believe the way are working is changing rapidly. The current model of ‘going to work’ is becoming outdated. The Future of Work is the opposite, work will come to you. I believe digital platforms such as gigexchange will play a bit part in delivering this model.

What are much needed technical and soft skillsets for freelancers to have? (particularly designers, comms, journalists and web designers)

Self-awareness and continuous improvement are the most important attributes. No-one is perfect and we should all be happy in our own skin, but try and improve on those things we secretly wish to ignore. No matter what field we are in, we should always be future proofing our career by studying new trends and understanding how that will impact me directly or in-directly. These may be tech skills, or inter-personal skills. As a freelancer, we have to wear every hat of the business.

If one ‘hat’ needs improvement, don’t avoid it. Only a minor improvement could improve your whole freelance package as a whole. If you are an expert in your field of specialty and a good person, this will always shine through.

Do you believe freelancing will be the new normal?

Most definitely. I believe we are slowly trending towards self-employment. We are the lucky ones, we chose to become freelancers and contractors doing what we love and are great at. We understand the risks and the rewards. As we transition to the new normal, we need to ensure the ‘old normal’ commission model adapts to the new normal too. We will fix that problem.

More broadly and in your opinion: what does the future of work look like?

The Future of Work is a combination of time and outcome based work, which is why I created gigexchange to facilitate all ways of working. This enables choice & flexibility from both sides of the marketplace, as well as increased opportunities for work.

https://gigexchange.com/home

Credits:

Created with images by Daria Mamont - "untitled image" • Sergey Zolkin - "Work on notebook" • Windows - "untitled image" • Adeolu Eletu - "man looking at marketing analytics" • myHQ Workspaces - "untitled image"