How I Barter

Successful Bartering in general. What works and doesn't work.

My Bartering Strategy. 

What works for me:

Direct Trade -- between you and me

• Product Trade
• Services Trade
• Bartering your Product for my Service
• Bartering your Service for my Product

Network Exchange -- working with a barter broker

Successful Bartering

Strategy. It's helpful to know your own motivation when you decide to engage in barter. Then, set your strategy. Why you want to barter is critical. Here are two strategies I'm familiar with:

• Offsetting current cash expenses: look at what you're already buying and see if barter can help you save cash on your current expenses.
• Offsetting entertainment expenses: instead of spending cash on fun, see what you could do with barter bucks instead -- and use your cash for high priority items.
• Do you have a strategy not listed here? Tell me about it!

Place Limits. Decide on a meaningful percent of business you are willing to do every year and stick to it...meaning, don't go over. Not all the things you need to buy are available on barter, such as gas, utilities and others. So carefully balancing your cash and barter business is important.

Cash Expenses. The following are always paid in cash, which will factor into your return on investment:

• Shipping and handling costs
• Tax
• Tips and gratuities

My Bartering Strategy. 

Direct Trade

Direct Trade seems to work best for me. In this situation, we both have something of value to provide one another. We can negotiate and agree on the special terms of our working together and customize the experience based on what is valuable to us at the time and what our boundaries might be. We can each be responsible for handling the tax obligation ourselves without much ado.

Product Trade

Bartering for a product is very easy for me. I have lots of stuff -- and am very good at finding stuff -- of value, so if you have something in mind and a price target you're willing to work with, I'm game.

Successful product trades I've engaged in have included:

• Artist Trade: bags of buttons and shells from me for magazines and small metal cigar boxes from another artist
• Book Trade: my web planning workbook for another consultant's book.

Services Trade

Bartering services works best for me when I have "down time," time -- time when I am not busy and if the project is relatively small. It may be to our advantage to try to accomplish our barter trade when we both have down time so that milestones can be achieved with expediency. Otherwise, one of us will likely be waiting.

At the moment, my downtime is likely to be on the evenings or weekends as energy permits because my cash business is taking up my normal business hours.

Successful service trades I've engaged in have included:

• Troubleshooting a computer problem from me for marketing advice
• Marketing, design and writing services from me for help tidying my office and coaching on keeping it tidy
• A ride somewhere from me for a home cooked meal that same night from a pal
• Business card design using an Avery template (print as needed) from me for housecleaning services

Why I don't do hour-for-hour trades. The education and operational expenses needed to do what I do is oftentimes worth more  -- yet sometimes less -- per hour than that of what I might be bartering. My professional services are how I earn my living, and I would be highly unwise to value it less than it's market value.