Does Freelancing have a Future?

This blog is about five reasons why freelancing is the future of work. The work plan scape is always changing. The global economy has really changed the way people work. In the old days’ companies would hire somebody who works for them for 20 or 30 years and retire with a pension. You may have one or two careers or jobs in a lifetime. now companies are not so loyal the average 40-year-old generally has 10 jobs before they turn 40 and anywhere from 12 to 15 jobs on average in their lifetime.

So, you want to take control of your work-life freelancing in the United States anyway has gone up 8% in only the last three years. Statistics say that by 2027 over half of the workforce is going to be either independent consultants or freelancers. these changes to the work landscape impact all industries retail manufacturing white-collar industries blue-collar industries a whole range of creative professional industries so you are not immune to these changes by any means.

So, let's jump into the five reasons why freelancing is a future of work

Cost-Effective for Companies

There's more money to be made in freelancing than ever people are feeling more comfortable to leave their full-time employment to freelance more now than ever. So why are people willing and comfortable to leave their full-time jobs. It's because companies are hiring more freelancers than ever companies are trying to keep their costs low by reducing their full-time headcount.

That’s why they don't have to pay healthcare they don’t have to pay benefits and they can flex their workforce up and down as needed. It also enables them to be competitive in the global marketplace and that means there's more work for freelancers.

Innovative Freelancers

Freelancers are better at recognizing and are better prepared for the future and for changes in the marketplace. Change means new things. So, new trends in business, new skillsets, new industries coming along. Freelancers tend to keep in with each other and stay very up to date on what's happening and changing in the marketplace. Full-time employees tend to sometimes get comfortable and complacent in their jobs. They don't keep their eyes open as to what's happening in the marketplace as much as freelancers do.

Freelancers seem to know what's coming they know that they must pay attention. They know they must prepare for the future. Full-time workers sometimes come to a rude awakening, when they get laid off or when they're downsized. They suddenly wake up to the fact that things have changed, my connections, my consulting connections, and the people that I work with and partner with talk about this stuff all the time.

So, we're always staying up to date on the latest changes, innovations, movements trends and business skill sets, etc.

Artificial Intelligence

One of the things that we talk about is AI or Artificial intelligence. Freelancing may be less impacted by AI. Fast Company says that 50% of freelancers already are seeing the impacts of AI in the workforce. The founder of LinkedIn has said that he thinks that freelancers are better prepared for the threat of AI than full-time employees. AI is affecting design and it's affecting the creative professions.

Artificial intelligence gets more adept at doing those things, it's going to be eating more our generalized skill set. One of the reasons why freelancers are going to

be less impacted by AI or that they are in direct contact with the companies that they work for. They work on people-to-people relationships they build networked relationships and they communicate with people.

They build skillset and they build a knowledge base that's based around relationships. AI does not work in relationships AI won’t enable human expertise for consulting and won't be able to replace my eye for discovery, my eye for competitive analysis or for strategy. AI can’t build relationships it can't network freelancers.

 Risk Factor

Freelancing spreads your risk just like in investing in index funds where you buy a broad range of companies that mitigates the risk of anyone company failing. Freelancing spreads your risk because when you freelance you work with a broad range of the company’s diverse numbers of clients. I recommend people try to work in a broad range of categories. But not to work in only one because that mitigates your risk of anyone category or industry going into a downturn and you getting heavily affected by it. Constant learning freelancing forces you to stay up to date on technologies and systems and processes in your industry. Whatever that is whether an entrepreneur or creative professional, it also forces you to improve and constantly grow your range of skill sets so you become less of a specialist and more of a kind of a Swiss Army knife which again mitigates your risk. Our full-time working counterparts are putting all their eggs in one basket. They're working for one company and if that category of that company or that company itself takes a hit and that basket falls their eggs can get broke, they could get laid off, they can get fired the company could go down. When you freelance, you're spreading that risk across industries and across companies.

You own a Brand

When you freelance you own your own brand?  You own that no one else does. No one can take that away from you so all the work that you put into your practice and put into your relationships and put into your clients stays with you. You get the benefits of it. You're not giving those benefits up to another company. You are building your own equity not building the equity of another company. So, no layoff, no market crash, no downturn, no organizational shake-up can take that away from you. Clients can fire you, but it hasn't happened too often because there are always more clients out there.

Conclusion

So, in short freelancing is the future. It has many benefits that make it inevitable.  

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