Counselors in a Gig Economy

Freelancers work jobs. Entrepreneurs create businesses.

When you work an hour and get paid for that hour, it is imperative that you hustle and make sure more hours get filled so you can make more money. Funny thing is, many counselors think this model is the road to success. They spend hours building a practice based on a gig economy and they don’t even know it. Eventually, though, they find out the truth.

Freelancing is Hard

Freelancing, or the ‘gig’ economy, is hard. When I was a youngster I studied double bass at university. One day it hit me like a piano from a rope cut by an angry roadrunner, “Shit. I’m gonna have to audition for every dollar I make, for the rest of my life, even though I’ll have this frikkin diploma in my hand.”  Cue switching my major to music education. After fourteen years of teaching, what did I do? I got myself right back into that gig economy when I opened my first private practice. I remember when I counted the number of clients on one hand and thought “winning” was making enough for rent. As I got more ‘successful’ (I could count clients on TWO hands) and tried to balance work and family, “hard” turned into just plain “tired.”

It’s not all bad though. Successful freelancers, even the tired ones, can thrive in a free market economy (think ‘open bazaar with vendors out-shouting one another to describe their wares’) so it’s entirely possible to make butt-tons (BTs) of money. Keep raising prices, out-market your competition, work longer hours, and keep expenses low. But, freelancers aren’t just tired because they are working all of the time. They’re tired because they’re discouraged. They can have a stellar week and go to sleep Friday feeling great because they hit it out of the park with a full schedule; then Sunday evening rolls around and they realize they have to wake up and do it all over again.

The Entrepreneur Side

Entrepreneurs also thrive in a free market economy (think ‘Bentleys with entrepreneurs inside opening computer dashboards showing real time profit margins from their open bazaars around the world’). The difference? They grow their business, take the profit, buy more bazaars, pay down debt, invest, live life, repeat. Like Freelancers, Entrepreneurs make BTs of money but THEY do it while they sleep.

For those of you who still don’t understand the difference between ‘gig economy’ and entrepreneur, I’ve made a chart with some examples:

What’s stopping you?

Moving your business from freelancing to entrepreneur-ing can seem daunting. You will need to confront what is stopping you in order to grab your power and make the move. I don’t know what that is, and maybe you don’t either, but it’s worth looking at, don’t you think?

TODAY is a great day to sign up for the Badass Business Builder Membership. This is one of Kate’s most popular courses, and for good reason. If you have something to say and need to be heard, check out the Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses and join others to share your ideas. Hope to see you there.