The gig economy – or Freedom Economy – is offering a world of innovative new opportunities to modern entrepreneurs. This freelance-driven, self-employed world allows nearly anyone to leverage their skills and interests into a career where they’re in charge of the hours, assignments, and scope of the work they do.

If you’re on the verge of jumping into the gig economy, but you’re still experiencing some hesitation, check out the success story of Modern Femme™ and see how we made the leap from traditional careers to a job where we can ultimately assist others in joining this empowering movement alongside us.

After nine years in the military as a Marine helicopter pilot and over a decade of corporate experience in sales and marketing, my business partner and I found ourselves thirsty for something new.

Our “side business” was growing and we were tired of the constant overwhelm of trying to balance both our entrepreneurial venture and our respective careers.

Simply put, it was time to really commit our energy to our dream and take the leap into the gig economy, or as we like to call it, the Freedom Economy. We were inspired to take control of our lives, create something special and be the wives, sisters, moms, and friends we really wanted to be.

If we didn’t make a move soon, everyone would suffer and we would be stuck – emotionally and physically – unhappy and bored.

So we jumped!

Mission: Modern Femme™

Our core mission statement differs quite a bit from most freelancers:

To equip and empower women from all walks of life to do better and be better, both individually and as a community, establishing a global definition of success that allows all women to thrive personally and professionally, building a legacy of hope and dynamic access to better opportunity for the younger generations who will be taught to lead with humility, gratitude, acceptance, creativity and collaboration.

While a great part of our community revolves around global conventions, online learning and live events with expert speakers and educators, our day-to-day business is more intimately engaged with local small business owners and female entrepreneurs trying to get a grip on their social media and content marketing.

We then help them develop long-term visions and strategies that help their businesses grow.

We are passionately invested in the success of our community and the women we serve. And we believe that developing the opportunity to serve as freelance artists gives us the humble honor of helping others thrive in their small business and beyond.

What We Do Differently

Many freelancers in the gig economy focus their energy on a simple process designed to meet their client’s immediate needs.

New projects keep them busy! Bring it on!

Whether that presents itself via providing blog content, social media management, graphic design or otherwise, it’s most often a short-term play that relies on loyal conversions and ongoing work.

Because freelance work is just one piece to our overall puzzle, we approach our clients a bit differently.

While in the short term, we operate as traditional freelancers, meeting immediate needs – managing Twitter and Facebook accounts, writing blog posts, developing email campaigns – our long-term goal is to essentially work ourselves out of a freelance job!

Yes, you heard that right!

Our main goal is to train and equip our clients to properly manage their social media and content development on their own. We work in parallel to our traditional freelance services. This provides a personalized education that sets our clients on a path toward developing their own process management and team workflow, putting our freelance tasks back in their wheelhouse.

Why do we do this? Our community thrives on support, encouragement and authentic interest in the collective success of those around us.

Our true passion and purposes lays with equipping female entrepreneurs with the tools and insights to thrive, so we don’t like to sit at our computers writing content for too long. We’d rather teach them how to do it.

Then we can hit the ground running again to find more women to serve and bring into our family.

This may sound counterproductive, since essentially our long-term play as freelancers is to work ourselves out of a freelance position, but our core mission revolves around the whole experience, and we serve our community best when we’re active and out there encouraging a dialogue that helps us all to move forward in life, whether that in or out of the office.

We have other revenue streams in place (live events, conventions, online learning, etc.) that allow us the freedom to shift our approach to how we offer freelance services in our marketplace.

This is the very best part of joining the gig economy (Read: Freedom Economy)!

We get to do what we do, how we do it! No rules! No borders! No boxes!

How We Do What We Do

Because Modern Femme™ has several complex income streams, organization reigns supreme in our world.

Our clients and our community are always at various stages in the process, whether they are just starting out and we’re “purpose profiling” their business to help give it structure and focus, or they’re on the tail end of our consulting arm, ready to take their own leap into the gig economy as full-fledged entrepreneurs.

We take our process management and client experience very seriously, so this means implementing the software, systems and workflows that make sure every woman we engage feels valued and intimately attended to, with special attention to deadlines, unique needs and appropriate terms.

Both as freelancers and as educators, our ability to properly manage our time and workload is a direct extension of the message we share in our mission and community gatherings.

Remember, we leaped into the Freedom Economy because we wanted to both do better and be better as professional women – in the office and at home.

Making sure our business operations run smoothly is how we live out that dream and practice what we preach. So, if you’re thinking of joining us in the Freedom Economy, here are a few tips and tricks we’ve picked up along the way:

  • Don’t skimp on software or project management tools. Yes, you can do everything yourself, but…can you do it well? Make sure you have a program in place that properly tracks your client dialogue, open projects, and most importantly, your cash flow situation. Stay in the know and organize yourself from the start.
  • Identify your specialty and passion. Freelance work can invite an incredibly varied body of work. Some people thrive on the diversity, while others find themselves accepting jobs that make them work harder than usual or simply put, don’t interest them. Don’t fall victim to saying “yes” to every job. Know what you love and love what you do!
  • Educate yourself and embrace your role in sales. Yes, that’s right. You’re a new inhabitant in the Freedom Economy. Yay! But…you are still a salesperson. Many people like to avoid that thought and then struggle to understand why they fail to bring in new clients. Make sure you understand the sales cycle, have your elevator pitch ready and are confidently closing the deal. You’ve got this!

These steps will set you on the path to success, leading with your best foot forward into the exciting world of the gig economy!

Access NeilPatel

Author Access NeilPatel

More posts by Access NeilPatel

Leave a Reply