First off I’d like to thank Tom Hood for sending me a copy of this book. It’s a good fast read. The 23 page self-published e-book was provided to me as a PDF document. Tom has 30 years of experience in the barter industry and wrote the book originally to help ramp up new barter exchange members. I have to say that I applaud his efforts in writing this book because I think the single weakest point in the professional barter industry is training new members. It wouldn’t surprise me if trade volume from existing members could be doubled over-night if they were only more thoroughly trained.
The book is a good basic resource and hit all the main areas of interest for new traders but also did have a few reminders the experienced barter fanatics will want to pay attention to:
- I like that he included a formal work-sheet to help people think both of what they have to trade and what they want to trade for. This is usually done seat-of-the-pants and sitting down and doing the work of going through the form can help pry out some new ideas.
- He spends some time on trading Due Bills (gift certificates). I think too often this kind of trading is only done by advanced traders. There is really nothing complicated about it. Beginning traders should remember that they can trade gift certificates. For example, this winter I bought a Christmas Tree from someone on CraigsList in exchange for a gift certificate to a local mini-golf center.
- I enjoyed his 10 rules for managing your barter balance. In the same way that people fail to plan their cash flow, they also fail to plan their barter credit flow.
- I personally was reminded that I need to purchase some Ad Specialty items on barter. It’s a great way to get your name out in public w/o spending any cash.
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