*bold = discussion points

1. Brand recognition is key, as it’s the leading driver of impact, which means you need to be the first person clients think of, yet how do you build brand in today’s tight, low budget, cash strapped environment? What activities are low cost, high impact? What unfair positioning do you have to build brand?
2. Partnerships are key, as internal teams aren’t enough (56% not successful at attracting clients), yet platform-to-platform partnerships look to compensate. Platforms realize this, and the ROI is becoming clear, as 54% are prioritizing partnerships, and one client saw a 35% jump in revenue directly from a platform partnership. How are you building sustainable partnerships?
3. Resilience is crucial, as performance is still mediocre, and venture funding is still poor. How do you balance brand, client expansion, and consolidation when you need profitability, agility, and resiliency?
4. Most platforms aren’t resilient, potentially leading to increased consolidation, as it’s a buyers market, since there is a significant amount of platforms that believe they can succeed, believe they have the right team, yet haven’t performed, nor are very prepared to perform in today’s economy. Are you ready, structured right, and attractive for an acquisition?
5. AI is supportive, mostly improving cost and staff efficiency, along with the client experience, but not really curation. Is this because platforms don’t have the internal expertise? Or because the technology isn’t ready? Can private equity capitalize on this?
6. With AI, the higher the strategy, and nuance, the more demand, and higher hourly rate, and vice versa. This is consistent with last quarter. Are you strategy heavy, and transactional light?
7. Compliance isn’t going anywhere. As 62% of leaders don’t find their govt supportive of the freelance economy, politics will only get more polarized, Enterprise Procurement, HR, and Legal leaders will deem freelance riskier, and misclassification will only get more confusing globally and more prone to politics. What is your compliance strategy? Do you have a robust compliance partner? Do you have a robust talk track, terms, and plan for navigating client compliance?
8. 4% drop in Freelance Leader confidence. Why?