Weekly Newsletter for The Freelancers: Here is the latest newsletter of the week starting on 1st October 2018.
Smart millennial parents and their families will realize that the fourth industrial revolution is underway and is unstoppable. If you want to read an authoritative article and watch a related video on The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond by Klaus Schwab click here.
Klaus Schwab is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. In summary, the rate of change caused by technology and other human advancements is increasing and will change the future of work and employment very quickly.
Andy Haldane is the Chief Economist of the Bank of England has warned people that they need to be prepared for the fourth industrial revolution job changes. You can read Andy’s article on LifeBoat.com by clicking here. The question for parents and their families is what to do about?
This article Jobs and the fourth industrial revolution which appears on WeForum.org and you can read here gives readers a good indication that upskilling and monitoring trends in employment are a very strong defense.
Freelancing can be a platform for doing this as well as earning money to help with your budget.
If you subscribe to this newsletter you will be regularly advised of what skills are in demand in the world of freelancing because we let you know the Upwork Quarterly Skills Index. Encourage your friends and extended family to also subscribe!
This is a very good indication of the changing landscape of skills. This is the latest Skills Index from Upwork for 2018 Q2 here.
If you want to pre-purchase Klaus Schwab forthcoming book click on the icon below:
Motivate Yourself!
“If you’ve got development centers all over the
world, you’ve got a sales force out with the
customers, the fact that tools like Skype [and]
digital collaboration are letting people work better
at a distance — that is a wonderful thing.”
– Bill Gates, Cofounder of Microsoft
If You Have Lost Your Job In A Drought Affected Rural Community You Should Be Motivated To Look At Being A Remote Worker
If you have lost your job in a drought-affected rural community you should be motivated to look at being a remote worker
Freelancing matters to drought impacted rural communities in Australia. You may not be directly impacted as a farm owner or worker, but the economic downturn affects towns and the surrounding rural communities.
It is not unusual for the town businesses to suffer and to have to let employees go to remain financially viable. If you are one of these town businesses or redundant employees how do you pay the bills when your income levels fall or disappear?
I am not saying the freelancing your skills is easy because it can be tough. In Australia, where I live, there are now approximately 4.1 + million workers participating in the freelancing economy.
This article entitled The gig economy is growing whether you like it or not by Michael Bailey appeared in AFR.com and you can read here.
Many of the freelancing platforms that sit between employers and remote workers or freelancers will give you tips on how to succeed. Upwork is one of the world’s largest freelancing platforms and often gives remote workers tips.
We monitor these for you and share them with you as a subscriber to this newsletter. The latest one we found is by Isaac Kohen entitled Advice from the trenches: creative tips on thriving as a remote worker. You can read Isaac’s article here.
We have articles on our website relating to helping people affected by the drought in rural Australia, they are as follows:
- Drought-proof your farming business – become a freelancer for a consistent income to help survive tough times which you can read here.
- For students: Students Freelancing Can Help Pay for Their Fees, Repay Debts And Cover Living Expenses – Top 20 Ways which you can read here.
- Millennials freelancing can help themselves save for a home or reduce their existing mortgage which you can read here.
If you are a just considering starting to look at your budget and realizing that government support is not going to be enough and are motivated to start helping yourself,
these are essential: The Freelancer’s Bible and How to be self-employed : A freelance work from home guide. Have a look inside at their indexes by clicking on the Amazon link.
Productivity Tip of the Week
Businesses Do Not Want Their Productivity To Walk Out The Door!
Do you realize that a lot of the success of corporate enterprises is in the knowledge and experience of their workforce? It is what makes them productive! It costs time and money to train new employees. There is a growing awareness that there is a customer service and productivity benefit of having older workers.
Simon Caldwell has written Wiser and more productive: why older workers could drive productivity within a small business for BusinessAdvice.co.uk which you can read here.
Why I am telling you this is that there is a global trend to the recognition that letting older workers go is, in fact, letting business productivity walk out the door. This presents older workers with freelancing opportunities of retiring part-time.
There is a mutual benefit to organizations and to older workers. From the financial perspective of older freelancers, it is not only making your retirement savings last longer, but it allows you to transition to retirement while funding holidays and other activities you wish to undertake.
Kenneth Terrell has written Why working after retirement works for www.aarp.org and you can read here. There is an interesting section in this article about Work At Home Vintage Experts!
AARP are by far the leading world organization in retirement planning and advocating for reforms in retirement planning in a non-partisan way. If you are looking at retiring part-time Kerry Hannon’s book is a top seller:
Work-Life Balance Tip of the Week
Freelancers Need To Have Holidays Too To Keep Their Work-Life Balance In Check!
It may seem counter-intuitive, but having a holiday from technology for freelancers working online is the correct decision. However, there is always the doubt that you may miss out on a gig contract that you have been waiting for to meet your income goal for the year.
For employees in their 9 to 5 jobs the pressure is not so great because they are on holidays and getting paid anyway. The article How to maintain a work/life balance over the holidays appears on ziprecruiter.com and you can read it here.
This article is written from the perspective of a busy employee planning for a better work/life balance while on holidays.
For freelancers going on holidays when they are just starting out can be traumatic because they are worried about missing out on gigs or worse, losing existing regular clients. More experienced freelancers have learned how to manage the anxiety and clients’ expectations.
Tom May has written How to go on holidays when you freelance, without damaging your business. Tom wrote his article for CreativeBoom.com and you can read it here.
If you have tips on how you manage to go on holidays as a freelancer share them on our Facebook page.
Financial Tip of the Week
Critical To Success In Freelancing Is Managing Your Budget For Both Income And Expenditure
Many years ago when I worked in a corporate environment and was involved in budget planning we knew that it was important for success to plan for both increasing income and decreasing costs. Today, freelancers working for themselves are no less responsible for looking at both parts of the equation because it is still Income – Expenses = Freelancing Profits.
One of the key elements of freelancing income is setting your rate of pay which is about negotiation strategies. Alexandra Dickinson has written Must-have negotiation strategies for freelancers. Alexandra’s article appears in Forbes.com and you can read it here.
On the other side of the budgeting equation is the troublesome item of expenses which can be tricky to control because they can sneak away from you very easily. Forbes has a great interest in helping the freelancing community and Abdullahi Muhammed has written How to budget wisely and save money as a freelancer which you can read here.
Drought News
The intensity of the Australian drought continues in many parts of Australia and its impacts will be widespread. It will require some long-term adjustment of many areas of regional Australia.
It will be beyond government assistance and charitable donations to alleviate the hardship that individuals and communities will be currently feeling.
We have started issuing our newsletter to parliamentarians, State and Federal, along with regional newspapers in the hope that they will realize that the digital economy can help regional economies and change their policies to give more focus to the New Economy.
There are now 5,000 skills in 90 categories that the digital economy can offer according to Upwork’s 2nd Quarter Skills Index for 2018, see here.
Articles now on our website that are relevant are listed here:
- https://techlifefuture.com/Freelance-Retirees
- https://techlifefuture.com/Millennials-freelancing-home-mortgage-save
- https://techlifefuture.com/Students-freelancing-student-loans
- https://techlifefuture.com/freelancing-repay-housing-negative-equity
There will be more over the coming months.
Amazon News
One of the realities that millennial families have to face is that managing work-life balance requires that you have to ask for help to get things done. Amazon has been quick to spot this as an opportunity and has introduced Amazon Home Services. You can watch a video about what they do here.
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
The latest article on bestsellershourly.com Amazon Case Study website is entitled Smart choices matter for millennial families – 15 reasons why! which you can read here.
We have stopped showing the links for new articles as we have discovered that it could be having adverse impacts on the search engine optimization of the website Best Sellers Hourly. We will advise you when new articles are added. They are currently being worked on.
By this time you can check our social media:
Freelancers And Cyber Security
Pinterest: In view of the recent hack of Reddit we have decided to link to the Australian Bankers Association fact sheet entitled Small Business – Protecting Your Business Information Online which you can access here. We urge you look at other Fact Sheets that are available from the Association as well related to business and personal security.
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 gives self defense and personal safety seminars. Robert provides safety and identity theft fraud prevention tips and advice on multimedia channels in the United States. We have his approval to bring you weekly extracts from his books:
Image Source: ROBERT SICILIANO
What Is Criminal Identity Theft?
