If you work at the Gig Economy, you work for yourself. It does not matter what it is that you do: Rideshare, Airbnb, whatever. What you earn doing it is determined by how you do it. Not by the platforms you use. You do not earn a wage; you get paid by customers.
One of the most appealing aspects of working for yourself is the ability — in theory — to earn unlimited income. You’re not held back by tiered corporate pay scales
An article in Money is a great example of this. I would highly recommend that you read it with your business in mind.
Ok, you might not really make a Million dollars, but you can make more than you do today. The basic principles described in this article still apply!
Step up your business thru these plateaus
- Scale to six figures
- The Service Treadmill
- The semi-scaled
- Leveraging your assets. The only way to a million dollars.
Most Gig workers never get past Level 1. They don’t even know there are levels. They don’t know that they are running a business.
Scaling to six figures is hard in the Gig world as most Gigs are very labor intensive for low compensation, but the plateaus mentioned here are the same! Just at different scale. This article is about professional consultants who are self-employed, but the guidelines apply to any personal business. Including Gig Businesses.
You are providing a service (generally if we think of only Rideshare). That covers Levels 1 and 2. You can’t scale yourself, so you can only earn so much. In the rideshare world, if you can’t build a fleet or hire drivers, you cannot scale.
Uber, Lyft, Ola
In level 3 (semi-scaled), you need to bring in more business thru marketing savvy. In many platforms this is just not possible. Recognize that. Find opportunities that allow you to be different from the herd. It is better to be on eBay than on Uber if you want to be known for what you bring to your customers. On rideshare platforms, you are just your car. You can semi-scale by buying cars and renting them to other rideshare drivers for example.
Getaround, Etsy, eBay
Level 4 is the only true scalable Gig businesses. Using Level 3 marketing and Level 4 asset management is the only way a Gig Business person can go beyond the ‘per hour’ mentality of selling your labor for money.
You have to eventually expand into Assets; Cars, Campers, Houses, anything. Or you cannot expand your business.
Turo, Getaround, Outdoorsy, Airbnb, VRBO