I’ve been a part-time freelancer for several years now and I speak from that experience when I say; the ability to get good gigs in my industry (blogging and brand awareness) is getting harder and harder each day as more people enter the workforce and embrace the “gig economy”. Seeing more and more marketing pros talk about multiple streams of income and what “side hustle” you may be able to pick up to achieve financial security led me to agree to review The Gig Is Up: Thrive in the Gig Economy, Where Old Jobs Are Obsolete and Freelancing Is the Future by Olga Mizrahi.
I received a free copy of The Gig is Up to facilitate today's review post. All opinions are 100% my own. This post contains an affiliate link to Amazon. If you decide to make a purchase, I will receive a small commission. Thank you for choosing to support my blog.
About The Gig Is Up: By Olga Mizrahi- Published by Greenleaf Book Group:
Most books on the gig economy focus on showing people how to live out their dreams, which was exactly what I was expecting with this book, to be honest. Instead, The Gig is Up, looks at the realities of what it takes to win in a world of increasing choice by walking us through key steps starting with an innovative tool called the Unique Value Proposition, which helps you showcase you at your best.
The Gig Is Up outlines these key areas:
- Becoming the freelance elite
- The seven things you’re not going to think about, but need to
- How to always be attracting new clients
- Independent Freelancer vs. Freelance Business Owner
- Redeeming yourself after a slump
- Ethics remind you that you’re not a desperate drone
- The Robopocalypse is not coming
About the Author: Olga Mizrahi:
Olga Mizrahi is a national speaker and marketing expert on the gig economy is an instructor of the Digital Marketing program for the University of California, Irvine and an Airbnb open speaker. She is also a southern California business owner, blogger for entrepreneurs and freelancers and chunkofchange.com and a small business columnist for The Long Beach Post. She also wrote Sell Local, Think Global, published in 2014.
What is the Gig Economy and why you may need the Gig Is Up:
Mizrahi states: By some estimates, 2020 will see half of all workers involved in the gig economy. That’s a startling number, not just for the freelancers of today, like me, but for all of those who are entering the workforce each year. If you have a traditional job, you may not even realize you need to be aware of this shift, this seismic shift in our work lives as Olga puts it. And, contrary to popular belief, independent work is not dominated by millennials. They represent less than one-quarter of independent workers in the United States. The average age of digital enables independent workers is 40, showing that this book may help quite a few of us along our career path.
What is the Gig Economy?
“The gig economy is made up of project-based or on-demand services that can be provided by anyone. The common denominator in the gig economy is technology, so our modern online-lives provide the perfect marketplace for the ever-diversifying opportunities in the gig economy.”
The Gig is Up covers topics ranging from peer-to-peer platforms (and how they work!) platforms and apps include:
- airbnb
- Care.com
- Doordash
- fiverr
- Freelancer
- Guru
And many more that I haven’t heard of and I feel I’m fairly well versed in this area, to helpful topics like ethics in the gig economy and how to develop one, the importance of online reviews, why to embrace them and stats galore and, a personal favorite addition, throughout the book there are special spotlight sections from real people living the gig life.
My Thoughts:
When I first started reading The Gig Is Up, I felt like I already knew some of the content, at least on a surface level. I found the book's format method one I’m completely familiar with as a blogger. Since Mizrahi is a blogger and digital marketer, it stands to reason she would share content in her book, much the same way she does on her blog, citing and quoting a variety of outside sources to make her points.
My first suggestion to readers of this book- find a topic that interests you and read that chapter first. Use this book as a research tool and before you start signing up for gigs of fivver, set aside time to use the Unique Value Proposition tool provided.
If you follow the steps outlined in the book by taking stock of your skill set (understanding your value) first and then checking out the peer-to-peer platforms to A. see what jobs you might be interested in and qualify for, but also B. seeing what other freelancers are doing to garner those gigs on that particular platform, I think you'll be less likely to feel stressed about the enormity of the gig economy landscape.
My Takeaway:
I invite you to learn more about this book and the author by visiting Olga's blog here. You can also purchase this book starting today, February 27, 2018, on Amazon using my affiliate link here.
Please
share in comments: Are you a freelancer? If so, do you prefer one peer-to-peer
platform?
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