From Side Hustle to Six Figures: The Gig Economy Strategy No One’s Talking About

GGGR 286 – Final
Fri, Aug 23, 2024 10:56AM 24:17
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
linkedin, gig economy, opportunities, people, create, karen, unique value proposition,
accelerator program, gig, linkedin profile, talk, independent consultant, women, position, conversations,
building, work, focus, income, stand
00:00
Karen yankovich, hello, hello, and welcome to the good girls get rich podcast. I’m your host.
Karen yankovich, and today’s topic is, I think, a fun one, and I hope I want to like kind of shift
the narrative a little bit. And the narrative that we’re shifting a little bit is on the the term the
gig economy. And I know maybe when you think of the gig economy, you probably think of
things like Uber drivers or Instacart shoppers. And that is, for sure, the gig economy, right? I
know that that has exploded. It’s certainly exploded during covid, all the shoppers and and all
that stuff. And honestly, it’s a great business. It’s a great business. There’s, you know, I have
nieces and nephews that did that kind of stuff through college, right? Because they were able
to do it on their schedule around their classes, and they did really well. They made some really
good money doing that. But I want you to show me shift the narrative a little bit around what
the gig economy looks like, because the same concept that goes into creating your own hours
as an Uber driver goes into creating your own hours as a freelance writer or an independent
consultant or a graphic designer or a virtual assistant or a social media manager or PR
specialist, or a course Creator or event planner, SEO specialist, copywriter, all those things,
right? All of those things can also be wrapped into the concept of the gig economy. And I want
you to think about that for a second, because so many of us, so many people, from what I the
conversations that I’m having, they, you know, they, they think it’s corporate or full time
entrepreneur, right? And, you know, that’s the thing, right? That’s the thing. Most
entrepreneurs, I know, work way too many hours, more, probably more hours, than they work
when they were in corporate. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing. And there are ways, if
we shift our mindset a little bit around how we look at our career, our next chapter, our, our,
you know, our next, whatever’s next for us, if we look at it as something that we’re that is a gig
for us, even, even if we want to show up as the CEO, and even if we want to have staff and
support and we want to, you know, you know me, I want there to be more wealthy women on
the planet, right? So if you want to just work a couple hours as a copywriter, you can absolutely
do that. If you want to have a seven figure copywriting business, you can still do that, and it
still can be considered kind of like part of the gig economy, right? And I want you to think about
it like that, because it doesn’t because, to me, that makes it feel a little bit less overwhelming,
right? And maybe, maybe you can understand what I’m talking about that, right? There’s the
gig economy is exploding, right? It’s exploding. And we, you know, there’s, there’s people that
are in corporations are having a hard time finding employees, because everybody wants to
work a gig, right? So you can be, you can be creating your own version of that of a gig for
yourself, right? However, that doesn’t mean that, you know, like with Uber, they’re dropping
the clients in your lap, right? That’s not necessarily, well, let me take this back second, they’re
dropping the clients in your back. But also, you get ratings. You get reviews. Your income
depends on those rating and reviews, right? So, so there is still a little bit of personal branding
that needs to happen, even for things like Instacart shoppers and Uber drivers. So I want to talk
about that, thinking about how your personal branding would evolve in this gig economy that
exploding, a massive gig economy that we have in front of us as somebody who is focusing
more as an entrepreneur. Okay, so we’re going to talk about some LinkedIn branding tips in this
show. We’re going to talk about how do you want to position yourself? We’re going to talk
about how to secure some of those higher paying opportunities. You know, we’re flipping the
funnel around here, because I want you to be using these strategies to build long term wealth,
not just a couple bucks here and there. Okay, so let’s talk for a second about what the gig
economy is? Okay, you know, there’s an absolute rise in independent consultants, and
especially women, especially women. I’m reading a book right now. I’ll link it in the show notes.
I’m reading a book right now, and it talks about the fact that, yes, there’s an income gap
between women, women and men, but there’s also an income gap between women that are
moms and women that are not moms. And I’m saying this because if you’re a meaning that
women that are moms are making a whole lot less money, and comparatively, that income gap
is wider than the income gap between just men and women in general. So I think that that
could go away. I think we can eliminate income gaps, if we focus on things like our personal
brand higher ticket opportunities and creating a business that allows us to work around what
our personal priorities are. And if that’s if that means that you’ve got kids, that’s great if you
don’t have kids, maybe your personal priorities. Or I want to work from Italy for a month. I want
to take care of my parents. Or, you know, I only want to work six hours. Dollars a week,
whatever that is, right, whatever your personal priorities are. Can Can you can build a business
around that, and this gig concept can help you do that right? It can help you do that. So if
you’re experiencing either of those wage gaps, whether you’re experiencing the wage gap that
men are making more money for you for the same job, or whether you’re experiencing the gap
that women without children are making more money than you for those same jobs. This
concept here is designed to help you eliminate that gap, because I think we can absolutely rise,
and I am here to support you to be making as to be bringing in as much cash as you possibly
can. And like I said earlier, traditional employment is changing, right? It’s changing, and it does
not mean, you know, as an employee, and I have nothing against employees, right? I’m here to
support you as an entrepreneur, right? So, of course, I have those statistics in my head, but as
an employee, you know, you get a raise every year, maybe, right? 2% 3% 4% 6% whatever that
is, right? As an entrepreneur, the sky’s the limit, right? The sky’s the limit. So we want to
create, you know, as you’re stepping into this next chapter as a part of this gig economy, you
want to remember that you can still focus on the big opportunities. And that is why the brand of
you, your LinkedIn profile, and the personal brand you create around that is crucial. It’s crucial
because the competitive, the landscape is competitive, right? There’s, there’s a lot of other
people that do what you do, which is why I’m, if we’ve talked, you know that my question is
always, what makes you different? What makes you different than other people that do what
you do? How can we help you stand out from the crowd, because that makes you more the
more specific your niche, the more money you’re going to make. It’s just the way business
works, right? So you want to, you want to make sure that you’re creating a brand on LinkedIn
that allows you to stand out. That’s magnetic, right? You could still create that magnetic profile,
that magnetic brand, because that allows you to command higher rates. Okay? And LinkedIn,
as the professional networking platform, is essential for building that credibility and that trust in
the space of this gig economy. Because now you’re you know again, if you’re driving for Uber,
you’ve got the brand of Uber that represents you, but if you are stepping into this with your
own gigs, then you’ve got to create that credibility. You’ve got to create that trust. And that’s
why we focus so much on PR in our she’s linked up accelerator program and all the work that
we’re doing, by the way, if we have not talked yet about she’s linked up, definitely grab. We’ll
just links below this. Grab a spot on my calendar, because we’ve got some really sweet we’ve
made some changes to it, and we got some really sweet offers for you. Alright, so moving on as
let’s just focus this as an independent consultant, because all of those things that I mentioned
earlier, right? They all kind of roll up to independent consulting. So you, the first thing you want
to do is identify your niche and identify your unique selling proposition, unique value
proposition, right? So you want to think about what that is. You want to use things like LinkedIn
skills section to be listing the skills you want to be known for, the ones that make you stand out
from just consultants, right? You want to maybe create, you want to maybe join some LinkedIn
groups that are associated with your unique value proposition and with your niche, right?
Because you want to make sure that that you know you want to be diving into, diving deep into
that niche. You want to go deep, not wide, because the deeper you go, the more money you’re
going to make. Okay, so you want to, you want to have, you want to be articulating that unique
value proposition with your LinkedIn headline, in your LinkedIn about section, in your LinkedIn
experience sections, right? You want to make that stand out from everyone else, and it doesn’t,
you know, it doesn’t mean like and I’ve said this before on the show, so maybe you’ve heard
me say this, but my this podcast you’re listening to right now is called Good girls get rich. My
training program that I have been running for five, six years now is called the she’s linked up
accelerator program. I would say half of my private clients are men. Okay, so it doesn’t mean
that I can’t work with men, just because my marketing focuses on women. I focus on women
because I think women are underrepresented with this work, and I want to make sure that
women are getting a piece of the pie, right. I don’t look at that wage gap as as a bummer. I
look at that wage gap as an opportunity to grab a piece of that I want a piece of that pie. I want
some of that money. Of that money, right? So, so when you’re when I’m saying what I’m asking
you to create that unique value proposition. I’m not asking you to give up opportunities. I’m
asking you to be known for something very specific. Okay, and then from there, you want to
create the story behind that. Why did you Why are you different than everyone else? Why did
you like what makes you want to stand out for, for what you stand up for? For me, for example,
there’s a lot of people that teach LinkedIn, right? I have a lot of competitors that do this work
and the PR stuff. But for me, you know, I, if you go all. Back to Episode One of the show. And if
you’ve not listened to that yet, you probably should. It’s a little cringy for me to listen to, but I
talk about the fact that I grew up in the 60s and the 70s, and women didn’t have the kind of
opportunities women have now. I had to unlearn so many habits and you know, and as I
watched over the decades, women rising, and women are rising, there’s no doubt about that,
but our incomes are still not rising, right? That’s my story. That’s the story. And I have a specific
memories in my personal life of times that I needed to do something that I didn’t have the
money for. I’m like, that is never happening again, and I don’t want that to happen for you
either, right? So that’s kind of my brand story, right? So you want to be doing that, you want to
be creating a brand story that resonate resonates with your potential clients, right? What’s the
journey? What? What challenges have you overcome? Right? Talk about those kinds of things in
your about section on your LinkedIn profile, because that is what is going to make you stand
out from other people that do the same gig that you do. Right? And you want to be chosen, you
want to be chosen so you have to stand out, right? So, so you know, thinking about what makes
you different, and incorporating that brand as a store that that that unique value proposition as
a story in your profile makes it interesting, right? It makes it interesting. Nobody really wants to
hear all the left brain certifications and stuff that you have. They want to know why you got
those certifications, right? Because that’s who they’re hiring, the person that had the passion to
do this, not the just the person with the certifications. So you want to optimize your LinkedIn
profile for that, and then obviously, too that. That optimizes it for visibility. Let’s say you’re a
financial coach, right? And you want to get speaking engagements, if you just put on there on
your LinkedIn, I’m a coach. I help people with money, blah, blah, blah, you’re going to get some
speaking, especially if you put in there that your speaker, you maybe hopefully get some
opportunities there. We’re going to make this magnetic, remember, but if you’re like, No, I’m a
wealth coach for woman, there are people looking for specifically what you do. If there’s a
woman’s conference, they’re going to be looking for you. They’re going to be using those
search words on LinkedIn to find you, right? So you’re going to stand out. And you know, when I
just wasn’t just, there was no just about this, because it was a lot of work. But when I was ran a
social media agency, and somebody said, Hey, I need a speaker for social media, I’m grateful
that 100 people would say, Hey, call Karen. Reach out to Karen. But when I started to niche into
LinkedIn, and specifically LinkedIn for women, now, when there’s a women’s conference where
they want a LinkedIn speaker, now, you know my name is, my name is put out there 100
people asking me, my name’s not in there with 100 other names, right? And that first example, my name was in there with 100 other names. Now I have 100 people just saying, call Karen,
right? So, so you want to optimize your LinkedIn profile for that visibility. So when people are
searching very specifically for what you do, you come up, right? You come up. You can use you
know your your profile picture in this right? If you want to be speaking, make sure you have a
microphone in your hand, right? Your about section, your experience sections, use LinkedIn
featured section right to showcase the kinds of work that you’re doing in that specific nation,
case studies, testimonials, videos, right? Um, and and be really consistent across all the
sections on LinkedIn so people understand what you stand for. It doesn’t. And here’s the deal’s
not Rushmore, you can change it, right? Like it’s not like it’s etched in stone. You can change it
if you shift what you’re doing, and you probably you might even like, sometimes I shift my
profile a couple times a year, right? Depending on what I’m focusing on in my business,
depending on what market I’m focusing on. So you can shift it, but you want to make sure it’s
consistent and not chaotic, because you want people to know exactly who you are and what
you stand for and what this does. It starts to position you for those higher paying opportunities.
It starts to position you because, you know, think about this. A doctor makes $1 a surgeon
makes $10 a heart surgeon makes $100 right a left ventricle specialist makes $1,000 so as you
start to specialize, as you start to establish yourself as a thought leader and as an expert on
LinkedIn, you’re creating an opportunities for more wealth, for higher ticket contracts. Okay, so
when you know, as you’re doing this and as you’re really shining a light very specifically on
what you focus on in things like your LinkedIn posts and your articles and videos, you’re
demonstrating that expertise that makes you stand out from everybody else that does what
you do in the gig that you do right? So you know you also want to be again. You’re positioning
yourself now for those higher paying opportunities. So we want to be connecting with the most
important people in the world that you want to be working in right. Connect with the CEOs,
connect with the the top people in your industry. Position yourself as if your peers with the
most influential people in your industry, because you are right, but nobody’s going to think
you’re bigger or better than you say you are. So we have to. Step into that. And these are some
of the things we are really good at helping you with. If I say these things, and you’re getting a
little bit, oh, I’m not one of the best top people in my industries. I got you. I got you. This is
what we are really good at helping people with, because then what you really want to do is you
want to have a premium pricing opportunity. And you know when, in our choosing type
accelerator program. In the very first thing you get from us is a trading on creating a high ticket
opportunity that trading alone probably pays three times for this training because, because
we’ve really revised the pricing on our on our, on our program. And I say that because, when
you’re having these conversations at this high level with the CEOs, they might not want your
$25 course, they’re going to want No, no. No. How do I get your brain? So you need to have a
premium offer for that. And it can be custom. It doesn’t have to be a suite of services. It doesn’t
have to be, you know, three levels of something. It can be, hey, I’ve got this VIP offering. We
custom design it to suit you what your needs are. And it starts at $5,000 or $10,000 or a million
dollars, whatever it is. Again, we teach you very specifically how to do that, but you want to
have that premium up the premium offer, so that you when the when the conversation comes
up, you can, you can. You’re ready for it. You’re ready for it. You don’t have to market it. You
should have to have it ready. You have to start thinking like that high earning person in this you
know that are created, the gigs that you’re getting are for the higher opportunities, right? And I
can think of, I can think of Dee, who’s our client concierge, and her, she’s a duck accelerator
program, and she went through the training as well. And I remember she said that she had a
conversation with somebody another potential opportunity that she was working on. And the
person she said, I had your voice in my head, Karen, and I just there. Just was, like, add a zero
and shut your mouth. So she’s like, I threw it out there, I added a zero and I shut my mouth.
And they said, Okay, where do I sign? Right? And I believe she’s still working with this person.
So if she it’s just about having it at the ready for when the opportunities come up. Okay?
Because remember, the profile is the is where you’re being positioned, right? If you’re emailing
people about these big fat opportunities, or if you’re Instagram DMing people about these big
fat opportunities, they don’t know anything about you, right? But when you’re on LinkedIn and
using LinkedIn messages in DM for these kinds of things, and they can see what a rock star you
are by your profile. This is where you are setting the terms for that those higher ticket
opportunities, the compensation for these packages that are that are worthy of of that higher
ticket price point. Okay, so you use, you’re using LinkedIn not just to find these people, but also
to substantiate your value and to have the conversations right there on LinkedIn, so that when
these gig opportunities come up, you are negotiating from a position of power. Okay, so, so you
want to also then be connect, building your network full of these high profile clients I mentioned
that a little bit earlier, but you want to use things like LinkedIn, exam, advanced search
features and strategic networking and showcasing some projects that you’re working on, if you
can testimonials, build that credibility, right? Magnetic. You want to make a magnetic strategy
here, right? You want a magnetic strategy because you don’t have, you know, Instacart sending
you clients. You gotta. You want to create a strategy on LinkedIn that LinkedIn drops those
clients in your lap, right? So you so not only do you want them to find you there, but it’s also a
place where you can continue to nurture those relationships, right? That’s why you want to put
regular updates on LinkedIn. That’s why you want to have relevant content. Maybe you want to
endorse them or engage in the content that they’re engaging on, right? Like my hands are
waving a lot today. My Italians coming out today. But does that make sense? Does that make
sense? And here’s the thing, you know, LinkedIn, there’s a lot of opportunities for the short
game on LinkedIn. I think I’ve mentioned on the show before that I’ve had people that didn’t
know who I was in the morning and hired me for my highest ticket opportunities at four o’clock
in the afternoon because they saw me posting on something and, you know, and and reached
out to me because I made it really easy for them to do that on LinkedIn, right? But the long
game, oh my gosh, the long game on LinkedIn is where the wealth building happens. It’s where
the wealth building happens, right? Because you can, you, you can you remember, you’re
building relationships now, maybe for conferences you want to speak at next year, right? You
know, you want to, maybe even start to diversify your income streams by, by, by having
conversation, just having conversations on LinkedIn like the the biggest tip I can give you today
is have conversations on LinkedIn. The people that have the most success in the work that I do
is the are the people that are having conversations without necessarily knowing where that
conversation’s going, right? Sometimes the conversation is just, hey, here’s what I do. Who do
you know? But sometimes other opportunities come from that, right? Other opportunities come
up from that. Maybe you’re jumping into you know, you’re doing some you’re hosting some
webinars or some LinkedIn events, right? Or. Or, you know you’re, maybe you’re doing some
LinkedIn learning courses. LinkedIn, as the hub of your world in this gig economy, is all you
need. You almost don’t even need a website. And I am, don’t say that lightly, okay, I don’t say
that lightly. You You know, a lot of the stuff we’re talking about here today, and a lot of the
stuff I talk about in general on this show is identity shifting, right? I’m saying I want you to step
into this gig economy, into your next chapter as a gig economy worker, as somebody who is
getting contract after contract after contract, big fat, juicy contract after contract after
contract, as if you’re worthy of being peers with the most influential people in your industry. I
know it’s there for you, right? It’s a little identity shifting, maybe on your end. So not only am I
asking you to shift your thinking a little bit around, like first, I’m asking you to shift your
thinking a little bit around the gig economy. And is that really something that you can embrace
and that you’re leaning into with your next chapter? And then I’m saying, and now I’m also
asking you to say, and can you do it from a place of power? You know so many people that I
speak with, and if you’re watching this on video, it’s a lot easier to get this concept. But there
they have such beautiful, high ambitions, but their energy is too low, and what we need to do is
raise their energy to match their ambitions and operate from that place. And that’s where the
magnetism comes into your strategies. Okay, so let’s recap really quickly here. I believe that a
lot of the work that many of us are doing can be classified as the gig economy. The gig
economy is exploding right now, and I think we need to embrace that and get on that wave.
Okay, the impact to the world we live in is is like none other. And, you know, I’ve said this a
billion times, no, there’s no better investment in this crazy, uncertain world we live in right now
than an investment in yourself. When you know how to do this, there’s always opportunities,
always clients for you, there’s always money for you, there’s always income for you. You don’t
have to worry about getting laid off from your job and not having an income, right? And then
you want to make sure that as an independent consultant, that you are still building a strong
personal brand, that you are known for something very specific, and that you’re positioning
yourself for the highest paying opportunities on LinkedIn, and then not overlooking the long
term wealth growth strategies, right? What are the what are the long term opportunities on
LinkedIn? There’s so so many. So a couple tips for you. A couple of episodes ago. This is
episode 286, so episode 284, I will link to it here if you’re at a county acumen.com/ 284, we did
an I think it was five or eight things that you could do to your LinkedIn profile right now. So go
back, listen to that episode and do those things, start to think about this, right? That’s kind of
like your homework for this. Your other homework is too we, if you have not yet taken our
assessment, go to LinkedIn quiz.com or Karen yankovich.com/quiz and just get a sense of how
what your marketing style is. Because as you’re stepping into this next chapter, as you’re
building wealth in this gig economy, I want you to do it from a place that feels comfortable for
you, right? It’s not one size fits all, and our marketing assessment is the place to start. So you
know how to monetize LinkedIn from a position of where you’re most comfortable, right? So
Karen yankovich.com/quiz, gets you there. LinkedIn quiz gets you there too. But for some
reason, that link is reason, that link doesn’t always work. So I hope that this was valuable to
you today. If it was, you know that I’d love for you to share this episode with your audience. Just
share it. Make sure you tag me. I’m at Karen yankovich, across all social media, use the
hashtag. Good girls get rich, and you know, that’s how we lift each other up. I can share that
with my audience, then if I see it, and then I can get more eyes on you. You’re getting more
eyes on me. We’re lifting each other up, and this is how we start to eliminate those wage gaps,
and we start to build more wealth in our world, because the relationships and the and the
referrals are where the money is, and that is all happening here on this podcast and on
LinkedIn and in our cheese linked up program. So thank you so much for tuning in. I hope that
you’re, I hope that you’re if you liked it, you’ll also leave us a quick review, or you will. You’ll
make sure that you’re subscribed so you don’t miss another episode, and I’ll be back here next
week with another show for you. Thank you so much for being with me today. You.