How to profit from gig-economy vendors

Things change fast. Not long ago, it was Uber that (people said) was disrupting the economy. Then came coronavirus and the work-from-home mandate. All of this underscores the power of the gig economy, whereby you can hire freelancers, whom you’ve never met, online. 
 
In this article, we’ll cover the pros and cons of tapping into this well. We’ll give you some tips for proceeding. And we’ll sprinkle in some helpful caveats along the way. 
 
What’s a “gig,” after all?
 
Here at Copel Communications, we take nothing for granted! We’re not going to blithely assume, in an article about gig-economy workers, that everyone has the same definition of “gig.” (Or “economy,” for that matter!) 
 
The word, of course, traces its roots to the world of music: it’s a live-performance job for a player. From there it spread out to encompass any short-term or one-off job. With online platforms ranging from Upwork to Fiverr, it’s now possible for lots of talented people to make their services—everything from website development to animation to translation—available, on a gig-by-gig basis, to the world. 
 
This is a great development. 
 
It has far more advantages than disadvantages. On the upside, it eliminates geography as an economic factor. Let’s say you live in a pricey area, such as San Francisco. All of your local talent is facing those same cost-of-living burdens, which will be reflected in their pricing. Search online, however, and you can just as easily find someone in Montana... or Mexico. 
 
The upsides of buying gigs
 
Geography-based arbitrage is nothing new; read: “Offshoring to India in the 1990s.” But that was based on big companies that could set up big shops there. It was macro. This is peer-to-peer micro.
 
Gig-economy-based labor pools also hold the potential to reduce prices—a good thing for buyers. Speaking of advantages for buyers, there is unprecedented selection. It’s downright numbing. Go on Fiverr and search for “Logo Design.” You’ll be overwhelmed. There are thousands of vendors. And the prices? They start at five dollars. No kidding. It’s insane. 
 
Here’s another advantage for buyers like you: Gig-aggregating sites like Upwork and Fiverr. They not only wrangle all of these disparate vendors, but they give you a single platform whereby you can shop and compare them; importantly, they also give you a single place where you can pay them—and “a single throat to choke” in case you have problems. It’s kind of like Amazon: They don’t sell all that stuff you see listed on their site. But if you have a problem, you turn to Amazon. It’s reassuring. 
 
So what are the disadvantages?
 
As you know, anything that sounds too good to be true, is. Nothing is perfect. Everything comes with trade-offs. Gig sites, and their workers, are no exception. 
 
In fact, if you look at all the advantages cited earlier,  you can actually undercut each one. Ready? 

• Geographic power cuts both ways. If you live in San Francisco and you hire someone in Montana, it can be argued that you’re hurting a neighbor who can’t change their local economy. The argument is even louder when you hire someone outside the United States. ...And when could you ever meet them for lunch?

 

• Lower prices have lots of down-sides. Reverse-auction-style pricing, pioneered by players like eBay, creates a “race to the bottom” among vendors. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy: The more that buyers opt for the cheapest options, the fewer higher-priced ones will get any work. Which can actually hurt buyers: What if a graphic artist can make an astonishing logo for $500? You’d never even consider them in a world of five-dollar competitors, which is tragic, because a good logo is actually worth thousands. 

 

• “Bigger” selection isn’t “better.” A site may have 10,000 graphic artists. You, on the other hand, need one. That means you need to weed out 9,999 others! Sure, the aggregator site may include lots of filters, but answer this: Where’s the curation? Put it this way: If you hire a full-service ad agency, you don’t expect them to have 5,000 creative directors and a million graphic artists. You expect them to have just a few—a few who are amazingly great at their craft, and work well together as a team. When you search online, however, now you’re the Ad Agency Hiring Director... a hat you may not want to wear. 

 

• The big site minimizes intimate connections. Sure, we mentioned “one throat to choke,” above, but there’s a flip-side to that, too. Some sites intentionally insert themselves between you and the actual vendor/artist, so it’s hard to develop a relationship... understand personalities... discover hidden motivators or talents... and, frankly, ask favors. (“My client just called! Can I get this by EOD?”) 

 
How, then, do you proceed?
 
There are so many services you can get from gig workers online that it’s numbing: Graphic design. Logos. Voiceovers. Video editing. Photoshop services. Animation. Programming. Writing. You name it. 
 
First, you need to know what you want. And that’s a bigger ask than it may at first appear. “I need a logo.” Fine. But who’s the target audience? What problems of theirs does your company solve? What types of visual cues—colors, iconography, fonts—would best resonate with this audience? 
 
Ohh...! It suddenly got tricky, didn’t it? 
 
A good vendor will want to know all of these things. And you’ll want to provide them all as input. If you’re not ready to do that—to describe, for example, the type of backing music you’ll have behind that voiceover you’re ordering, and the pace of the visuals to be shown, all to help provide direction to that announcer—you’re, well, wasting your money. 
 
So don’t be blinded by “$25 and 2 days turnaround!” You need to put in the upfront work of defining the deliverable and the direction for its creator. (We can help; we do this all the time. Contact us and stop sweating.) 
 
Then you need to back into the sites. Google, for example, “Logo design,” and prepare to be overwhelmed. There are not only gig vendors out there and sites repping them; there are also DIY sites such as Canva, FreeLogoDesign, and LogoGenie all competing for your attention. 
 
The big gig sites—such as Upwork and Fiverr—are pretty straightforward when it comes to drilling down to what you need: Type of deliverable, price range, ratings/reviews. 
 
Here’s a tip they won’t want us to share: Go old-school. We recently saw a nice video posted by one of our clients, and simply reached out to them: “Who edited that for you?” They were happy to answer—and we’ve since used that same editor, a lot. This is what’s called—wait for it—a referral. Oooh! 
 
GIGO
 
That’s an old computer-programming acronym. GIGO stands for “garbage in, garbage out.” As we’d noted above, you’ll need your input to be clear and detailed. Ideally, you want it more than that; you want it to be motivational. (“We loved your ‘Theme Park’ voiceover demo, and would love to get that kind of energy, but with even more enthusiasm when we get to Shot 26 in the script where we reveal our breakthrough solution. The music here will be a ‘Big Hollywood Reveal’; think you can deliver ‘goosebumps’ for our audience?”) 
 
Also, be aware that hiring gig workers is a two-way street. You need to perform for them (such as in the directions, above) as much as they perform for you. And you’ll need to understand, and abide by, the rules laid down by the hosting site, in terms of deadlines for revisions, turnaround time, etc. 
 
When you get a good job, post a good review. If you’re truly dissatisfied, and can’t get the vendor to do a good job, then you need to post that review, too. 
 
Last but not least: Get help. We help our clients with an ever-widening cast of gig-economy players, and excel at getting them to produce their best work, happily, for our clients. Contact us today and let us manage the process for you. 

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