As all of you fellow barter fanatics know, being taxed on barter transactions is unavoidable if you want to stay on the right side of the prison door.  So with that in mind I think it’s worth while to mention that there is definitely a positive side to reporting all your trades:  Including your trades in all your books makes your financial statements look better!  In these times with great deals on loans, but so few people who qualify, keep in mind that every trade you make shows up on your P&L statement and makes you look that much more attractive to lenders.  If you belong to a barter exchange you will definitely need to include your exchange account on your balance sheet as well.  In the same way that inflated barter prices can hurt you on tax day, it can help you on the day you close your new lower home or business loan.  Additionally if you are looking forward to a loan you need in the future, or you want to start working on selling your business, it’s never too late to start bartering to improve your financials.

I’ve got three kids in grade school and no college savings to speak of.  That being said of course I want to give my kids all the advantages in life that I can.  High on that list would be a college education that does not burden them with tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars of debt on graduation day.  So my question to all of you wonderful barter fanatics with a whole lot more barter experience than myself:  How would you pursue bartering for college?

The good news is that my “real” business is online marketing.  Building, maintaining and promoting websites is something that every university needs.  My guess is that bartering with government agencies would be difficult/impossible so I shouldn’t bother with state schools.  I’m thinking that I should make a list of private institutions, ideally in my state that are “drivable” and start right now making calls and looking to make  a deal that will allow me to earn credit with them that will accrue over the years.  Then come high school graduation I can tell my kids they can go to any school they want as long as it’s the one I have my deal with.  The flaw with my plan is that it’s my understanding that most private schools have plenty of money.  It’s been my experience that folks with plenty of money don’t usually want to bother with the extra work it takes to barter.  Another problem is that a college education is more expensive than many websites are.  Even if I had a deal conducting $10k worth of work every year from now until when my twins leave for college, that’s only 8 years from now.  $80k doesn’t pay for whole college education for even one student does it?  I’m thinking that I’ll need to find at least one school for each of my kids that would want to do a lot of trading. 

Ideas?  Have any of you ever done this?  Please send your inspirations my way and I’ll be happy to share them.  Better yet….does anyone have contacts at colleges that would be in a position to discuss barter?

Sales is a numbers game. The more people you talk to, the more sales you will make. One of the most primary rules of sales success is to get in front of as many people as possible.  With that in mind I’d like to point out that barter gets you in front of more people.  Additionally you can never tell where relationships will go so even if the particular barter deal that you were pursuing falls through, another one or even a cash one may end up proceeding from that relationship.  Here’s a case-in-point for me:

Recently there was a change in ownership at a custom butcher shop near me.  I’m always looking to barter for good meat so I tracked down the owner and offered to build him a website in exchange for credit at his shop.  He thought it was an interesting offer and decided to discuss it with his business partner.  While that was being discussed he mentioned that he has another much larger business that also is in need of a website.  Within a couple weeks I had a good sized cash contract with him for that business.  The butcher shop is still being discussed so that may happen too, but what I’m excited about is the cash job.  I NEVER would have gotten this job if it wasn’t for a call that I would not have made if it were not for barter.

I’d love to hear more stories like this.  Please post yours back by clicking on the “conversation” link below.