I spoke to a barter partner recently who said he was having a hard time finding smart things for him to spend his barter credits on. He belongs to a good national barter exchange that has many vendors that are local to him because they have an office in the same town as his office. I belong to the same exchange and spend thousands of dollars wisely each month. So…..it got me thinking….what can he do that he isn’t doing now? I came up with two answers:
- Switch Vendors
When you already have a vendor in place to provide you with a particular product or service, there is a lot of resistance to switching. That being said, in order to get the most out of bartering, you have to actually spend barter credits. That means that you have to at least consider switching from cash vendors that you know and love to unknown barter vendors. It’s a bummer to say goodbye to trusted suppliers but the pay-off can be huge. A couple examples that I can think of that were particularly difficult for me was our dentist and someone who helped with house-keeping. When we failed to get either of them to barter with us, we decided that we had to at least try vendors that would barter. Both of the new relationships ended up going well and of course we are now saving all of the cash that we were formerly spending. - Recruit New Parter Partners
Another area that has helped me spend barter credits is to recruit new barter partners. Don’t be satisfied with simply looking at the list of vendors that already belong to your barter exchange. Choose a particular product/service that you would like to barter for, find some prospective bartering partners and make the pitch. The beautiful thing about pitching barter is that it is usually very easy to explain that it is a win-win proposition. Don’t be nervous about suggesting barter. Many accomplished business people love to barter
Also, don’t forget to apply these two principles to personal expenses also.
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