Anyone who has bartered for very long is aware that occasionally you can run into a vendor that treats you like a second class citizen because you are paying for a product or service in trade. It goes without saying that this is to be avoided and that we should all do our best to service our barter clients just as well as folks that pay with cash on the barrel-head. That being said, it’s also possible to treat your seller poorly when you are buying something on trade.
Let me put it this way: It’s a lot easier to blow off your personal training session if you are paying for it in trade than if you are paying in cash. Doing so however is not fair to your barter partner or yourself. The vendors that you buy services from on trade, like personal trainers, massage therapists, doctors, chiropractors, CPA’s and yes even lowly web developers deserve to be treated like the professionals that they are even when you are paying them in trade. This means you need to show up for appointments, follow through with “homework” they assign, and even take the advice that you are paying them to give.
Additionally I should point out that it is totally self defeating to hire a professional then not follow through. In order for consultive work to have the desired effect you have to actually act on the advice you are given. When you get that advice at a discount through barter it may be tempting to discount the actual advice. To do so however would be a mistake.
I once read a report that said that the success of any given smoking cessation program is directly proportional to the cost of the program. Simply put, the more expensive the program, the more the participants were emotionally invested in quiting so they had more sucess. So…with that said I think it’s very important to understand how much of a blessing it is to be able to take advantage of services through trade at a substantial cash savings and for you to NOT use this as an excuse that undermines the whole point of the service.
Barterfanatic.com 