Building A Business In The Online Space – Part II

Building A Business In The Online Space – Part II – Artists/Celebrities and Freelancers

In this series of articles, I am introducing new ways on the internet to work when your job will get blown away through the disruption announced.

I, first of all, write about the current mindset most of us carry around with us and the options we think we have to then dive into the new world setup.

 

In this second part, I focus on Artists/Celebrities and Freelancers as independent individuals acting in the free market.

As written in Part I, building a sustainable business is mainly about 2 things:

1. Good products with good revenue.
2. A big market interested in the product, where you can attract your niche.

As a third requirement, I add a PLAN to the list.

 

What are the products you could sell? What is your plan?

I start with 2 examples also from experience and focused on the old world setup.

 

1. The Performing Artist or Celebrity

A performing artist fist of all wants to sell her/his art. It is her/his inner desire to put her/himself out there, taking a certain role of leadership.

Some of these artists have a clearly defined message, others don’t really like to speak and define themselves through words.

In the performance world, artists sell their art by engagements at events, by videos, by teaching their art and by being a brand ambassador.

They get normally paid a one time gage.

Online these individuals have a big advantage as they earn certain fame by putting themselves out there to perform and attract a crowd. They mandatorily are polarizing and generating followers and most of the time real fans.

This is the most difficult part for most of us normal people, where we really struggle.

The internet and social media opened up great possibilities to find followers around the globe and create opportunities for engagements to be hired at events, in videos or as brand ambassadors. Without the internet, this was a lot more difficult and could almost exclusively be achieved through a managing company.

While many artists currently start to apply a business model of an influencer, they still rely mostly on a one-time payment for promoting a certain brand and if they manage to get a reoccurring contract they have to go on performing.

The case of a celebrity in my point of view is an extension of a performing artist in theory when the individual gets very famous. In the old world, these individuals almost exclusively had the chance to speak to big crowds and being featured in the media.

To optimize her/his income she/he has to find a way to augment the income of every single contract.

 

 

2. The Freelancer

A freelancer or contractor offers her/his services on an hourly/daily rate to accomplish a certain task.

In the online world, this idea changed a bit into the direction where a freelancer is bidding a certain amount of money to get a task done. This is actually almost the form of an agency offer in most cases.

Even so, in both cases, the freelancer is paid a certain amount of money for the hours he works and as we all know, a day has just 24 hours and everyone has to sleep, take vacation and time off.

To optimize her/his income, the same as the artist, he has to augment the hourly rate.

 

Some insights into my journey as a freelancer:

I am working as a freelancer for more than 5 years until now in an offline world setup. I started in 2014 when the 2 business sectors of IT support and database programming, the company I used to work for, was active in, were sold to 2 different companies.

I kept the clients I worked for in both sectors as a freelancer and maintained them until I went into my burnout in mid-2016. I had one big goal to accomplish, to finish and distribute my documentary, so I cut a professional trailer, worked out the graphics with an artist of a graphic designer and programmed the website of the company including a shop component to make the film available worldwide with subtitles in 5 languages. I did the entire production and distribution on my own, without a publishing company, an achievement I could not have had in the old world.

Producing a product in the old world is another topic I will unveil in another part of this series about building a business …

 

There is another form of freelancing, also known as contracting where you work almost as an intern but with a contract over a limited time. Some companies are using this option to reduce the cost of the workforce. Through employing contractors they can allocate costs directly to projects instead of allocating it in HR. They limit the risk through being able to deploy a more flexible workforce.

Higher salaries are paid through this option, normally on an hourly or daily basis. I was working for 6 months as a contractor and had the chance to test this option. In my time of recovery, working as a contractor was a good way to make my first step back into working life. Under normal conditions, I can’t recommend it, as a permanent solution. There are no days off or social security included but it can definitely be a way to bridge or to get a side-hustle.

 

 

Conclusions from both models of a performing artist and a freelancer

In both examples, the product sold is the individual her/himself and time.

In both cases, this can be very profitable in accordance with the skill of the individual and her/his ability to optimize the prize for the engagements.

 

How do you optimize your time and effort?

 

As to my observing, most people who are not working in classical job setups and at the same time have not started and are not running a real business are thinking in these possibilities.
These options are their plan but it still leaves a big question mark to sustainability. What if you become sick and cannot perform anymore? In both cases discussed there is no social insurance from an employer and no retirement plan included …

But we have the internet and it ends many of the limitations from the past while requiring a shift in mindset.

 

Until now we have 3 requirements for Building A Business In The Online Space:

1. Good products with good revenue.
2. A big market interested in the product, where you can attract your niche.
3. A plan

 

Next, I will write about the classical idea of a service provider and an agency.
Stay tuned …

 

#marketing #entrepreneurship #leadership #sales #failure