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Barter is Booming
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Article 4: One-on-One Barter
Okay. You have some excess
inventory. You understand the benefits of
barter. Now you want to get started. How do you
find someone to barter with? The beauty of
barter is its simplicity. You find a business
that has something you need and you offer to
barter something you have in return.
When you begin to barter, keep it simple. Try to
make a few one-on-one barter deals with folks
that you already do business with. Arranging a
one-on-one barter is a matter of creative
thinking. Say you’re an accountant. Does a car
detailing company owe you money? Why not take
payment in a free car wash? Are you a graphic
artist who created menus for a restaurant that
now owes you money for the work? Take payment in
meals and invite one of your cash-paying clients
out for a feast.
Small businesses regularly barter for
advertising with radio and television stations,
as well as with local periodicals. Bartering for
media placement gives you maximum exposure at
minimum cost. “During the 1990s, more than half
of the mass media purchased was not purchased at
all, but bartered for,” writes Jay Conrad
Levinson in his book
Mastering Guerilla Marketing (Mariner Books,
1999).
“I started my business by bartering with
advertisers,” says chef Steve DeShazo, founder
of Gourmet on the Go in Texas and a member of
Tradaq. “In the past, the problem was to match
two people who had exactly what the other one
wanted. Now we have thousands of companies to
barter with. I absolutely perceive barter as a
tool for growth.”
As DeShazo discovered, the more involved you
become with bartering, the more you’ll find that
one-on-one barter deals can’t meet all of your
needs. In that case, you’ll want to set up a
three-way barter deal. It goes something like
this: You trade your goods or services to X
company. X company trades goods or services to Y
company. You receive goods or services from Y
company.
Sound complicated? It is—or can get complicated
fast. That’s why many business owners rely on
barter exchanges.
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