Entering the Freelancer market with a comprehensive set of solutions, Businessmentals, an e-commerce business venture led by Steve Ashby, promises a new level of professional support to this largely disorganised sector.
Offering business know-how by world-class experts, templates and advice that will give freelancers a much stronger foundation for their businesses, “BusinessMentals is designed to give Freelancers the confidence run their “Business of One efficiently and profitably,” says Ashby, who realizes that the time is now to focus on the Freelancer.
More than 34% of US workers in 2017 are engaged in some form of freelance work, according to Forbes magazine, with this number predicted to reach 43% of the entire workforce by 2020. Over one third of UK workers will be freelancing by 2022. In the UAE, numbers are harder to come by, but companies in the business licensing and set-up sector estimate that there are over 100,000 licensed freelancers. Add the growing horde of “Freelancer Incognitos” who have jobs but also have their “side hustles”, and the real number of full and part-time Freelancers is probably closer to 250,000.
Ashby quotes a recent World Bank study that showed the single largest reason why 85% of freelance start ups collapse within 30 months is because of ‘business incompetence”. Changing that statistic is the main reason he launched Businessmentals. “You cannot be consistently profitable if you’re not competent at running a business. You might get lucky a few times, but that’s not sustainable.
The freelancer types he’s identified are Freelancer Classic, Freelancer Incognito (someone who has a day job and a “side hustle”) and Freelancer and Friends (the Freelancer who has won bigger jobs than they can handle themselves and thus needs to hire other Freelancers).
“It is also a fact that the freelance sector is totally unregulated. Standards of performance, reliability, and ethical behaviour vary wildly. At the same time as the segment is growing, the push-back from the clients of freelancers is growing too. Dissatisfaction with work ethic, concerns about poaching both work and clients are just a few of the many reasons given by clients,“ he says.
“But like most things this cuts both ways. Freelancers often battle to get paid, or have impossible deadlines placed on them at the last moment, or find the client simply refuses to deal with them after they have done the work. For every egg there is a chicken and vice versa.”
Ashby’s lighthearted approach to the issue belies how serious he is about creating the proper work environment for this segment and making it more productive. In his view, working out who to blame is futile. It’s much better to establish good working practices, and ethical standards of behaviour by both parties and to build relationships based on mutual respect.
With a varied career spanning 35 years in HR, training, consulting, business ownership and specialist contracting services, Ashby brings to bear his experience combined with a practical understanding of the needs of freelancers and small business owners. He’s very aware of the mistakes that cause business coronaries, having made most of them himself. His somewhat quirky sense of humour ensures that Businessmentals is engaging and entertaining to deal with, as well as providing easy to use, reliable solutions.
As Ashby says “Why and What without the HOW of action is just a dream. At Businessmentals we show you HOW in a smart, fresh way. We keep things simple, and practical. And we look at Freelancers holistically when planning what support to provide. Their environment, their personal circumstances, their personality – all these things have a bearing on success. You don’t have to be a particular “Type” of person to succeed, but you do need to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses, and have persistence and resilience. It’s a tough world out there.”
To emphasise the need for being better organised, he reports, “According to a survey In the UK in 2016, Freelancers and small businesses left £3.4Bn in the wrong pockets because they “forgot” to invoice their clients. That’s staggering, and provides another good reason to use our very practical business templates. It’s happening here in the UAE too. One of our clients was owed AED5,000 but hadn’t invoiced for it. She bought our Quote to Cash templates and process pack for AED 150 and within 3 days she achieved a 3,300% return on her investment! It’s hard to go wrong with numbers like that!”
The website address is www.businessmentals.com