Housekeeping and landscape maintenance are oft sought after services that (at first blush) seem like they should be easy to barter for, but are often tough to find.  There are a couple reasons for this.

1)  Most folks that barter much are small business people who are busy and own a home.   Although many of them wouldn’t/couldn’t spend cash on the luxury of hiring someone to help with housework, it is a PRIME service to hire on barter.  It’s a gift to yourself that you couldn’t justify in the cash world but many people don’t give it a second thought if they can barter for it.  So…the first reason it can be hard to barter for is that it’s something that many people want.

2) I have a theory about these two service industries.  The theory goes like this:  Businesses that do housekeeping and landscape maintenance usually fall into one of two categories.  The first category are those that are good and professional at what they do.  Those people usually seem SLAMMED with business.  I mean they are usually just buried.  Unfortunately it is often hard for them to justify doing business on barter.  They can get new cash clients any time they want, so why should they barter?  The second group of businesses are the flakes.  By that I mean, they do a marginal or poor job when they bother to even show up at all.  You don’t want those folks even if the service was free so they are not of any value in the barter world either.

So…what can we do about this?  If you are lucky enough to have someone good in a local barter exchange, grab them there and make sure you take great care of them!  If not, then start working on recruiting one yourself.  I have had some luck especially with start up businesses to do a little direct trade.  If they are open to more than one account on trade you can work on recruiting them into your barter exchange.  With the economy in the state that it’s in, there are more little start up service businesses than normal so ask around through your business/personal network and see if you can find someone looking to build their business who would be open to a little barter.

I recently found a fantastic way to spend barter credits for those of you that are barter-spending-challenged.  I am on the school board for a small private school that is cash-poor but has several thousand dollars in barter credit.  When I found out that the school was planning a silent auction and raffle I immediately realized a great use for their barter credits.  I went out and bought many items on trade that they could include in the sale which effectively converted their barter to cash.  Items that I purchased that were particularly popular were a year’s supply of flowers from a local florist and a year’s supply of cookies from a local bakery.  We also had hard goods like jewelry and a nice keyboard.    For the service-oriented items like flowers and cookies, I made sure that we had a dozen cookies and a nice bouquet of flowers on the auction table so people could see what they were bidding on rather than just having a written description.  In the end the event was a success and cash was earned for the school.   Although I was spending credits that the school had on-hand, this would also be a great way to donate to any favorite cause.  If you know they are have a sale soon, let them know that you would like to donate an item and of course you can have a full tax write-off if the organization is a legitimate non-profit.

As we all know business is effected by supply and demand.  When supply is high and demand is low you have a “buyer’s market.”  Prices are often low and moving inventory can be tough.  Barter is a great business strategy that can help get a business through those tough times.  Trading helps you move inventory even when your customers are unwilling to part with cash.  It can also help you get full value for your inventory in times when you have to discount to sell it for cash.

When something is in high demand and short supply that is a “sellers market.”  At those times sellers can usually charge a premium for the product/service.  It’s tough to barter in a seller’s market.  Any vendors that actually have the product that you are looking for can easily sell it for cash so there is no incentive to barter.  Twice recently I’ve had barter partners call me in situations like this.  First it was someone in New York that was looking to trade for a generator during the power outage from flooding.  More recently I’ve had a couple different potential barter partners looking for firearms since the tragedy in in Newtown.  In both cases, people were trying unsuccessfully to barter for something in a “sellers market.”

My advice in these situations is simply to avoid them.  Barter doesn’t work in a seller’s market so don’t beat yourself up over it.  The solution is simple:  barter for all the other things you need and use the cash you save to buy those items that are in high demand and short supply.

Recently I got a call from my broker.  She was asking about some script that had been dumped on a local restaurant that doesn’t accept regular barter scrip.  Apparently the customer dropped the scrip on the table and hit the door before the owner realized what happened.  Here’s the kicker though…the scrip has a tracking number on it and it was scrip that I purchased from my exchange.  What’s even more amazing is that the scrip was used at the bar and I haven’t tasted alcohol in over 10 years!  After a bunch of calls and emails my broker and I are pretty sure we figured out what happened.  What we suspect is  that I spent the scrip in a legitimate transaction with a local restaurant that accepts the the scrip, but I didn’t fill out the form on the scrip.  I left it blank.  Then the owner of the restaurant probably gave it to a friend or staff member who then, not knowing how the scrip is supposed to be used, dumped it on an unsuspecting restaurant that doesn’t even accept that type of scrip as payment.  Lucky for me, my broker knows and trusts me and she believes me that it wasn’t me who did the “dining and dashing.”

By at least putting the restaurant’s name on the scrip when you spend it, you can ensure this will not happen to you.  Once that restaurant’s name is on the scrip, only they can turn it into the  exchange for credit.  That is important because it protects you from being blamed when/if someone else abuses the scrip by spending it the wrong place or by not paying the tip/tax in cash as they should.  Also by filling out the scrip you insure that your exchange will get their appropriate transaction fee.

So the take-away here is to fill out those blanks on your scrip.  I know it’s a pain, but it’s worth it!  I learned the hard way.