That’s the Uk government’s current message to people whose livelighood has been or will be decimated by the pandemic. That includes a lot of my friends and aquaintances from the live events industry. I myself was made redundant from that industry during the last economic crash. Athough the catch phrase rethink, reskill, reboot hadn’t been coined back then, its exactly what I did.
A lot of events and entertaimnent and hospitality industry workers as well as musicians and artists of all kinds are understandably pretty cheesed off with this message.
It’s delivery through clumsy social media ads suggesting ballerinas might consider becoming cyber security specialists hasn’t helped. They have after all already spent years – sometimes decades – acquiring skills that provided their income. For most of them its a lot more than just a job. They love and are proud of what they do. Hopefully it will all come back sooner rather than later but meantime, how can anyone do what the government suggests?
Rethink Reskill Reboot Online
One option, the one I took, is still available to everyone and is even more viable than it was back in 2011 when I decided to rethink, reskill, reboot. It’s the Internet. Not many of my old mates would be excited about starting an internet business as such. That’s more to do with the word “business” though, conjuring up as it does other words like selling. The truth is though that there are lots of ways to earn a very good income online without selling your soul to the devil. It doesn’t have to mean turning your back on your entire raison d’etre.
An awful lot of people in that particular sector are actually running a business anyway. They are self employed freelancers. Their reputations are their currency.
I was amazed recently to discover that a Youtube channel I subscribe to was offering a salary of £90k for a marketing manager. As far as I knew they were just two guys doing video tutorials on home music production. That’s actually the kind of gig a lot of the people I know in the live events industry actually started out chasing. Teaching your hard earned skills online is now very big business. So that’s one thing.
Artists of all kinds now have many ways to sell their work online too. Staying with home music production for a moment, platforms like Bandcamp and Soundcloud enable you to upload your finished work staight to your audience. Photographers and graphic designers can do that too. Live performance might be out for the time being but that doesn’t means your income has to stop.
No Need To Sell Your Soul
There is in fact a huge need for digtal content creators right now. People are making millions from social media just by talking about what they do. Businesses are desperate for copywriters, videographers and experienced internet advertisers and are prepared to pay big money.
If the idea of “business” isn’t a scary idea there are a couple of simple and well established online business models that are easy to start. Affiliate marketing where yiu sell other peoples goods and services for a cut of the profits is one. E-commerce where you can leverage platfroms like Amazon to do the heavy lifting is another. Both can be run from anywhere and don’t need much more than a laptop and an internet connection. They also make for a nice lifestyle with plenty of time freedom and potentially very high income.
So if I was contemplating the rethink, reskill and reboot message today, the internet is where I’d be looking.
It’s actually a very apt phrase for tranisitioning to the digital economy. It does take a rethink for sure. If you’ve been used to long hours, commuting and working in teams, running a business from home on your own can be daunting.
Of course you need to reskill too. The skills needed by internet entrepreneurs are not generally taught at college or University. They incude things like building websites, creating digital content, ads and social media accounts. You need to set up automated processes and how to communicate effectively online.
And it is in many ways a reboot. Like a computer that’s crammed full of information that’s no longer relevant needs to be restarted – a kick up the arse to get it working again.
Where To Get The Skills
As I said earlier in the post, I completley sympathise with artists and events people who have been angered by the government telling them their next job might be a delivery driver. Unfortunatley for some though it might be a necessity. But the whole rething, reskill, reboot process doesnt have to be bad.
Personally since doing it myself. I’ve never looked back. I actually have more time to purse my passions than ever before. I’ve actually monestised them online too. If you choose the internet as the place to do it, the skills you acquire can be put to many uses. But where to get them?
I’d recommend doing as I did and subscribing for a free series of videos from The Six Figure Mentors and Digital Experts Academy on the link below. They’ll provide you with a lot of information on the various ways you can start earning income online. They’ll also introduce a education and business platform that provides everything you need to build your new life online.