Make the Gig Economy Work for You

Angela is a Washington DC-based speaker, trainer, consultant, and president of TKC Incorporated. With clients including Marriott, the State Department, AARP, and 40Plus of Greater Washington, she works with adults in mid-life and beyond, helping them adapt to the changing freelance workforce. Angela has appeared in the pages of USA Today, Essence, and local news outlets across the country. She is the author of Do the Hustle without the Hassle and the host of The Gig Worker Summit.

Artists in The Gig Economy

• “You’ll find that people are entering entrepreneurship for a whole lot of different reasons, but that freedom undergirds all of it.”
• “It’s a real shift in mindset that you are the owner, you’re not the employee anymore, and that the responsibilities for the success of this operation is really on your shoulders and not the company’s shoulders.”
• “People are more responsible for what they put out into the universe than ever before. So if you’re an emerging artist for example, you have to put out into the world who you are.”
• “The only way to grow in anything—whether it’s art or anything else—is to introduce it and give it to the world. And the world may not always say: ‘Ah! That’s the greatest thing since sliced bread!’ and that’s ok, because it gives us the opportunity to refine our craft.”
• “If your experience has been that you have all of this age discrimination against you, does it disqualify you [in a grant application] if you don’t choose say [your age]?… I would ask the grantmaker who is asking this question: what is the purpose of this? And then say: ‘I’d prefer not to answer.’ ”
• “The whole ‘gig’ terminology— it just kind of puts a little grey shade on things, but none of this is new—we’ve had contractors and freelancers since way back…What is new is the technology that enables us to find opportunities quickly, cheaply and affords the corporation to do the same thing.”

Uncertainty & Transitions

• “This idea of steady income, it’s a nice notion but it doesn’t have to necessarily be the only way to profit and to be comfortable […] That fluctuation is always there, but that’s not necessarily a detriment…I think sometimes when people talk about a steady income they what they’re saying is: I want to make the same amount of money every week like I have a job.”
• “I have a process where I do my planning at the beginning of the year. I have a yearly calendar, I put all of my family commitments on it that I know about, like vacations. When I set up my quarterly goals, I decide exactly what I need to meet them.”
• “You start to get an idea about what’s realistic to make in a month, with the amount of time you want to dedicate to it. Then you have to think through whatever family obligations you have, and financial commitments you have, how you fill that gap, and then you go for those opportunities. And that’s when it may mean you’re doing some fast-pack ways to cash. Because maybe the thing you want to do is not as easily accessible, or it may have a long sales-cycle.”
• “I always tell people: have the possibilities all before you. Prep them up.”
• “We are actually in control and we can patch our income together from several different sources. And technology makes that alot easier.”

Planning for Business Growth & Retirement

• “If you’re an entrepreneur, a gig worker, you’re an artist—because you know that every month your income might not look the same, you have to live beneath your income.”
• “Most of the time, if we really take a look at our [financial] vices, don’t give up everything, but take a part of that and stash it away for the future. So that you can, as you get older, have an additional little nest-egg somewhere.”
• “My definition of retirement is a period of time where I am working as little as I...