Freelancers Are Building New Economy In Australia

Weekly Newsletter for The Freelancers: Here is the latest newsletter of the week starting on 6th May 2019.

It is hard to believe that 4.1+ million workers in the New Economy of Australia are not featuring strongly in the current Federal Election in Australia.

Yet, the New Economy, some call it the Gig Economy, is worth $50 billion a year. Frank Chung wrote Nearly one third of Australians taking part in the $51 billion a year freelance economy for www.news.com.au. You can read Frank’s article here.

It is important to place the value of the New Economy in perspective. Matthew Howden and Kirk Zammit in their Agriculture Overview: September 2018 for www.agriculture.gov.au stated that “The value of farm production is forecast to be relatively unchanged at $60 billion in 2018–19, above the 10-year average of $56 billion (in 2018–19 dollars)”.

The value of the New Economy which the freelancers are pioneering is already almost equal to the value of farm production. You can read Matthew’s and Kirk’s article here.

The World Economic Forum has a range of articles under the heading Shaping the Future of Digital Economy and Society which you can read here.

Motivate Yourself!

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that
changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed
to fail is not taking risks.”

– Mark Zuckerberg

Why You Should Be Motivated To Face Your Greatest Fear?

Image Credit unsplash.com

One of the greatest needs for freelancers is to confront their fear of not being worthy of charging a high rate. The root cause of this fear is not having done the research as to what is the value proposition for the services that they provide.

This involves determining your unique selling proposition, setting your rate and communicating your value. It can be daunting, but only until you have done some research and reading as to what others have done and how to go about it.

There is a good article entitled How to set your price and communicate your value which appeared in the FreelanceFriday.co blog. You can read about here.

This quote is right on target for value propositions:

“That’s the heart of this entire concept. Clients do not buy ‘things’.
They buy the experiences that those ‘things’ are able to deliver. And,
when so doing, they measure the benefits against the costs. Which
leads us directly to consider: what is a value proposition?”

– Cindy Barnes, Creating and Delivering Your Value Proposition:
Managing Customer Experience for Profit.

This raises the question as to What is a unique value proposition for a freelancer? That is the title of an article by Allan Branch which appears in Lessaccounting.com blog which you can read here.

Here are some examples of value propositions and how to write them from Peep Laja’s Conversionxl.com blog which is entitled: Useful Value Proposition Examples (and How to Create a Good One) which you can read here.

Productivity Tip Of The Week

How Do You Manage a Slow Internet Connection?

Image Credit edgy.app

Your internet speed can have a big impact on your productivity if you are working over the internet. This impacts on a lot of freelancers in many types of jobs.

When I read Abdullahi Muhammed’s article 79 Websites To Get Freelance Jobs Fast in Forbes Magazine, I was interested to find out just how many types of jobs there are that can be completed over the internet. I could not find an answer. You can read read his articles for Forbes by clicking on his name.

What is crystal clear is that managing your internet speed and getting work done are critical issues for a lot of freelance workers in many categories.

Australia is one country that is upgrading its national broadband network to fiber optic cable. It will not be the only country. The broadband network impacts on governments, corporates, small and medium enterprises and, on us, freelancers. Aaron O’Keefe has written an article for the www.wideband.net.au about how it impacts business which you can read here.

However, for us, what matters is how to manage a slow internet connection. Whitson Gordon has written Top 10 Ways To Deal With A Slow Internet Connection for Lifehacker.com.au blog which you can read here.

Work-Life Balance Tip Of The Week

Do You Use Amazon’s Virtual Assistants to Help with Your Work-Life Balance?

Image Credit staff-india.com

As a freelancer have you considered the amount of time that you can save by using a virtual assistant at home? I hadn’t until I started to read about the developments that Amazon has been working on over the past few years. It is almost as if Amazon had foreseen the rise of freelancers and the gig economy and the need to better manage work-life balance.

Amazon has developed Alexa as its intelligent assistant. It is a form of artificial intelligence that will help make you more efficient by automating a lot of the home management tasks that you would do manually.

For a freelancer, this means saving you time and enabling you to be more creative and productive which means earning more money. At the same time, this translates into you being able to give your family more quality time and that is what work-life balance is about!

If you want to read more about the background of Alexa and Amazon’s goals you can check out Wikipedia’s entry here This Wikipedia article will show you the background and the potential for Alexa as a virtual assistant. Michael Guta has written 24 Ways Amazon Alexa Skills Can Help Your Small Business Today for www.smallbiztrends.com which you can read here.

I think that this is a great quote on the role that artificial intelligence can have for all of us as freelancers.

“Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this
technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I
think we’ll augment our intelligence.” – Ginni Rometty

Financial Tip of the Week

How Do You Make Money Outside of Your Day Job?

Image Credit mrsbaldwin5.edublogs.org

This question is becoming increasingly important to low and moderate-income families. It will become increasingly so. Conceptually, there are two main streams of thought on this issue.

One stream is passive income e.g. interest, dividends or building something that will produce an income. The other stream of thought is actively doing something that will produce an income e.g. getting paid for your skills.

Freelancing is very much about getting paid for your skills. Philip Brewer has written 15 ways to make money outside your day job for Wisebread.com which you can read here.

Freelancer Skills Development and Inspiration News

Image Credit Pixabay

We are constantly researching for news articles and videos on skills development and inspiration for freelancers.

Each week we have decided to bring you the links to what we consider are the top three articles or videos.

Here they are for this week (click on the article description):

Matt Reinstetle from www.thepennyhoarder.com with These 7 tips will help you avoid burning out when you have a side gig
Staff writer from www.flippingcheck.com and Will meditating make you a better thinker? (And how to make it a part of your life)

Articles now on our website that are relevant are listed here:

The latest one is here:

https://www.freelance-work-guide.com/retirees-freelancing-medical-hospital-ancillary-insurance.html

Amazon News

The weekly AWS news video link to acloud.guru is here. They are the leading trainers globally for AWS freelancers.

Amazon Associates Website Case Study

As discussed in previous newsletters we are focussing on the niche website in the future because it is producing better results i.e. sales.

Here is a recent article: Best garage workbench of 2019. Top 5 recommended. There have been 40 sales in the past month due to the keyword research and skills of Mamun, my virtual assistant.

Freelancers And Cyber Security

We have decided to expand our search for appropriate articles for freelancers about cybersecurity. This week we have found an interesting article from the Australian Government Department: Australian Signals Directorate called “WhatsApp Gold” is a hoax. (Click on the link to read the article)

We have gained approval from Robert Siciliano to bring you extracts from his books related to cyber security for freelancers. Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert and consultant. He also runs a cyber security and fraud prevention website which you can see here.