Tips on Acquiring Your Own Bartering Club

Bartering is not negotiating! Bartering is 'trading' for a service, or for the goods you want. In essence, bartering is simply buying or paying for goods or services using some thing other than money (coins or government printed paper dollars).

Thus defined, bartering has been around much longer than money as we know it today. Recent estimates indicate that at least 60 percent of companies on the New York Stock Exchange use the principles of bartering as a standard business practice. And congressmen barter daily to gain support for their pet projects. U.S. aircraft manufacturers barter with foreign airlines in order to close sales on million dollar contracts. Perhaps you have experienced at one time or another in your life a friend saying, "Okay, that's one you owe me..." Basically, that's bartering.

The reason bartering enjoys renewed popularity in times of tight money is simply that it is the "bottom-line" method of survival with little or no cash. In times of high interest rates, cash in anyone's pocket is indeed a very precious commodity, and bartering is even more popular. Bartering affords both the individual and the established business a way to hold onto cash while continuing to get needed goods and services.

In addition to saving a business borrowing costs, bartering can improve its cash flow and liquidity. For anyone trying to operate a successful business, this is vitally important, and for individual families in these times, it makes possible the saving of cash funds for those purchases where cash is necessary.

To start and successfully operate a bartering club, you must think in terms of a banker. After all, that's precisely the reason for your business - to receive and keep track of people's deposits while lending and bringing together other people wanting or needing these deposits.

So your first task is to round up depositors. As a one-man operation, you can start from your home with nothing more than your telephone and kitchen table, but until you get helpers you'll either be very small or very busy (probably both).

You can run a small display ad in your local newspaper. A good ad would include the following ideas:

New Bartering Club!
Trade your expertise and/or time for the
merchandise or services you need. We have
the traders ready - merchandise, specialized
skills, buyers too! Call now and register.
ABC Bartering (123) 456-7890

When respondents to this ad call, you handle them just as a banker handles some one opening a new account. You explain how your club works: Everyone pays a membership fee of $100 to $300, and annual dues of $50 to $100. The depositor tells you what he wants to deposit, perhaps $150 worth of printing services, and what he's looking for in return - storage space for his boat over a three month period. If you have a depositor with garage space for rent and needing printing services, you have a transaction.

This is definitely a growth business. Bartering Clubs in metropolitan population areas of 300,000 or more are reporting incomes of over a million dollars. The average in cities of 100,000 populations is about $150,000 per year.

Actually, no experience or special training is required. The operation of a Bartering Club is equally suited to women or men. Both do equally well as salespeople. It's a business that fills a need, and a kind of membership program people will stand in line to be a part of, once they've been introduced to the benefits.

This is the plan. It's going to take your time and effort to get organized, but after your initial work to establish this business, you can become quite wealthy in a relatively short time. Read over this plan again; determine if this is 'the one' for you, and then go all out. It's up to you, and all it takes now is action on your part.