Throwback Episode: The Gig Economy Unveiled: A Path to Entrepreneurial Success

This week we are sharing a throwback episode from when we were the Redefine Your Career Journey Podcast. Why are we sharing this? 

Because many of you are still treating your business as a side hustle. Let's move you beyond that by examining the pros and cons of having your own business!

Unlock the secrets of the gig economy and transform your side hustle into a thriving business venture. Ever wondered if your part-time passion could become your full-time career? We promise to shed light on the growing phenomenon where nearly 39% of U.S. adults are engaging in side gigs, not just for extra cash, but for the autonomy and flexibility they offer. 

This episode of Scale Up Strategies dives into the nuances of the gig economy, revealing both its alluring freedom and the challenges of job insecurity and lack of benefits. Whether you're seeking flexibility in your current role or contemplating a career shift, gain invaluable insights into making your side hustle a legitimate income source.

Laura Bashore as shares her inspiring journey from side gigs on platforms like Thumbtack to establishing a flourishing coaching business. She also reveals her family's success story, where a simple eBay transmission parts venture burgeoned into Classic Transmission Solutions, a six-figure e-commerce enterprise. 

Mary shares how she balanced a full-time career while building her LinkedIn coaching and training empire. 

Discover how strategies like building a personal brand and strategic networking can turn a side gig into your main source of income. Get ready to explore the transformative power of the gig economy and find the motivation to pursue your entrepreneurial dreams while balancing your full-time job.

Now as you all know, both Mary and Laura have shifted their businesses again since this original airing. But that's the point - Seize The Day my friends!

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Chapters

• 0:03 Gig Economy
• 11:07 Side Gig Turned Full Business

Transcript

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:03

You're listening to Scale Up Strategies, the business growth podcast for coaches, consultants and speakers. We're your hosts and business coach experts Mary Fane Grant and Laura Bay Shore.

Laura Bashore: 0:16

We're sharing all our insider tips from 20 plus years in business, including how we successfully scaled our businesses without losing our minds or our husbands.

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:27

Sure, you can piece it together and try to DIY your way to success. Or you can listen to us every week and learn the shortcuts, because we promise they're really awesome.

Laura Bashore: 0:38

So grab your favorite cup of coffee, tune in and let's start the show.

Mary Fain Brandt: 0:41

Today we're diving into a topic that we both personally know a thing or two about, and it's really shaping the modern workforce and it's called the gig economy, and we can thank the pandemic for bringing this to the forefront.

Laura Bashore: 0:57

That's right, mary. The gig economy has transformed the way people work, offering flexible arrangements and new opportunities, but it's also raised a lot of questions about stability, and are there really benefits?

Mary Fain Brandt: 1:09

Great, we're going to be exploring what exactly the gig economy is, the rise of freelancing, and weighing in on the pros and cons of these flexible setups.

Laura Bashore: 1:24

So what exactly is the gig economy? It's a labor market characterized by short-term contracts and freelance work, where individuals take on temporary jobs or gigs rather than traditional or full-time employment. And who is this? For? Pretty much everybody, right. So to back that up, I'm going to share some research that I found, which states that nearly two in five, or 39%, of US adults have a side hustle, and that's according to the bank rate survey that was conducted this year. Side hustles are a way for people to earn extra money aside from their regular income, and for many Americans, side hustle income isn't just for fun money. Did you know, mary? Generally those with a household income of $100,000 and over so $100,000 a year and over are more likely to have side hustles About 45% of people who've been over that's interesting.

Mary Fain Brandt: 2:32

I feel like almost everyone has a side hustle today. I mean, the cost of eggs and toilet paper alone you practically have to. And then with gas prices and just the way the world is, I feel like so many people have a side hustle. If you have a corporate job and have a side hustle, or you're thinking about one, don't check out yet. You're going to want to hear what we have to say. There's no doubt that this trend has gained immense popularity. Think about Uber, instacart. There's so many different side hustles out there. There's the MLMs that you know you're selling something, whether it's jewelry, makeup, essential oils. I mean, I did that at one point. You know, have you ever done any of those odd little side hustles, laura?

Laura Bashore: 3:23

I have. Oh, you know what I did At the beginning of the pandemic, when I had to bring my kids in and I realized I was going to be responsible for their education. I started selling Osborne books because, as you know, I love to read and I was like I got to educate these kids and I need some fun books to do it. So I thought probably some other moms needed to do that too. So, yeah, I did some fun books to do it. So I thought probably some other moms needed to do that too. So, yeah, I did do that for instance.

Mary Fain Brandt: 3:48

There you go. Well, many mid-level professionals in our audience might be considering gig work as an option for a career change or for the flexibility that it provides.

Laura Bashore: 4:01

And one thing I want to add to that too, Mary, is that some of our audience might already have a side hustle or a gig, but they're just not acknowledging that and saying that it's more than a hobby. So if you are taking in income, welcome. You've got a side gig right. So we're going to be sharing insights on the potential benefits of the gig economy. Think about the autonomy and control it offers you over your work schedule and projects, and it can be an attractive way to help get some balance or harmony with your work and personal life.

Mary Fain Brandt: 4:37

Absolutely ignore the potential downsides like a lack of job security, employee benefits, like health insurance or a retirement plan. Or let's even talk about holidays and vacation time off right. These are things that you need to carefully consider before going full-time in your side hustle going full-time in your side hustle Absolutely.

Laura Bashore: 5:10

So let's not forget about the challenges of consistent income. The side hustle the way to find new gigs right, because there's a lot of ebb and flow with that, as we'll discuss here. So it's a really dynamic landscape and it requires a lot of adaptability on your half?

Mary Fain Brandt: 5:25

It sure does so. Throughout this episode, we're going to be providing tips on how to thrive in the gig economy, from building a strong personal brand which y'all know that's at my heart, everyone needs to have a personal brand to networking strategically. These strategies can really help set you up for success. So, whether you're thinking about diving into freelancing or just curious about the gig economy, this episode is going to be jam-packed with valuable information.

Laura Bashore: 5:56

Stay tuned as we explore the ins and outs of the gig economy and how it might fit into your career journey. Let's start out by talking about all of the pros that come with having a side hustle. So I think number one that we think about is flexibility. Gig work often allows for a high degree of flexibility in terms of when and where you work. This can be especially beneficial for individuals who need to balance work with responsibilities such as child care, education or pursuing personal interest. Ash, you're speaking to me over here with the child care right.

Laura Bashore: 6:34

Another pro is the variety of opportunities. So gig work encompasses a wide range of roles and industries, from ride sharing, food delivery, freelance writing, graphic design and consulting work. Then this diversity allows individuals to explore various types of work and potentially discover new passions or skills. And then this is a big one autonomy. I know a lot of professionals who are craving some more autonomy In the gig work arena. Typically, you have more control over the work that you take on compared to traditional employees. You can also set your own schedule, choose the projects that you want to take on and decide how to approach that work task. So this autonomy can lead to increased job satisfaction.

Mary Fain Brandt: 7:29

Well, those are all the pros, but you know what comes with those, laura the cons. What's the downfall of the gig economy? And I'm going to be talking about that today. So I've got three cons for you. The first one, I think you all know income stability. You know it's very unpredictable. Your income is up and down all over the place. Gig workers may face periods of high demand followed by dry spells, making it challenging to maintain a stable income. Right, the lack of financial predictability can be really stressful. And then let's talk, right, and what else? About what? About lack of benefits? I mean, many of us still need insurance, health insurance and stuff. So traditional employees often receive benefits, you know, such as health insurance, retirement plans and paid time off. I haven't had that in a long time. How about you, laura? Paid time off is out the door. It's our own schedule.

Laura Bashore: 8:31

That's true. It's about sacrificing. Have I saved up enough?

Mary Fain Brandt: 8:35

Yes, yeah, gig workers typically don't enjoy these type of benefits, which means that you've got to cover all those costs yourself, and this can result in added financial burdens. So in hindsight you actually might need to work more or earn more money, I should say to cover these additional expenses that typical traditional employees have covered with the benefits, the holiday pay and vacation time. And then let's talk about job insecurity. You know many gig workers. They face this job insecurity. They lack job protections, such as legal recourse against wrongful termination. Additionally, some gig platforms may deactivate a worker's account without any explanation or recourse, leaving them with no income, and I think we can talk about some of those platforms in a moment. It's important to really note that the experience of gig work can vary widely depending on the specific platform, the industry and the individual preferences. Some people may thrive in a gig economy, while others feel it's just way too challenging. I think that you have to kind of have a business sense of mind, because you're running your own business doing the gig economy.

Laura Bashore: 10:01

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Mary Fain Brandt: 11:07

And I think at this point, Laura, I want to talk about our experience in the gig economy, because you have your own story and I have a story. Why don't we start with your gig economy and how that blossomed into something great?

Laura Bashore: 11:24

Sure, the first thing, since we do have platforms. I will just add that using those platforms like maybe a TaskRabbit, or how I started my career, coaching was through Thumbtack those are great ways to start to build up your business. But, to your point, Mary, get away from those platforms as soon as you can, because they can just pull the plug at any time. They take an amount of your money. So those are there for you to start to build up your clientele and then really work on your referrals to grow in that way With one business that I own. So I own three businesses and and this is from a woman who never wanted to Okay, I had my grandfather and my dad. They own their own business. I saw how hard they worked, that there were no vacations and I was like who would ever want to do that?

Mary Fain Brandt: 12:19

I'm with you.

Laura Bashore: 12:20

Apparently. So, um, how this started for us is a perfect example of how a side gig turned into a full income and actually a legacy for my family. So my grandfather was a mechanic and he owned two auto mechanic shops in Fresno and Visalia, california and Visalia, california. Eventually, in the 2010 eras, he and my father, who was working for him they decided to start to just sell a couple of transmission parts that they weren't doing anything with. They just threw them up on eBay and just doing it as like, for fun let's see what we can get. So it started generating a little bit of income, a little bit of revenue for them. My father eventually took it over when my grandfather passed away a few months later, and when my father took it over because he had been hands-on laboring for so many years, he knew what people actually wanted. He brought in some different products, turned it into a two a six figure business within the first year, and so he closed down his physical labor shop of auto mechanic, just started doing that and was making more money than he ever made as a laborer. That's crazy, crazy, good yeah.

Laura Bashore: 13:50

And then the last part of it, and how this turned into a legacy for my family is that my husband and I were in a position in 2019 to purchase the business Classic Transmission Solutions, and it's where we sell transmission parts online. So it's an e-commerce site and that is our main revenue and our main income. So we even doubled what it was when we took it over and it's just a great example of how turning something that you know a little bit about into a side gig working, working it for a little bit and then watching it blossom can turn into. That's how we support ourselves. Now our main revenue is from that and it's something that also ties back into my family. So I love that, you know, because I didn't want to be a mechanic, but I do love that I can continue the business.

Mary Fain Brandt: 15:50

I love that story and I think so many people, probably a lot of our listeners. They probably have a side hustle. Maybe that's how they you know, maybe it is their whole career, maybe they're thinking about it. I want to encourage people to give it a try, but I also want to say, give it a try while you're fully employed. You know, I started my. I started my business while I was, um, well, employed. Well, there's a longer story there, but we're not going to go into that. I was working full time, probably off and on, for four years while I had my business at different times.

Mary Fain Brandt: 16:29

Means is really managing your time properly, knowing what you can take on, knowing what hours are your business hours versus your career hours, and it does mean sacrificing some nights and weekends, but in my opinion, it was worth it because I was able to continue to grow my business while I was working and it takes that financial stress off. So if you're thinking about starting and it takes that financial stress off, so if you're thinking about starting excuse me thinking about a side hustle or a side gig, I want to encourage you to do that now, while you have your job, because A it's easier to pay for things that you need. If you need a website or supplies, you know, or maybe you're shipping parts out and it just, you know, it eases, I want to say, the worry and the stress, because you're going to make mistakes when you start your side hustle and gig. You don't know what you don't know until you jump all into it. So that's my biggest piece of advice for that.

Mary Fain Brandt: 17:26

But I want to share a story that recently happened. I've been buying some things off Facebook marketplace, which I love, and I'm buying new things at a big discount price, and when I went to meet someone at a storage unit, I asked them about it. Like, how are you able to buy, to sell me this brand new patio set at this price? And they buy from places like liquidationcom, they buy pallets from Amazon or Home Depot or Lowe's. And the person that I was meeting I was just very curious about this, so I was asking a lot of questions and they were happy to share.

Mary Fain Brandt: 18:06

She started a Facebook group for other people that do this kind of selling because it is very, very popular these days and they buy the bigger ticket items. So, like you can get brand new fridges, patio sets, brand new couches, desks, things like that and they started it because they the husband and wife team they had both gotten laid off from a banking institution and, you know, they got a nice severance pay, so they decided to take that and turn that into something. So it started very small with like a 500 investment. They now, laura, have four storage units. It is their full-time job, so this side hustle turned into this full-time job that supports them. They get to do it together.

Laura Bashore: 18:52

That's crazy and that's that's fantastic and i's that's fantastic. And I think that's something great to share too, because sometimes when people are like, oh, I'd love to get out of what I'm doing, start a side gig, run my own thing, but I have no idea. I have no idea what I would buy, or I've even had some people say I have no talent, thinking that they don't have something to offer. And your example right there is a perfect way that you can start your own business or your own side hustle without needing to you know they're not crafting the furniture, they're not crafting the things you're buying, they are reselling, and that's a great way to do it too.

Mary Fain Brandt: 19:30

You're so right and she just learned, and so, I think, a lot of people out there if you ask them about it, you know if you're buying something on Facebook or you see someone doing a side hustle ask them how they got started. Ask them what are your three biggest challenges, what are the three best things that came out of it? I love the power of three. Keeps it simple, right. So another story story this gentleman um, I was buying a lamp and they said they'd deliver it. Now that's unusual on facebook marketplace and it didn't cost me anything else. He's actually selling and delivering stuff on facebook marketplace and it's like fixtures and lamps. You know these kind of items and he's actually a home inspector, is what he's trained for and he's working full time as that. However, he told us that he makes more money doing his side hustle, more per hour, than he does as a home inspector. He said, which he makes one hundred twenty five dollars an hour, and so his goal is to transition Right.

Mary Fain Brandt: 20:28

So, yeah, and so I just want to encourage people. You know, side hustles can become your full-time gig. But and I think it's good to test things out I've tested, laura. I've done Young Living Oils. I've done different things. My mom sold Avon right back in the day and those things, just those things like never aligned with me as a full-time thing. I basically did the Young Living Oil so I could just get the oils at the discount right. So sometimes that side hustle is to get the discount.

Mary Fain Brandt: 20:58

But there are a lot of genuine side hustles in today's economy, the gig economy that can really set you up and you can make over $100,000 and set your own hours. And I think for a lot of people trying to struggle with that life balance or raising kids right or maybe homeschooling, maybe this is the answer instead of a traditional career, and with that I want to say there's nothing wrong with it. I think in the past we've been tarnished that we have to follow this career path right and we have to work a nine to five to be successful. And I want to encourage people. Now is the time to think outside the box.

Laura Bashore: 21:39

Well, and also it was especially pre-pandemic. If you didn't have an office, you were looked at as if somehow you had less value. You know, I mean, that was something that I faced a lot when I started my business because I was doing this. You know, I've been doing my new resume and career services for over eight years. It came exactly out of what you said. My first son didn't do well at daycare, so then I started applying what I was already doing into my own business.

Laura Bashore: 22:14

But a lot of times when I would talk to people and they'd say like, oh well, where do you work out of? I was like, oh, I have an office at home, like I do everything at home, and people would be like, oh, I will say, one great thing about the pandemic is it's no longer looked at like that, and thank goodness, because there is no less value in that. You should embrace that and instead think about you're just controlling the way that you run your time. I have a lot of things going on and whenever people hear what I have going on in a day, they think it's crazy.

Laura Bashore: 22:48

But I built everything and scaled everything To your point, mary. I had the stability of the income of my other business, the e commerce business that I mentioned while I started scaling my business. And, just like you had your job while you were scaling your business, it helps you not rush into things and I think it really helps to ease that. It may seem more stressful because you're putting more on your plate, but it really eases that financial stress and I think finance is one of the biggest stresses that you can have ever, right. I mean, you've got to have money to pay bills.

Mary Fain Brandt: 23:29

You've got to have money, you know, to pay bills, and you have to have money to eat or to buy your clothes, whatever it is. So I'm a big proponent of starting a side hustle, but doing it while you have a job or another source of income, and some of the things I so. In this next year, I'll be adding some streams of revenue revenue streams to my portfolio and I want to encourage people. What do you love? What is it that you love to eat? Wear, go, there are affiliate programs as well and why that's not a full-fledged side hustle?

Mary Fain Brandt: 24:04

If there's a product that you love for example, I love coffee, and let's just leave that there. That you guys should watch for some coffee promotions in the future here there. That you guys should watch for some coffee promotions in the future here, right, I love wine too, right. So there are ways to start building a brand what you're known for, what you love and make some money on that, whether it's an affiliate program, whether it is a full-fledged side hustle or gig job. So there's things outside you can do designing, you could be a copywriter, you could be a branding person. There are a lot. If you're in the creative space, there's a lot that you can do as a side hustle until you build up enough business where you can leave your full-time job.

Laura Bashore: 24:53

Exactly so that can also be to your point, adding in another stream of revenue and keeping that as well. You know. So I added on another business this year, as you know, which was Team Referral Network here in San Diego County, and that came from exactly what you just said there, Mary. I started networking in this organization over four years ago, grew within it as one of their leaders. And then it came up for purchase and they asked if I was interested to do it and I said, well, okay, sure, let's do that.

Mary Fain Brandt: 25:30

So always be open for the opportunity and, I think, always be networking and having conversations. Just because you're having a conversation with someone doesn't mean that you have to say yes right then, but maybe it'll open up your mind to hey, I never thought about this as a revenue stream. I'd like to give it a try. This fits with who I am, what I believe in, it aligns with my talents, so I could do this. I'm so proud of you for all the businesses that you've been a part of and that you've owned. I know team referral is amazing.

Laura Bashore: 26:07

Thank you so much, and I just want to throw it back at you as well, because it's wonderful to have a partner, somebody that I can work with, who are on the same page with things. We support each other, and that's one of the other great things about a side gig is you're not going to miss working with people because you find your people, and so I think that's a great place for us to wrap up today. We've left a lot of great information for our audience to think about.

Mary Fain Brandt: 26:36

If you enjoyed the podcast, show us some love. Please rate, review and subscribe to our podcast, and if you have any feedback, go ahead and share that with us too, because we want to hear from you. Until then, stay focused, stay motivated and stay caffeinated.